Maurice (Morris) Grace was the son of Jossel and Liba Greisas, born in the shtetel of Abele, near Rokiškis, in the Panevėžys province of Lithuania. His date of birth was March 16, 1897. Granddaughter Merle Grace recounts, “After the pogrom in Bialystok and SideIce, Morris’s parents decided to send a group of children away. A large group of Greisas children and their cousins, along with a few neighbors’ children, set out on a journey to escape the unsafe environment where they grew up. Jossel and Liba were too old to travel with them and made the heartbreaking decision to let the children go alone. Morris was 12 when he left with his siblings. The only thing he told us was that his mother cut the inside of his jacket with a tiny needlework scissors and placed some money inside. She then showed him how to sew it closed again. She told him to use it only in an emergency. He eventually used this money to get on a boat in England.”

 

His sister Faiga Winter (born 07/04/1910) and brothers Zalman (born 13/02/1899) and Abel settled in Brazil. We also see that Aleksas Greisas arrived in Uruguay in 1896 from Lithuania. This was presumably a distant relative who had left Lithuania earlier. Based on the SA Jewish Rootsbank listings, a Israel Greisas arrived in South Africa in 1929 on the Grantully Castle. He was a photographer. The connection between the two is not clear. 

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Morris started at Geluk, probably with Elias Helfer, and then moved to Coetzersdam near Vryburg, where he farmed and operated a local store. Merle Grace notes that his "general dealer named Coetzersdam Store. In this shop everything was sold, from a bath plug to a school uniform. At the one side of the store, Morris had a coffee table where he always invited people to sit and have a chat and a rest."

 

In 1936, he married Elie Elija Johanna Potgieter. According to an oral history account by Joe Joffe—who was a close friend of his—Morris tried to have his wife converted. However, this did not happen. He maintained strong social and business connections within the community and was very active in charity work. Morris and Elie had three children: Shirley, Edwin (Eddy), and Nevil.

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Merle, daughter of Nevil Grace retells the story of how her grandfather was reunited with his siblings. "When Morris was a much older man, someone came into the store from Brazil. How this happened nobody knew. These people were travelling through South Africa. Morris told them the story of the pogroms, and them fleeing to England, and the boat trip. This man said that he had friends whose story sounded exactly like Morris’ story. He contacted these people in Brazil, and one of them turned out to be his brother."Morris was beside himself. He applied for a visa and travelled to Brazil almost immediately. By now, he was fully South African, speaking Afrikaans and English, and his brother was Portuguese speaking. In order to communicate, they spoke their childhood language: Yiddish. Morris came back on cloud 9 and went to visit this brother again."

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