INTERIM SUMMARY : DE BEERS FAMILY HISTORY

Thus far I have published the first historical roots of the De Beer family in South Africa with occasional references to their roots in Europe. I also published some personal photographs of my own grand father, father, mother and first born son. The De Beer crest as well as published historical references were added. My aim is also to copy the first maps of Bern in Switzerland which have been referred to in some of the sources. And then even further back into Roman history when the Latin for Beer/Bear/Bern namely Ursus, will be explored. Interesting roots, however much fragmented and guess work. Untill the publishing of the ancient Roman and Anglo Saxon period, this publication serves as an interim blog to inform the reader about the current status of my contemporary life story. My genealogical line links as follows to the published blogs:

Karel Johannes De Beer; 26 May 1946, eldest son of Barend Petrus De Beer ;26 May 1946, third child of Karel Johannes De Beer 5 September1883; son of Barend Petrus De Beer (?); son of Barent Petrus De Beer (?) son of (?) This part of the family history are to be traced back to Kweek Valley ( Prince Albert) to Graaf Reinette in the Northern Cape from where it splits to Kimberley and Fauresmith in the Free State. However, the two sections are related as nephews and cousins. In that manner related to the De Beer brothers who owned the renouned farm which Rhodes bought to establish the De Beers Diamond Company.

The Anglo Boer War graves at Magersfontein, on route from Graaf Reinette to Kimberley, the Carel De Beers who lost their lives, are buried in the war grave yard. Karel is written with a "C" on the tomb stones. Much of the detail about this part of my personal familiy history is lost due to the disruption of the Anglo Boer War. My grandfather, Carel De Beer, got interned with his mother and were put in a concentration camp on Spitskop in Bloemfontein. As a young boy, he helped to build a little dam for water which was called the "Dam of tears" due to the thousands of women and children who lost their lives in the British concentration camps. Emily Hobhouse, a philander from England, visted the concentration camps and reported back to her fellow British citizens about the scorged earth war policy of the British troops in the two Boer Republics, Orange Free State and Transvaal. She did a great deal to dispose the war monstrosities and after her death, she got an honourary place in the most sacred place of the Boers when her ashes were put to rest at the foot of a Womens memorial in Bloemfontein which commemorates the more than 26000 women and children who died in Britsh concentration camps. My great grand mother and grandfatejher Carel Johannes were fortunate to survive the war and returned to their farm Inhoek in the Petrusburg district near Bloemfontein.

Subsequently to the war, they lost everything and to survive the family went into a sort of a company for a joint effort to recover. Unfortunately they went bankrupt and was forced to sell the farm to a teacher, named Fanie Du Toit. My grandfather, Carel, got work on the South African Railways as a labourer on the lines. He was temporary transfered to Messina near the Rhodesian Border ( today Zimbabwe) where he met my grandmother, Ms Annatjie Van Rooyen. They got married and was transferred back to Petrusburg where they stayed in a shanty house next to the railway line from Bloemfontein to Petrusburg. My father, Barend, was one of six children. They were fortunate to went to school during the world wide economic depression of 1933. He told us many stories about the sufferings of the people of his time. Although he passed his matric (grade twelve) examination, my father could not get a job due to the Second World War policy of the South African government. The policy was that young boys who wanted jobs had to sign the "red ribbon" agreement to be enlisted as allied soldiers. When they signed the agreement, they got a red ribbon to wear and thus showing that they support the war against Germany.

Subsequently my father started as a painter, but was soon given the chance to become a cleaner on a steam locomotive. As the war progressed and the railway lines were increasingly used to transport logistical materials to the harbours from the Bloemfontein Railway Workshops, my father was allowed as a fireman on the steam locomotives. He met my mother Ms Susanna Wilhelmina Pelser, who stayed near the rest rooms for firemen. In 1946, when the Second World War ended, I was born and raised in Bloemfontein. My father qualified for a new railway subsidised house and got a telephone for call outs on the shifts to Kimberley and Naauw Poort. Round trips and book offs. He qualified as a first class train driver and earned the above average salary in our neighbourhood. We owned Ford, Chevrolet and Vauxhaul motor cars. My father got a free pass railway ticket once a year for the family to go on holiday. We usually went to East London in the Snymans Hotel or ocassionally used the ticket to travel via Cape Town and the lovely garden route to the tropical Durban in the KwaZulu Natal province. Long train trips with nice meals in the dining cart. Real steam train experiences with box camera photo's that I intend to publish on my blog. Indeed a very proud time in South African railway history ! Stations with buffets and grand cutlery..Starched serviettes and the smell of coffe and real English breakfasts. Mecano set like shunting yards with red and green and yello signals... and lots of reading and relaxation in the wooden cabins with real leather seats...bedding boys and blue blankets...steaming hot coffees in the morning with boiled milk...Stories about steam locomotives and their different classes that were built in England. My father use to work on a 15 F class. Something that I am still longing for, namely to go on a typical train holiday. (Unfotunately our railways in South Africa greatly collapsed after 1994 and became very dangerous to use as public transport due to thuggery).

We also lived next to the railway line from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg up in the North. We were railway children. Proud and fortunate to get all the luxuries of a proper medical fund and other social benefits. Yes, we also qualified for free education and schoolbooks. We had a school nutrition food scheme. My father was a leader in the LEMAS Trade Union for Engine Drivers and represented many colleagues in labour related disputes. He also took the lead to organise the annual christmas tree for the children of firemen and drivers. All in all a railway community that could be linked in a way to a typical British socialistic economic system. He showed me the tax forms that we had to pay to the Queen of England as part of the payment of the war debts of Great Brittain after World War Two. We read about the crowning of Queen Elizabeth and followed the upbringing of prince Charles and princess Anne in the news reels of the local movie theaters.

However, when visiting my grandfather on my mother's side, Petrus Cornelius Pelser, who also fought against the British in the Anglo Boer War, we were exposed to the other side of the coin. Anti British and a very conservative religious education. "Oupa Pietie" (grandfather Pete), could not even speak or understood a word of English ! His wife, my grandmother's, maiden name was Van der Westhuizen. During the Anglo Boer War, her father fled with his family into the Bushveld next to the current Botswana border and never got caught by the British troops. She was very good at arithmetic and taught me how to read the time on an old cheap kitchen clock. However, she also could not spoke neither understood English. The rest of my school holidays, when we were not going to the seaside, were spend on their little plot of five morgen 20 miles outside of Bloemfontein. They got retrenched on the South African Railway during World War Two when they refused to sign the "red ribbon" agreement of General Jan Christiaan Smuts, the then Premier and Minister for Foreign Affairs. ( General Smuts was one of the cornerstones in the British war effort against Germany and one of the founder members of the United Nations.) " Oupa Pietie was not very fond of this former Boer general who supported the British. He referred to Smuts as a traitor to the Afrikaner case. Subsequently he took his retrenchement package and bought a plot, made his own bricks from the red soil mixed with gravel and straw, fetched wooden poles from the poplar trees next to the Modder river (read mud river) and took an oath that he will not use the sink roof plates against the war effort when he purhased it with his windmill for a borehole on the plot. When I was a very little boy, he came to town to sell his vegatables at the market and also fetched me with his cart and horses to visit them on the plot. A real life experience to experience a life style of the prvious century. No electrity and running water except for candle light and borehole water that had to be fetched with buckets. Very humble and down to earth. Sack ceilings and mud floors that were polished. Small wooden window panes and jars full of canned fruit and vegatables. A coal stove with an attached geyser for hot water and heat in the winter. At the fireside, my grandfather told me the history of South Africa from the Boer point of view. That side was anti British and pro German. Pro Nationalist and aggresively against the United Party opposition of the day. Well informed by the Afrikaans news radio broad casts and old collected news papers that he got from my father. He and my grand mother made a living with cream and vegetables and chikens and dugs. Always a tug of war among the two of them which commodity was the most profitable ! My grandmother use to win these money teasers...Fortunately Oupa Pietie got a war pension for his part in the Anglo Boer War. Not much, but enough for the freezing cold winters and constant droughts of the Free State.