A boy’s childhood memory from over a hundred years ago preserved by his daughters
This photograph was taken in 1902 in a British prisoner of war camp in South Africa. Seated and recently interned with his family is my maternal great-grandfather Stephanus de Villiers. Posing on the left (with the water-carrying gear) is his son Wrensch and his wife Jacoba, holding the broom. Standing in the doorway is his daughter Anna and on the right is Peter, his youngest son and our grandfather.
Six generations before this photograph was taken, in 1689, Jacques de Villiers (Stephanus’s ancestor, aged 27), had arrived at the Cape of Good Hope from Bourgogne in France on board the Dutch East India vessel, the Zion. Jacques was a French Huguenot, a wine farmer who was offered passage to the Cape by the Dutch East India company when the Edict of Fontainebleau was signed by Louis XIV of France. The edict called for the destruction and burning of all French Huguenot churches and schools and Jacques must have decided this would be a good time to leave France. And so he headed to The Cape with the Dutch East India company which was needing people to farm the land in Africa.
He was not to know that six generations later some of his descendants would be facing a similar situation.
Now back to the picture and Peter on the right, who was 12 years old at that time. Before he died in 1975, with his eyesight failing, his two daughters (my mother and her sister) sat with him and recorded his recollections of that time as a 12 year old boy. His father Stephanus had been called up to fight the against the British. Jacoba and her 3 children were left to witness the burning of the family farmhouse and confiscation of their possessions. Hundreds of head of cattle were taken or killed.
Peter’s most chilling recollection was the twanging sound of the strings of the family piano as it burned in the cold night air in the darkness.
In the midst of all the chaos and destruction directed by a British forces captain who was no doubt following commands, there is a little story within a story. One of the Anglo troops, a young Australian, had surreptitiously tried to assist young Anna, by helping her to hide her good riding boots and saddle from the plundering. But to no avail and they got taken. He also offered to set free Anna’s caged bird before the house was burned but she was afraid that it would be taken by predators so he took it away to safety. After the war was over, he apparently came back to visit her, offering to return the bird, but she declined.
Possibly a case of unrequited infatuation.
My aunt wrote:
(With thanks to Peter’s daughters, Rene and Doreen, whose efforts to record their father’s memories and preserve the family documents and photographs, provided us with this small snapshot of this period).
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