Auntie Stella 1915?-1984?
Background
After the end of World War II in 1945 several of our mother's family, mostly newly married to ex-servicemen, took off for Rhodesia - Northern (now Zambia) or 
Southern (Zimbabwe). The attraction of Rhodesia was that if you were white, even if quite unqualified you would earn much more than you would get in SA, enjoy generous holiday benefits and cheap servants. No wonder the settlers were prepared to go to war in the late '60s to defend these privileges.
At the time these were British colonies. Zimbabwe was named after an ancient culture about which little is known apart from what can be gleaned from the remains of some impressive buildings known as the Zimbabwe ruins (see pic).
Stella
Stella was among the first to go North. She married an Englishman, Arthur, who found work on the Rhodesian Railways,
eventually becoming a trains inspector. They lived in Livingstone, just over the border into Northern Rhodesia close to the splendid Victoria Falls. (See pic).
They had two children - Theresa born about 1943, and Noel born on Christmas day 1946. (Graeme and I got smacked for lifting Theresa's nappy to gaze at her infant genitalia.)
Theresa married Ben and they had two children, Craig and Brigid. Like all the emigrés to Rhodesia, as the war there dragged on and power was transferred to the blacks in Zambia, Stella and family saw the writing on the wall and got out. Like most of the others they eventually returned to the Cape in the 1970s. Stella died there about 1984 - Arthur a bit earlier.
When Stella's youngest sister Rita died leaving eight children, Stella moved in and looked after them. She is fondly remembered by them.
Memory of Stella and family
Rita's daughter,
Janet remembers her as follows:
Aunty Stella was a most wonderful person and when our mom died, she stepped in to fill that role - mother to 8 children - not an easy job. She looked after and loved us and did all those wonderful things that mothers do - from sewing special outfits for our school plays, to cooking and fetching us as we lived so far away from the town.
Uncle Arthur was a treat - he used to call himself "The Night Watchman". 
He would sit up all night waiting for the teenagers to get home so that he could make sure that the boyfriends behaved if they came in for coffee. I remember one evening he read his newspaper studiously all the time while Hilary and Ian chatted in the lounge. When Ian got up to leave he said "O.K. Uncle A, you can turn your paper up the right way now!" He'd sat the whole night with the paper upside down.
Theresa and Ben also stayed with us at the farm, and I remember Brigid was a little princess whom we all adored. Theresa and Ben used to entertain us with wonderful stories, I particularly remember Ben's story of when he first saw Theresa, I think she was wearing a yellow spot dress and was on a balcony or stairway above where he was standing and he called down to her to join him and that was the start of the romance.
One thing I remember well about Aunty Stella was that she was so short (as am I) and had to drive with a cushion behind her back so that her feet could reach the pedals.
Noel rose to become General Manager of a regional South African building society. He is now retired and living in Natal. Ben had started out working in a shop but became a singer for the Cape Performing Arts Board. Sadly he became ill and died in the early 1990s. Craig, was killed in a car crash in the 1980s. Brigid married an English policeman in the south of England. Theresa continued to live in Cape Town but when Brigid's marriage came to an end she moved to England to join her around 2000.
Click one of these for
This page was last revised in December 2005