Mother's Family
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Pictured in Capetown 1944 are my mother's parents, George in the back row and Ottilie in front of him middle row left. Next to her in the middle is our mother Muriel, sister Joan and, kneeling the youngest Rita. Kneeling on left is Ruth. Standing at back are young George in uniform, Ruth's twin, with Frank behind Muriels head, and peeping over her shoulder, Stella.
Sitting at front are Patsy left and Brenda right with Theresa, Stella's child, on lap. Child on right in front is Graeme, Joan's son. Kids on left are Tricia and Betty, Patsy's girls. In front of their mother in the middle are Brothers David and Paul (sitting). Alan wasn't yet "thought of" i.e. "conceived".
The children in the front row are early evidence of a surge of fertility that has continued unabated. My father's family left his sons just three first cousins. On our mother's side we have twenty six. Second and third cousins, nephews and nieces are beyond count and some I have never even heard of. But I think our mother knew all their names and most of their birthdays.
Most of the progeny of our mother's family, furthermore, remain in touch directly or indirectly in spite of their numerousness* and geographic dispersion. Main centre remains the Cape but there are important branches around Johannesburg, and minor ones in England, California, Germany, Australia and elsewhere.
*It is partly because there are so many that this has come about. There could be a critical size below which a network that continues independently of the behaviour of particular individuals is unlikely to survive. Six people (3 bros + 3 cousins) have the possibility of 15 one-to-one relationships. With twenty nine (3 bros + 26 cousins) there are 406 possibilities. This could be the germ of a completely new mathematical theory of family structure and functioning.
The early origins of our mother's family are less mysterious than those of our father's. But much of the info remains vague.
Our mother's father's father was an Irishman from County Waterford. Seeking employment in Britain in the long aftermath of the Great Hunger (the catastrophic Irish potato famines of the 1840s), either through resoucefulness or a total lack of imagination, he adopted the name Smith, thinking this would help. So we don't know that ancestral name either. But his first name was Joseph, we are told.
He eventually came to South Africa where he served as a soldier in the Cape and was a dispatch rider for the British during the Anglo-Boer War. The picture shows a Boer Commando at the time. We don't know when Joseph died but it seems he died in Kokstad. We know even less about his wife Ellen (née Gay) but there were several children who ended up in Cape Town. Some documents concerning this side of the family can be viewed here.
Uncle Joe
Piecing the evidence together it seems that Joseph died before his wife who must have married again since my grandfather had a half-brother, my mother's Uncle Joe, who was not called Smith. Joe was a studious sort of man who could be fascinating to talk to. Can recall him explaining to me all about volcanoes when I was about five (also banshees).
After looking after an elderly mother for many years he married Marion late in life and they had a daughter, Nora, about two years older than me. Joe, Marion and Nora spent several weeks living with us in Jo'burg, probably in 1944; he'd been temporarily transferred to the Jo'burg office by his firm.
I liked Nora, a bright girl. Remember her having to be taken to the doctor and treated for worms, poor lass. Joe and Marion later had another child, Kevin. I don't know what became of him. Nora got married fairly young and I believe lived in South West Africa (now Namibia) before getting divorced. She's still at large. Greetings, Nora. Marion died at the age of 94 in June 2005. The Lees are among those to be seen in this family picture from 1944.
Aged Aunts
For the sake of completeness I should mention two old ladies known as Auntie Kitty and Auntie Annie who I presume were my grandfather's sisters. I'm fairly sure they were born in Ireland and either came over with Joseph or were subsequently imported.
At least one of them was widowed young and reduced to taking in washing. An aunt told me that when the kids would come home from school full of what their teacher (an Irish nun) had said, the Aunt would sniff, 'Don't tell me about Sister Clare. Many's the time I've washed her brooks.'
Again from hearsay, the same Aunt was visited by my Uncle Frank on a trip to the Cape. In her house at the time was a mousey younger female relative who asked timidly whether they would like some tea. Apparently Annie (or Kitty) had replied, "Don't be a bloody fool, girl. Get the brandy."
Our Mother's Mother's family hailed from Germany. Her grandmother, Maria Margaretta Kathrina Kranz, was born in Germany on 3 April 1856. She married John Nicholas Halboth (born 12 Nov 1848). The only noteworthy thing I heard about John was that he refused to eat his pea soup while in the Prussian Army. So they dished it up again for his next meal, and the next, until he was forced to eat it or starve. This tale was occasionally wheeled out as a warning to children who didn't want to eat what was put in front of them.
Our Mother's mother, Elise (aka Ottilie) 
was born in Cape Town in 1887, the sixth child of John and Maria. The family came to the Cape (at a guess) in the early 1880s aboard the SS Kinfauns (shown in the picture, built in Glasgow in 1879). The party included at least a brother or two of either John or Maria. See further details of the Halboth family
One of the party built a 
house for the family in Woodstock, near Cape Town city centre, and called it Kinfauns House, after the ship. The House is still there, though it has been renamed and now serves as an old folks' home, part of the "Noah Project". This is where our mother and most of her siblings grew up, though the family later moved to Claremont where the picture that can be seen here and the one at the top of this page were taken.
What became of the various members of this emigrant family is not entirely clear. From my mother's recollections I can account for two.
One of my mother's earliest memories was hearing a frighteningly loud noise when she was very young (about 3) and seeing this man lying on the floor. He had shot himself in front of the family. This must have been in about 1911/12. She could also dimly remember another relative who had set out to make his fortune from diamonds at the famous Big Hole mine in Kimberley and who was never heard of again.
I don't know for sure who they were but my guess is that the suicide was Johan (John?) Nicolaus, the lad with the stick, and the diamond-hunter Hans on the right at the back of the picture (here). The date is right for Johan's death, and the other's disappearance could account for Hans being forgotten from the list shown with the picture.
It gets even more mysterious. Alan asks: "Who knows about the family that lived in Tristan Da Cunha? They must have been part of the Halboth crew because they stayed with Aunty Kitty when they came to SA in the 50s or 60s after 'the Volcano'... Perhaps there is a story in this? Why the hell, unless you were wanted by the cops, would one go to that God forsaken place?" But maybe the Tristan Da Cunha link is with the Smith/Gay side and not the Halboths. Does anyone know?
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