Sam and Eve (née Kolski) and their two sons, Allen (born 1952) and Martin (born 1954), lived in Vryburg for about six years (1951-1957). After leaving Vryburg, the couple had a daughter named Liora. Sam managed Die Boerhelmekaar on behalf of the Joffe family. Both Sam and Eve served on the local Shul Committee's board in 1955.

 

Eve was a Polish Holocaust survivor, and Sam met and married her in Israel. The couple came to South Africa to visit Sam's ailing father, Morris, and Eve was pregnant with their eldest, who was born there. They ended up staying permanently. After his father’s passing, Sam briefly worked in the family store in Dry Harts before moving to Vryburg. Following Vryburg, the family relocated to the Cape. Eve was responsible for many of the oral history interviews at the Kaplan Center with local Jews, including one with Joe Joffe. The Horwitz family was deeply rooted in the Vryburg district and connected to the Bayer clan of Taung. Sam's father, Morris, was married to Shaila Annie, the daughter of Samuel John Bayer and Nechama Bayer (née Tobias).

 

Curiously, Nechama appointed her brother-in-law, Isaac Traub of Beaufort West, and his son, Elias, who was living in Vryburg at the time of signing, as executors of her estate. Shaila had two siblings: Rose, Sarah Saacks, and Philip Bayer. Shaila’s mother was born in Solovon and joined her husband in South Africa in 1882. Samuel Bayer, from Grinschik (Grinikiskis) in Lithuania, arrived in South Africa in 1880.

 

Morris Horwitz was the son of Hermann Horwitz from Plunjan. His parents were Julius and Hana. Herman passed away in Paarl in 1933 at the age of 80. He was a speculator and was married twice. First, to Fagie (nee Klasnik), who died in 1902, and then to Etje Chane (nee Bonimmowitz) in 1909. Hermann had four children—all from his first marriage—Annie Ethel (who married a Buch), Simon (a farmer), Isaac, and Morris.

 

In an interview with her daughter-in-law, Eve Horwitz, Shaila's father explained that he chose to move to South Africa because he had "heard there was more scope to make a living." Initially, her parents settled in Fordsburg, Johannesburg, where they worked as shopkeepers. Morris obtained financial support to acquire the shop from "landsleit," or fellow countrymen. They lived in Johannesburg until the onset of the Second Boer War. To avoid conscription into the Boer Republic's army, the family fled to Beaufort West in the Cape. Shaila mentioned in her interview that Beaufort West was selected because it had a small Jewish community, which included refugees from the Boer War and a shochet (a ritual slaughterer).

 

As was the case in Vryburg, the local Masonic Hall was used for religious services. After their time in Beaufort West, the family moved to Taung, where they lived on a farm called Rushfarm. The Bayer family was well represented in Taung. According to Shaila, “We had a very nice business; it was focused on native trade, and we were quite happy and contented, with six cousins of the Bayers on one side.”

 

In 1921, Shaila Morris Horwitz, in Taung when she was around 24 years old. At that time, Morris was from Merriman Station - near the town of Richmond along the railway line that connects Colesberg with Beaufort West. He was working with his brother as a produce buyer. Shaila recalls, “We married in the garden of a private home, surrounded by my uncles and aunts, and we had the rabbi from Kimberley officiate.”

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After their marriage, Shaila and Morris moved to Merriman. They then relocated to Victoria West, followed by Merriman (in the Karoo, south of Britstown), Hutchison (near Victoria West), and finally to Dry Harts. Their two sons, Sam and Harold, were born in Victoria West in 1922 and 1924, respectively. After a few years in Dry Harts, they sold their farm and store to the government and moved to Perduberg, where they ran a shop and later bought farms.

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After a decade in Perduberg, they moved to Kimberley. Following the death of her husband in Kimberley in 1952, Shaila joined her son Sam and his wife, Eve, in Vryburg.

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