Boeta Wahl

Boet and Miemie Wahl/Kotze and their life together:

They met when Boet and his foreman had left Stofvlei and travelled to a farm hired in Soebatsfontein to provide winter grazing for the family’s livestock.

Alwyn Kotze and his wife Johanna owned the shop in Soebatsfontein and their daughter Miemie was staying there with them. She must have been about 15 or 16 years old at the time. Boet Wahl made the family’s acquaintance when he visited the shop and was invited to join them for lunch – as was the custom in the platteland at that time.

Their romance developed from that first meeting and they married in date moving to live on Boet’s father’s farm in Stofvlei.

Their marriage created difficulties between the in-laws. Johnnie Wahl’s family were staunch nationalists (‘Natte’) and Boet himself joined the Ossewa Brandwag during the war years. The Kotze’s on the other hand were Smuts supporters and members of his pro-British South Africa Party known as ‘Sappe’ so there was very little contact between the Kotze’s and the Wahl’s.

Elise was born in 1933 and in the 1930’s Boet farmed with his father in Stofvlei and he and Miemie lived on the farm and had the shop there.

It was a hard and straightforward life and a fairly regular occurrence during the months of low winter rainfall was to go on the ‘trekpad’ in search of winter grazing (‘wintersveld’) for their livestock. A farm with suitable winter grazing in say, Nuwerus, would be hired and the family would live in a tent for a month or two.

Births in those days usually involved a midwife coming to the farm to assist with the delivery but Rida and Elise were both born in the hospital in Springbok. In the case of Rida, who was overdue, Miemie had to wait for two or three weeks in Springbok prior to the birth.

Boet and Miemie continued to stay on the farm at Stofvlei during the war years. Boet travelled from farm to farm selling radios (a fairly new technology for which there was strong demand) and installing wind-powered battery chargers as there was no mains electricity on the farms in those days. Boet had an amusing and engaging manner and according to one account he was the company’s ‘star salesman.’

Like many of the arid semi-desert areas of South Africa, brief periods of high rainfall do occur, transforming the veld and filling the dams. The word ‘Stofvlei’ means a dusty depression or ‘dust marsh’. In these fairly rare periods of good rainfall, the depression would fill with water and – no longer a ‘stofvlei’ – it became a proper vlei for the children to swim in.

Pic of Stofvlei full of water.

One of Elise’s Stofvlei memories is riding in the back of Boet’s lorry in with one or two farm workers on a springbok hunting expedition.

He had developed a unique method of hunting. Charging across the flat, open veld he held one hand on the steering wheel and with the other a .303 Lee Metford rifle pointing out of the window. According to what he told me it was important to get the bullet neatly in behind the springbok’s ear so that the pelt wasn’t spoiled.

This would have required considerable hand-eye co-ordination!

Miemie recalled that late on a Saturday afternoon after she had bathed and was busy preparing herself for church the following day (very much a formal occasion in those days), Boet would arrive with twelve springbok on the back of his pickup lorry.

These she and the servants had to clean, skin and hang. It was an arduous messy job with no part of the animal being wasted!

Around 1942 during the time of World War 2, the family moved to Kotzesrus. This was a reasonably well established ‘dorp’ south of Springbok and about 10 miles from the coast. The school boasted a staff of three and had a boarders’ hostel. Boet had a farm outside the town, a shop and Miemie ran the post office. On the farm they grew wheat and during the harvest time, Boet would hire children from the hostel (‘koshuis’) to help with the harvest using hand sickles. (Rida still has a mark on her arm where she was cut by a flailing sickle!)

The family were only there for a year and a half and it was remembered by all as a pleasant time (particularly by Miemie who felt that selling the farm there had been a mistake and perhaps they should have kept it).

The house at Kotzesrus was a large one and there were often visitors like the dominee and on one occasion Aunt Johanna (Miemie’s younger sister) and her husband Orion de Pace came for a few days. He had signed up for the war and was on service leave.

Another visitor was Boet’s friend the police sergeant from Garies. According to one account they used to go hunting (illegally) inside a fenced-off, restricted area near the De Beers diamond concessions.

A colourful story was told about Boet and the police sergeant and the practical joke they hatched at the expense of the local Kotzesrus farmers.

Miemie was always making clothes and had some fashion books featuring photographic models. They borrowed one of these and set off to visit the farmers - with the sergeant in uniform lending an official aura to their mission . The story they told the farmers they visited was that due to the large numbers of German soldiers dying in Germany, there was a growing number of German widows. An appeal was being made to South African farmers to take a second (German) wife.

The book, they explained, was a catalogue of the women available. One of the unsophisticated fellows, pressured by them to ‘make a choice’ stabbed his finger at one of the photographs. A month or two later they went back to give him a ‘progress report’ only to find he had left the area. According to one account ; ‘Hy het nie kans gesien vir ‘n tweede vrou nie’!

Many years later Elise and Maurizio approached a farmer in Kotzesrus for permission to camp on his farm. It was difficult to drive across because the veld was covered with large mole heaps. When it came time for them to leave, the farmer became curious and asked Elise about her family. Perhaps he was one of the ‘victims’ of the practical joke because when he heard who her parents were he commented: ‘your father was a rascal (‘skelm’) but your mother was a real lady’.

After that Boet sold the farm in Kotzesrus and they bought the hotel in Loeriesfontein. Rida believes that part of the reason for this was that Boet found the people in Kotzesrus a bit backward and rough (some of their children had lice!).

Andries Kotze (Miemie’s brother from Springbok) recalls staying at the hotel in Loeriesfontein during this time. It was still during the war years and a time of petrol rationing and supplies for his shop in Springbok were difficult to source. He got a lift with a commercial traveller (today what we would call a representative or a ‘rep’) and on the journey to Cape Town they spent a night at the hotel in Loeriesfontein. He said that Miemie was in charge of the reception area and the books while Boet kept watch on the yard outside to see that none of the guests left without paying!

After about a year and a half in Loeriesfontein the National Hotel (now the Calvinia Hotel) came on the market and Boet decided to buy it. The family lived there for about three years in the period immediately after the war and it was during this time that Ada was born (in the hospital not the hotel!)

Thereafter followed a brief period of Boet trading in livestock. This type of trading the locals referred to as ‘spekulasie.’ He would go to the farms and buy sheep on the auctions. These were then loaded on to a train and transported to auctions in the larger centres like Klapmuts (near Stellenbosch). It was hard work and to make a decent margin he often did his share of the physical work loading the animals into the cattle trucks.

Boet had an uneasy relationship with officialdom (whom he referred to as the ‘goerwerment’) and told me this rueful story. In the 1940’s probably while in Kotzesrust, he had applied to the Department of Agriculture or the Land Bank for a loan to build a dam on his farm. The loan was turned down. In 1948 when the ‘Sappe’ were ousted and the National Party came to power he felt his chances of getting the loan would be better. He journeyed to Cape Town only to find out that he was still dealing with same official who once again turned down his application!

The logistics of travelling to and from Calvinia were often challenging because it was neither en route up the west coast to South West Africa/Namibia nor on the (N1) ‘great north road’ to Johannesburg and beyond – but somewhere in between!

The original Vanrhyns Pass - which rises up the spectacular red rock escarpment from Vanrhynsdorp - was the last of the twenty-four passes built by the pioneering road building engineer Thomas Bain (not to be confused with the artist Thomas Baines).

From the top one looks back down on the road which switches back and forth up the pass. In the distance can be seen the southern part of the spectacular Knersvlakte and the Matsikamma Mountain which holds Vanrhynsdorp in the folds of its foothills.

It was in Vanrhynsdorp that respectively first Oupa Johnnie Wahl and much later his son Manie Wahl and his wife Nettie retired and were to end their days (see also page 73 above)

Some years after Boet and Miemie moved to Calvinia the modern tarred Vanrhyns Pass was completed – apparently bankrupting three road building contractors in the process.

In their early years in Calvinia, travelling to Cape Town was by dirt road either via Ceres or Clanwilliam. On one trip when Boet was travelling on his own, his vehicle got stuck while crossing a drift. He attempted to jack the car up and pack rocks under one of the wheels. The vehicle shifted on the jack and the wheel came down trapping his hand for some time on the rocks beneath. Thereafter he was never fully able to straighten his fingers on the one hand.

Calvinia is today (as it was then) the western rail head of a link that travels east for several hundred kilometres (via stations with names like Hoedjies, Droëputs, Pampoenpoort etc.) joining the main north/south line at Hutchinson near Victoria West. This line was used on various occasions by Miemie when she came to visit us in Durban.

From the Cape Town side one would journey to Calvinia first via steam train to Klawer. It was unwise for passengers to stick their heads out of the window or they were likely to end up with a piece of coal dust or soot in their eye!

At Klawer one would disembark and take the railway bus to Calvinia. The bus stopped at the post office right over the road from where Boet and Miemie established their hardware store.

Rail travel in those days gave rise to various adventures :

 Boet had two heated altercations with what he regarded as obstructive railway officials. One was while he was loading sheep on to a train and covered in sheep dung, the other was when a conductor refused to hold back the departure of a train from Klawer - forcing him to drive to the following station. Elise told me that he was so annoyed that he told the fellow that he would take the matter up with his member of parliament to ensure a full investigation! What happened thereafter we don’t know.

 Elise and Maurizio at one time journeyed from Calvina to South West Africa (Namibia). They took the bus from Calvinia and boarded the train (a goods train with two passenger coaches and hence no dining car) at Upington. Shortly after crossing the border from east to west at around midday, the conductor came around and asked whether any of the passengers wished to have lunch. Maurizio and Elise – who had with them a bottle of wine – were the only passengers to take the conductor up on his offer. At the next station – Ariamsvlei – the train was made to wait while they ate their midday meal, amidst jeers from the other passengers, in a tin shed alongside the railway line. They were served a hearty traditional boerekos meal of roast Karroo lamb and vegetables!

Rida feels that Miemie was an extremely intelligent person. She left school after standard six and thereafter studied book-keeping through a correspondence course to enable her to keep the accounts of Boet’s various businesses. In later years when Boet was trading in livestock it was necessary for his books to be audited. The opinion of the auditors was that her book-keeping was of the very highest standard. When the accounts of some attorneys in Calvinia in the late fifties or early sixties fell into disarray the auditors recommended that she be hired to sort out their books.

Perhaps this also explains why four out of seven of her grandchildren went on to become accountants!

Boet was a very sociable soul and enjoyed company and the odd game of social poker and would travel to Nieuwoudtville sometimes on weekends to join the poker group. They played for modest stakes and for quite long periods. Being a game of part skill and part luck, he would usually end the weekend slightly up or slightly down. In that part of the world people did business with those they knew and liked and it was probably important to maintain a wide social circle.

After some years working for ‘Boy’ Parker – the local hardware retailer – Boet and Miemie set up their own hardware shop under the name ‘Boet Wahl’ with a sign sponsored by Buffalo Paint. Insert pic of Maurizio walking next to the shop. The premises was over the road from the Co-op with the post office was on the corner diagonally opposite. They built up a successful hardware business and also did electrical contracting including government tenders. Miemie did the estimating (believing that certain numbers in the tender amount brought luck) and Boet – well into his sixties – successfully did the exam to get his electrician’s ticket.

A key feature of the business was Boet’s right hand man ‘Booi’ who was a great character and never lost for words. Miemie taught Booi how to read and write for which he was eternally grateful and when she passed away alone in the same house in her seventies, Booi (who regularly looked in on her) was the first one on the scene.

Booi used to do deliveries on a bicycle in Calvinia and Alison will remember riding with him in the basket in front of the handlebars.

On one hot Saturday morning – after some heavy partying the night before – Booi and his assistant were repairing the dominee’s geyser under a tin roof. Perspiration was pouring off them and the dominee expressed concern about the hot working conditions. Boet replied ; ‘Moenie worry nie dominee, dis pure alkohol wat daar afloop.’

Driving as a passenger with Boet in Calvina was not for those ‘of a nervous disposition’. He didn’t slow down for stop signs or intersections. On one occasion he let me drive his Ranger (motor car) towing a caravan up the Vanrhyns Pass. Half way up the engine started to boil and I suggested that perhaps we should stop to let the engine to cool down. He wasn’t prepared to stop and told me to carry on. To my amazement we made to the top apparently without damage to the engine.

Behind the shop was their home with a long verandah along the front. During the week they returned at midday to the house for lunch and a nap.

In front of the house was a large pepper tree surrounded by gravel where Alison and Katherine spent many hours ‘building roads’. To the one side of the house was a fig tree irrigated by run-off water from the bathroom.

Miemie would rise very early – sometimes at 4 am ‘om beskuit te bak’ in her large Dover coal oven (other meals being cooked on a gas stove). She followed the Karroo ritual of closing all the doors and windows in the morning (to keep the house cool during the heat of the day) and of opening them all again in the cool of the evening.

Miemie made all the family’s clothing including trousers for Boet and crocheted Ada’s beautiful wedding dress. When collars were worn out, they were turned over and sewn back on to extend the life of the shirt!

In 1969 Boet and Miemie took a holiday away from Calvinia and asked Elise and Ada to mind the shop in their absence. Maurizio and I travelled through to Calvinia from Cape Town for a long week end and it was during this visit that Maurizio decided to play a trick on them.

He recruited me to write a scruffy note in Afrikaans (suitably smudged with greasy fingerprints) ordering some complicated pipes and valves. Then Maurizio enlisted the services of a fellow passing in the street to take the note into the shop. This was on the pretext that the man’s boss – a fictitious Mnr Groenewald of Loeriesfontein – would be calling later that morning to collect the equipment.

This caused some confusion behind the counter. Elise later said that she was a bit suspicious about the correct, ‘stilted’ Afrikaans because it was the custom amongst the farmers to use English terminology when describing equipment.

As always Booi was called in to save the day. He looked at the note and said without hesitation that he had never seen anything like that in his life before.