PHOTOGRAPHS OF MY GRAND FATHER AND GREAT GRAND FATHER

On the far left hand side is my grandfather, Carel Johannes De Beer with his father, Barend Petrus De Beer and his wife on the right hand side respectively. Interesting to note is the black mark on the jacket of my great grand father which is the work of the photographer to erase his Mauser rifle ! This photograph was taken during the Anglo Boer War in Petrusburg. His son's photo was taken as a young man just before his marraige. As I explained in earlier blogs in my archive, they farmed on the family farm, Inhoek, 8 kilometers outside Petrusburg on the road to Kimberley. Their graves are to be found in the Petrusburg graveyard, (Bolakanong in Se Sotho which means where we bury together). I could not get much information on Barend Petrus due to the fact that he soon died after the Anglo Boer War, while my own father was only born in 1923. My grandfather, Carel Johannes was a very introvert person and did not convey anything about his past to me. My grandmother died when I was a few months old. Subsequently I gained information from my Aunt Hannatjie who is the eldest child, but also very vague about the family history. Except that my grandfather, Carel, told me that they were related to the famous De Beer brothers in Kimberley and whos name was used by John Cecil Rhodes for the De Beers diamond company. (Very interestingly to mention is the antique wooden buffet in the Petrusburg Hotel which got lost on the railroad for Cecil Rhodes's house in Kimberley. Most probably during his death and was never claimed. Consequently it landed up in the hotel and was consequtively sold with the furniture and all to the next owners !)

My grandfather Carel also told me about the dam on Inhoek that thay build. Remainders of the dam is still in tact next to a saltpan where they mined salt. The graves of his grandfather, Baren(t) and two wives are just next to the saltpan. According to the last owner of Inhoek, uncle Fanie Du Toit, the De Beers were quite richjust before the Anglo Boer War broke out in 1899. The whole area next to Petrusburg belonged to them. There are many traces of sheep kraals on the koppies which indicate their wealth a decade or so before the establishment of the town of Petrusburg. Although there is not much more to be told, this blog is an attempt to give justice and to honour my grandfather and great grandfather for their as well as my ancestors via modern technology. Something that I never could dream about when I was a child. I often went with my parents to Petrusburg when they visited him. He had a modern house for those times which he build with money that he won with a Rhodesian Sweep Stakes ticket ! Oupa Callie as he was called, once a year visited us in Bloenfontein with his annual free railway ticket. My father forbade him to smoke his pipe in our home, but otherwise got along quite well. He was a very strong man and worked all by himself in his lovely fruit and vegatable garden in Petrusburg's red and chaulky soil. He dug his own water hole next to the house. Unfortunately, one night, he got fately injured during an assault on his home and soon died afterwards in the Bloemfontein National Hospital. The attackers were never arrested. I went to his funeral with his nephew, Willem De Beer (who was a lecturer in English at the Bloemfontein Teacher's Training College, where I was also a student) and when he was laid to rest next to my grandmother, Anna Petronella De Beer(nee Van Rooyen) in the Petrusburg graveyard (cf. archive blogs).

I inherrted his .22 rifle, a Krigo, manufactured in Stuttgart, Germany. The police at Petrusburg took it away from my Oupa Callie becuase he sometimes scared off fruit and vegatable thieves in his garden. The police were concerned that he could injure innocent passersby. I recently had to re-register the rifle in my name according to a new arms controll act of the current SA Government. I fitted it with a silencer and variable telescope to snipe Meerkat. Often with rabies in the Verkeerdevlei district where my cousins farm. I first use a tracer and then a sub sonic bullet to hunt the Merrcats when they become a menace to the duglings daring heavy drought seasons. I will follow up on our hunting trips in the Free State at a later stage.