Karel Rood Lt. Col. MP

"I was very fond of my Uncle Kalie and often lunched with him at the Rand Club or, despite his advanced years, played golf with him at my club, Randpark.. He had a reputation for bending the rules which basically amounted to picking up his ball without being invited to do so (even though several feet from the hole) or walking off down the fairway before his opponent had a chance to drive off the tee. Despite this, he was good company and, for all his tricks and age, a surprisingly competent golfer.

As Member of Parliament for Vereeniging, Colonel Kalie Rood was a United Party front-bencher in General Smuts’ government for something like 20 years. To the best of my knowledge, he was also Mayor of Vereeniging at one time and certainly had the Freedom of Vereeniging and Meyerton and at least one other nearby town conferred upon him. He was also very well known in business circles and served as chairman or director on a formidable range of boards with the main ones being chairman of Union Steel, SAFIM (Massey Ferguson’s South African manufacturing company) and director of Barlows, Iscor and many others.

The Rood home in Vereeniging, Roodia, was spectacular (it later became the Vereeniging Country Club) with small buck and large birds (cranes et al) roaming in the extensive garden.

When parliament was in session, Oom Kalie and his beautiful wife, my Aunt Myra, often called on my parents when they holidayed at the Mount Nelson in the Cape or had them to lunch in the House. Oom Kalie had an enormous black Buick with a window between, the passengers at the back (two seats folded out of the back of the front seats to accommodate five people in total) and the driver (a black man called Teddy).

Both being prominent members of the United Party, Kalie and my father held long political discussions while the wives enjoyed chatting about family.

Myra’s parents were both killed instantly in a head-on collision while driving through the smoke from a veld fire while on their way to visit the Roods at Vereeninging." Memories by Francois Marais