Gustaf William Michael Glanz

Gustaf Glanz was born in Philippolis but spent his first years of education in Bloemfontein. In 1887 his family moved to Kimberley where he continued his schooling at St. Augustine’s School in Beaconsfield. Kimberley was a rough mining town when Gustaf arrived and the blue ground was still being dumped on the floors. The Open Mine was being worked at that time. He was a side-drummer in the Diamond Fields Horse Band at the age of 14. One journey the family made from Bloemfontein to Kimberley by ox-wagon, took ten days. The wagon stuck in the sand, a wheel broke, the cattle strayed, but the climax was reached when the fowls they were bringing to Kimberley escaped from their crates and could not be found. Gustaf was 17 years old when his father died. He worked in the butcher’s shop at the Wesselton Mine compound for several years before moving to a butchery in the town. He was First Blockman at Washington Market butchery. Shortly after his marriage to Jane Cane, they moved to Port Elizabeth where Gustaf worked as a Manager of a large butchery. They were in Port Elizabeth during the siege of Kimberley. They had ten children, six of whom survived. They were married for 67 years and spent their final years in Sunnyside Retirement Home in Plumstead, Western Cape, South Africa. Both Gustaf and his wife Jane are buried at Helderberg College Cemetery, Somerset West.

Gustaf was a very private personality and seldom spoke of his relatives. After retiring as a butcher he turned vegetarian, not trusting the meat products sold.