From Eastern Cape Newspaper Cutting: EP Herald, 29 Mar 1981

Family gathers

Tomorrow, Mr. Joel DOUBELL and his wife Joey will be surrounded by their family when they celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary in the Adcockvale house they share with their elder daughter Essie and her husband, Mr. Ron JAMES.

With them will be a son, William and his wife Helen, another daughter, Cleonie and her husband, Mr. Jack STEGMANN and a son, Kristo and his wife Sandra. All are coming from the Transvaal with their children. Another son, Dion, will be the only one of their children absent, but he and his wife Pat will be here next week with their three children. They, too, live in the Transvaal. The celebration coincides with several family birthdays. Mr. & Mrs. JAMES' wedding anniversary was yesterday, so the buffet lunch for about 18 people promises to be a lively occasion.

Graaff-Reinet born Mrs. DOUBELL trained as a teacher, and she was teaching in Uitenhage when she and Mr. DOUBELL first met, both aged 22. In those days street lights went out on the stroke of midnight. It was at this very moment that a train with both of them aboard pulled into the station. Young Joel, having previously spotted pretty Joey, offered to walk her home.

Mr. DOUBELL, born in Jansenville, was a clerk with the South African Railways. He and his teacher bride were married in Graaff-Reinet on March 28, 1921.

Subsequently they lived in Pretoria, where Mr. DOUBELL became a councillor and Mayor of Hercules, now part of greater Pretoria. Their first three children were born in the Transvaal and the two younger ones in Uitenhage where the DOUBELLs lived in the mid-1930s before moving to Maritzburg.

Mr. DOUBELL served in North Africa during the Second World War in the SA Medical Corps. After the war he returned to the South African Railways and was chief clerk at Germiston at the time of his retirement. He then served for five years on the Germiston City Council.

Mr. & Mrs. DOUBELL joined their daughter and son-in-law in Port Elizabeth 16 years ago. Until about four years ago, Mr. DOUBELL was the Moth District Old Bill, but he has given up all outside activities to care for his wife, who is now an invalid.