None of us brothers ever met this grandfather. What little I know about him I learned from our father, Rolf, and he didn't speak much about his Dad. Also this was all a long time ago.
None of us brothers ever met this grandfather. What little I know about him I learned from our father, Rolf, and he didn't speak much about his Dad. Also this was all a long time ago.
Alan provided some additional facts and dates and more may be forthcoming. But the account remains sketchy and some of it is surmise. I believe his name was Olaf, but Alan thinks "Olai", a far less common name. But maybe it was Olai.
Olaf was born in Flekkefjord, Norway in 1866 we think. I know nothing about his family of origin though circumstances suggest that they were middle class but certainly not rich. Apparently he had his own printing firm when he was still in his twenties. Printing may have been the family trade or business.
At some point he changed his name from the Scandinavian name, Andriesen, to our present German one. Alan says it was because there were too many people with the original name, but I'm not sure how he knows that. There may have been other reasons for the name change.
He married Theodora in about 1890 when he would have been 24. In 1902 he left for South Africa and set up a printing business in Capetown. His wife and five children followed him about a year later. The last child, Rolf, our Dad, was born in Capetown.
By Rolf's account the family functioned happily enough back in Norway (though that was before his time), but when Theodora brought the children to join him she found that he had taken to the bottle in a big way. My impression is that things went steadily downhill from there.
I suspect that Olaf knocked his wife and children about. I can remember Rolf saying something to Sylvia about him being frightened as a child by Olaf throwing the milk can across the room. It didn't sound like a one-off occurrence. He forced Rolf into an apprenticeship he hated. At some point the business must have failed.
Finally, around 1920 I guess, he left the family and went to Johannesburg. Whether he made any financial provision for them, why he went, whether there was another woman I don't know. He died there in 1929, of what, apart from alcoholism, I also don't know. From something he said to Sylvia I gather that when he himself went to Jo'burg our Dad once went to see that Olaf's grave looked respectable enough.
Lots of unanswered questions remain. Why did Olaf go to South Africa in the first place? Ambition? Adventure? Running away or towards something? Why is there so little trace of continuing contact with whatever family remained in Norway? Sylvia once did some sniffing around there but whatever she might have found has died with her. There was also the case of Sylvia being contacted by some lawyers executing the will of a relative in Australia. Everyone suddenly had Great Expectations of a fortune from a successful sheep farmer. But nothing came of it. By the time the lawyers had taken their cut there was nothing left.
Why did Olaf turn into such a piss-artist? Maybe he found business was much tougher in Capetown than he expected. Perhaps the abundance of cheap Cape brandy after restrictive Scandinavian attitudes to alcohol* was more than he could handle. Can the fondness for drink shown by us brothers have anything to do with him? (Click here for more on this.)
Click one of these for
| Intro Brothers FAQs Parents Father-Side Mother-Side Kids Grandkids Creatures Snaps Contact Annex Search |