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Good Morning Mark.....

Absolutely fantastic that you have the letters and thanks for posting them....

I guess they got teachers from across the commonwealth as there is a book published here in 1905 about Canadian teachers that also went to South Africa....

CANADIAN GIRL IN SOUTH AFRICA, A., by E. Maud Graham, William Briggs Press, 1905.

It was first published in a limited edition as a pocket book type and then I guess it became popular as later editions were published as hard cover....

Mike

Thanks, Mike, very interesting! I wonder if perhaps there was some rationale in using Australian and Canadian teachers. Perhaps they were seen to be more acceptable than a British teacher would if teaching children that had been in, or were still in internment camps or Burger camps as Margaret calls them.

Cheers,

Mark

c/o Education Department
POTCHEFSTROOM
Transvaal
South Africa

22.9.1902


Dear Annie,

We’re quite old residents of S. Africa now. It’s a month today since we landed & I’m liking it better all the time. I’ve left the Central School. The lady whom I was relieving came back but better still I’ve been permanently appointed to the South School in this town so I shall not have to go into camp at all. We are still at the hotel but the authorities have taken a house for us & we four with four other teachers are to live in it. We are to take week about at housekeeping & will have a Boer woman to cook and Africans to do the work.

It’s great fun living here. They don’t often have ladies in the house & seem to look upon us as superior animals. There are quite a dozen Africans in the kitchen with one white man (who gets £40 a month) in charge & I’ve given up trying to count the waiters. They fairly swarm. Yesterday I went to arrange the flowers in the dining room. (It’s usually left to the blacks). It’s such an event to see a white do anything in the house that in about five minutes the room was full to watch the performance. The Headmaster at the school is a Mr de Wett, a cousin of the famous general. Gen de la Rey’s brother is staying in the house. He’s a clumsy looking animal. Not at all clever looking. Nearly everybody you see here is maimed in some way – all been in the war. Why, I’ve actually two boys in my class who were out with the troops right through. Mr de Wett was one of the Boers who shot at the Gordon Highlanders, you remember, at Magersfontein. I liked him before he told me about it but now I can’t bear to talk to him.

Oh this is a lovely place! The school is just about 10 minutes walk from the hotel. The road on each side is bordered with quince and rose hedges and lovely willow trees almost meeting overhead. I do wish the rest of you could see all the new and wonderful things I’ve seen out here. I feel so selfish having all the fun. The people here are so easy going. No one seems to care if things are done or not. The post office closes at 4 o’clock & has half holiday Wednesday. All the shops close at five. Hotels at 8 but they are open on Sundays.

Lord Milner & Baden Powell were here yesterday. The carriage, with mounted troopers in attendance, passed us when we were going to church. Didn’t take much notice as I didn’t know it was them till they had passed. Wish I had a camera. There are no …?.. to be had here. I’ve tried in all the shops. Can’t get a camera under £10.

I’ve learnt quite a lot of Dutch words already. One of the teachers is going to give us lessons.

How may of my letters have you got I wonder? I go to the post religiously every day but never a letter for me. Be sure you write often once you get my address. Expect some of you are at the Naracoorte show today. It’s dreadful to have been 8 whole weeks without hearing a word from any of you. Did you get my cable?

The Boers, or Dutch as they like to call themselves now, are very nice to us. I fancy they think we sympathise with them. Of course we carefully avoid politics. Today we went to a meeting of ladies who have undertaken to look after the graves of the dead soldiers. We have been given charge of the Australians. There are not any I know but still they are Australians.

Good bye. Be sure you write often.

Love to everybody,

Mag

POTCHEFSTROOM
Transvaal
South Africa

10.10.1902


Dear Ma,

At last some South Aust. letters have arrived. Yours & Annies dated 19th August, one from Mr Kennedy & one from the Shepherd. I fairly gloated over them and now haunt the post office worse than ever. I heard from some one in Pretoria that there had been another bad earthquake in South Aust. Was it in the South East again?

We’re still at the hotel but hope to go to our house soon now. The furniture is ordered and the lady who is to take charge has arrived. It’s a dreadfully lazy life here. I can’t get used to teaching 20 children especially as they only learn reading, writing & arithmetic and that lot all over at one o’clock.

We get any amount of riding & driving. Ride on man’s saddle though. There are only two side saddles in town & they’re in constant demand. The army horses are very tame fortunately so we don’t mind much.

There are two young Australian doctors attached to the army. They’ve both been out nearly three years and they’re so delighted to meet some one from Australia that they can’t do enough for us. Cart along horses, carts & chocolates nearly every day. Everybody who has ever been in Australia seems to consider it their duty to come and see that we’re being properly treated. We’ve been having Dutch lessons and are beginning to understand things better.

The Department asked us what salary we’d take instead of the rations & accommodation. I asked for £250 [?]. They don’t seem inclined to give it though. Everything in the food line is so expensive – eggs were 12/6 a doz. a short time ago; I believe they’re down to 7/6 now. Milk 1/9 a quart. Apples I’ve not even seen. We get plenty of fresh meat. Fresh fish too from the river. Vegetables too but they’re very dear.

There’s an African town just outside Potchefstroom. They have shops, laundries, gardens & schools quite as good as the whites. I even saw a tennis court there. They say the blacks play splendidly.

We’ve had 10 days’ holiday just at the same time as the Michaelmas holidays at home. We all stayed here but managed to enjoy ourselves. There were races one day. We all went in great style. The doctor ran one horse he brought out from Aust. with him. We made the jacket and cape for the rider & wore the colours ourselves but the horse ran near the last somewhere at which everybody was very much disgusted. There was a ball in the evening. It was just like the dances they have at home & they do all the dances just the same old way. One of the nurses from the hospital has taken a farm. It seems the government will advance a sum of money equal to what you yourself can put down & I think supply the land giving three years in which to repay the money advanced.

Some people who came out on the Medic with us have asked us to come and spend the Christmas holidays with them in Johannesburg. Its only five hours train journey from here.

So glad to hear Bell Bourne’s baby is all right this time. What a dreadful thing about Mr Prisk. I hear another Head Master in Adelaide is dead too.

How are you all at home? The rheumatics still as bad as ever?

I’m writing to old Allan by this mail. How delighted Dugald would be with all those prizes he got in Melbourne. So glad Annie had such a good time when she was over there.

The climate here is glorious. The place is nearly 5000 feet above sea level so that it never gets really very hot. The nights are deliciously cool. A fortnight ago we had a good deal of thunder, lightning and rain but the storms were always in the night but the days were lovely. We don’t get on with the English teachers very well – they’re a bit fast but the two Scotch girls are awfully nice. They often come down and have afternoon tea with us.

Lost my watch last week. It turned up again safely after a few days.

Good bye.
Heaps of love to everybody,

Margaret

POTCHEFSTROOM
Transvaal

28.10.1902


Dear Annie,

Yet once again I’ve packed & unpacked the boxes and still it’s not to our own house we’ve got. The furniture is still on the way. It’s just 5 weeks since it left Capetown. Aren’t they quick out here! We’ve left the hotel though and gone into rooms in a private house. Get our meals at a boarding house close by. My room is a lovely large one plentifully adorned with snakes (dead ones). One, over my bed, is 16ft in length. At our feeding place we are waited on by two handsome blacks – Simon and Peter by name. Simon hands the plates while Peter stands at the head of the table & majestically waves a branch of scented verbena to scare the flies.

I still spend a short time each day at the South School with my few kiddies. They’re so full of manners they make me tired. It’s “Yes Missus & No Missus” all the time.

I’ve been having rather a bad time lately. One of our party is ill and I’ve been nurse-in-chief. She was ill all the way over and never seems to have got over it. The doctors were awfully good. She struggled a bit against going to the hospital so we kept her with us as long as we could but at last we had to give in and let her go. She’s getting on splendidly now though and we hope to have her back soon.

Still more soldiers have returned. There are over 6000 here now. It makes the place so lively.

There was a shocking accident one day last week. A party of us set out for a picnic in Cape carts. One of the army nursing sisters was to come on horseback. She did not arrive so we concluded that she had changed her mind and gone somewhere else. But when we got home we were horrified to find that she had been thrown from her horse and killed. The man she was riding with is an Australian and they had been engaged only a week. It seems his hat blew off and startled her horse. It’s awful for him poor fellow. He seems almost distracted. She is from Edinburgh and such a favourite. We were all so fond of her. The funeral was most impressive. The soldiers with arms reversed rode before the coffin which was carried shoulder high by Tommies. All the nurses, doctors and teachers followed. She had been out here all through the war. A few month’s back she went home to receive the King’s medal and then came out again to nurse in the camp.

I hear you’ve been having bad earthquakes again in South Aust. You just ought to hear the thunder in this place. It’s terrific. Fairly shakes the earth and we get it at an average five days a week. The other two are given up to dust storms. I’ve put by my calico garments and taken to brown holland. Our washing bills would frighten you but they’re all sent on to the Government so we don’t trouble. Government’s as good as a father to the people out here. The Boers are being sent back to their farms, provided with stock, food etc. If they wish to leave their families in town, Gov. keeps them. Wonder how long it will last. The British people are complaining bitterly.

This place is lovely just now – a perfect rose garden. Really the whole place is like the rose garden in our botanic back home. There’s one place in the park just near our house where they are extra good. We go and pick them in the very face of the S.A.C. men who are put there to protect them. The Potch. ladies look shocked and declare if we were anything but Australians we’d have been in jail long ago. Our party, being new, are first favourites and at present can do no wrong. We’ve got a good name so far. The Head Masters all say the Aust. are the most capable teachers.

You must have got some of my letters by this time. I seem to have written thousands and as yet have had only the one from you.

Shorthand writers get £30 a month in Johannesburg & only work 4 hours a day. I’m studying it up like fits. The best paying game, though, is a laundry. A fortune in no time. They charge 7½ for doing a collar. Same amount for each sock.


The rest of the letter is unfortunately missing. I'll get the remaining few letters up shortly.

Potchefstroom
23.11.1902


Dear Ma

I’ve just got another letter from you together with several from other people. Things have gone up largely since the letters from home began to arrive.

We are still in lodgings. Last week notice came, “Teachers get ready to move into the new house on Friday”. We packed up once more and on Wednesday afternoon according to instructions went round to superintend the unpacking of the furniture. Such lovely chairs, beds and things we thought the Education Department must value us largely to supply such luxuries but alas! just as we’d arranged the drawing room a man came and said, “Excuse me ladies there’s been a mistake – this furniture belongs to some people at Klerksdorp. Yours can’t be here before Christmas”. We fairly wept and after calling the authorities bad names till we felt better sadly packed the things up again and sneaked back to our lodgings.

We’ve had quite a crowd of visitors this afternoon. A lady from Melbourne who is now the wife of an officer here came to see us; she is so nice. Makes no end of us because we’re from Australia. The lady inspector was married a few weeks ago and has also come to live here. She’s fairly given the teachers the run of her house so you see we get treated well. She’s an American and a long way ahead of the real English. I can’t stand them. They seem to think themselves little gods because they happen to have been born in England. I hear they’ve been having no end of changes at Gilles Street since I left. Nearly all the teachers are changed. It’s Caledonian sports tomorrow and blazing hot. I’m sorry for the men who have to dance in kilts. It’s getting dreadfully hot here now but the nights are delightfully cool. We nearly always have to put on warm clothes for the evening although the days are scorching.

The fruit is coming in. Yesterday I had the first ripe apricots and today some pears were brought. On each side of the road I go to school there are hedges of quinces fairly loaded with fruit. We’ve been having terrific storms lately. The rain is awful – wets you through in a few minutes. This week thrice men were struck by lightening in one of the camps. I think I told you in my last letter of a farm near here that had been sold for £80.000. It was bought by a Dutch Syndicate and is now being cut up into small blocks about 20 acres and rented to the burghers. Some 500 families are to be settled. They’re to have churches and schools, electric cars lights etc. It will make a great difference to this place. Potchefstroom will be quite important soon. They are busy building houses for the military. A Scotch regiment is to arrive shortly. They should have been here now but the Johannesburg people won’t part with them. They’re still the favourites of the people and everybody rushes out to see a soldier in kilts.

We are still threatened with a farm school. There are several near here and not a teacher will volunteer. The authorities say now they’ll have to compel the teachers to go or else ask them to resign. They have promised, though, that a teacher will not be asked to go alone. They’ll send two together so that it won’t be so very bad perhaps.

It is so delightfully green here now. The veldt looks like a field of wheat. All the rain falls in the summer.

By the time you get this it will be Christmas. I hope you’ll all have a jolly good one.

Good bye.
Heaps of love to everybody
from the Africander

Margaret