Petrusa Benjamina Van Wyk

"While at Bishops I spent numerous Sundays “out” with Petrusa (“Trusa” or “Nooi”) who was then between marriages and living in a ground floor flat near the Great Synagogue in the Gardens. She was an attractive, cheerful and loving person who took me riding (at 14, for the first time in my life) at the Red Hill Riding School above Camps Bay where my favourite mount was a mare called “She”. Most of her life, even when she was married to Bill van Reenen (a Clark Gable lookalike), she had a very special relationship with an advocate cousin, “Buddy” Muller (son of Anna Muller of van Rhynsdorp) who treated me with great kindness. Whether they were lovers or not was uncertain but Buddy eventually marries, too, though quite late in life. She died, aged 71, at Bloubergstrand in 1986 leaving behind a son and her husband, 'Bill' van Reenen." Recollection by Francois Marais