St. Mary's Children's Home - Rosettenville, Johannesburg

When I was home a few weeks ago, I met up with a few friends from the South of Jo'burg, who went to the same Primary school as I did: - "Highveld Primary". 

One of my friends who became a teacher and eventually was appointed principal of a private school in Linmeyer, but has now retired was telling me how she spends her days.   She told me she volunteers at St. Mary's home.   We always referred to it as an orphanage, but it wasn't really a place for orphans but for kids who's parents either could not afford to keep them or neglected them. 

We all would have had a kid in our class who came from the home.  At school they were not treated any different from what we were.   In one of my posts I mentioned going to a disco on a Friday evening at the home.   My mom who was a book keeper looked after the books for the home.

On our way to meet up with the friends at "Gino's in Robertsham", there were a few kids begging at the traffic lights, my friend said that often these kids would land up at the home as well.  This made me happy to know that they had somewhere they could go to have a meal and a warm bed.

I vowed that when I got back I would give back to the community where I grew up in and will start with "St. Marys", I have often helped other people who have organized events in the South, however this one is close to my heart and wanted to share it with all of you.  If you perhaps feel the same then please see if there is something you can do to help them as well. 

https://stmaryschildrenshome.org.za/news 

Interesting facts about St. Mary's - In one of my posts I spoke about the Anglo Boer War and how the Johannesburg Concentration Camp was at the Turffontein Racecourse.   My friend said that after the end of the ABW they opened St. Mary's which is not far from the Turffontein Racecourse. 

"St Mary’s Children’s Home has been operating since 1902. Their services include residential care to 54 children designated to them through the Children’s Court on account of the Child Care Act, for reasons which include abuse (mental, physical, emotional and sexual abuse) and / or neglect, being orphaned or some have been affected by HIV/ AIDS virus. They come to them from surrounding informal settlements and many can be seen as the poorest of the poor."

Home is where the heart is ...

We just returned from a couple of weeks in South Africa, far too short a time! 

It was a family wedding in the Midlands just near Nottingham Road, I had not been to that area since I was engaged to a guy I met down in Newcastle.   His family on a farm on Botha's Pass just outside of Memel on the way to Newcastle.

I was down on business and met him in the lounge at the Holiday Inn and we exchanged numbers, can you believe it, this was back at the beginning of 1991 and yet to call the farm, you still had to go through the exchange ... remember "Nommer asseblief" well that is exactly what it was.

They owned a farm which was 4000 ha of land, and they farmed mainly sheep.   When I look back now, I can see I fell in love with the farm and not with the guy.   It was an escape from the rat race, as I would often go down on the weekend and spend my weekends there.   

Then at one stage I had to go down on business and took my annual leave and spent 5 weeks down there.  I think after that I realized that I was a "city" girl by heart.   But the trip down to Nottingham Road, brought me back to a simple life.  The farm was called "Donkerhoek" and was approximately 25km's from Newcastle.  I remember that from turning into the gate of the farm it was a 5km drive to the main house, and the road wasn't the best. 

The Farm was very colonial - the mother Eileen Mollie Steel (nee Davis) born 9th January 1923, and who obviously came from Money married Raymond Graham Steel.   They had 3 Sons, Michael, Ian & Peter Graham Steel.  They were all given the middle name Graham. 

Eileen's father "John Richard Davis" came from Liverpool and was a sea Merchant, he must have had a lot of money as he acquired a piece of land in Witkoppen, Johannesburg called "Craigieburn" - I know his mom still had this land when Peter and I were dating.   When John died in 1948 he left this piece of land to her, she was an only child. Eileen was baptised in Parktown, Johannesburg. 
Interestingly I found all the details on the familysearch.org website - John seems to have been a very wealthy man as his Will shows that he left hundreds of pounds to his workers.  

Part of the Will also states that the balance of the income from his Trust Fund shall be paid one half to his sister "Ceceilia Annie Davis" a Major spinster of "Castle Downeen, Rosscarbery, County Cork IRELAND".  Now that is interesting. 

Looking at Google maps this is all that is left and one webpage says: "A section of this once large castle now stands on its windswept promontory isolated from the mainland by years of erosion."

I think I went down a Rabbit whole with this post, my whole intention was to talk about how beautiful the Midlands are and the area.  Where this probably came from was that after I was rescued from the Oceanos, I did not see Peter again, I broke up with him.   However I did bump inot him and his mother at Sandton Clinic one day, I had gone to see the specialist about having my tonsils removed.   And he had brought his mom up to see someone as she needed to get her 2nd hip replaced.  I was around for the first one!   She was a lovely lady and who knows where life would have taken me if I had ended up marrying Peter and inheriting a vast amount of money.  But we will never know. 

I don't even think I have a photo of the farm or the family, I will need to have a look. 

Oceanos Podcast

 A few Months ago, I was approached by a Canadian company who do podcasts called "Tell Me What Happened"  - Here is the Podcast if you have aobut 35 minutes to spare. 

I have started following them on Spotify as there are a lot of other interesting stories as well.