The picture shows Theodora in her later years, I guess around 1930. She looks a rather pleasant soul.The picture shows Theodora in her later years, I guess around 1930. She looks a rather pleasant soul.
Even less is known about Theodora than about Olaf. This is curious in a way because our father referred to her comparatively often. Yet I have very little idea of what she was actually like. Of course none of us ever met her. Her history is very much tied up with that of Olaf and it is preferable to read Olaf's page first. (You can click here to do so. Use 'Back' to get back again.)
Whereas our father Rolf tended to speak of his father without warmth or affection, he was devoted to his mother. Much of his resentment of his father was at the way he had treated his mother. And the way he treated Muriel and us kids was because of his determination not to be like Olaf. He seems to have tried to be a support and protector of his mother while she was alive.
Born we believe in Flekkefjord in 1871. We know nothing about her forebears. Married Olaf, five years older, in about 1890, when she was 19 or 20. Bore five children in Norway by 1902 and one more, our father, in Capetown in 1904. There she lived, not always happily it seems, until her death in 1934 or '35. She died of cancer.
From her picture on the family page (Click here to see it again.) she looks a handsome woman, and not obviously one who has born six children in twelve years. We may surmise that she was the main source of warmth and emotional security for her family. But for all we really know she may have given Olaf reason to leave her.
The family's first language was Norwegian to begin with and our mother once said that Theodora never really lost her accent and had difficulty in pronouncing Muriel. Our father claimed he had forgotten Norwegian and I never heard him speak it. But I did hear Sylvia speak it to him when she had something of the "not in front of the children" kind to say, and he obviously understood.
I always thought he and others in the family sounded quite normal (i.e. South African) in their speech. Except that he seemed to have a problem with 'zoo'. He would say 'soo'. It only occurred to me recently that this might be a lingering trace of Norwegian.
Before leaving these grandparents there's one other thing. Sylvia, chief repository of the family history until her death, solemnly gave Alan a picture of the Norwegian town of Stavanger (site of a 12th Century church). He can't remember why. The map on Olaf's page (Click for the link; 'Back' to return here.) shows that it's the best part of 100 km from Flekkefjord. Was Theodora's family the link with Stavanger, or Olaf's, or what? Does it matter any more?
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