Farm Life

My family, the Sussmans, farmed at Grassy Bend, Lea (near Brey), and Knysna (near Tosca), and later at Waterloo outside Vryburg. As children, we often visited Lea and Knysna with our parents. Life on the farm was simple: there was no electricity and no running water. Without a fridge, we relied on a cooler room, and meals were prepared on a wooden stove.

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One of the absolute highlights was listening in on telephone calls. The phone system was a party line, operated by an exchange operator who manually connected calls. Long before television, eavesdropping on other people’s conversations was the finest entertainment available—for all ages.

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During this labour of love, I came across the death certificate of my late great‑grandfather, Harold (Hirsch), who arrived in South Africa around 1913 and passed away in 1938. I discovered that he was a cattle farmer. His son, Benno, also farmed—first near Mabalstad and later near Vryburg. There was a time when our father lived in the Molopo on Knysna, returning home only on weekends. Later, my father, Isaac, purchased several farms: Poplars and Weltevrede (near the Jocums), and Langrand near Pudimoe. For a while, we also owned a butchery in town—Elgin—situated next to Barclays Bank and opposite Rauff’s bottle store.

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After our father passed away in 1991, my younger brother Brett took over the farming, marking four generations of Jewish farmers. Sadly, that tradition came to an end.

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Memories of Farm Life

Farm life was filled with highlights—none greater than swimming in a slimy dam on a scorching summer’s day. Walking, horse riding, and driving through the veld were integral parts of childhood. Helen Kristeller recalls eating Moretwala berries:

“I also remember my Dad taking us to the veld to pick brown berries off thorny trees and eating them.”

Waterloo, and our family, gained some notoriety thanks to a baboon named Koos, who assisted the farm shepherd in guarding the flock. Click here to see the articles - 1, 2 and 3.

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Recollections from Others

Dawn Rottanburg shared a wonderful note written by her mother, Felicia Perel:

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I have very fond memories of going out to our farm on a Sunday afternoon with numerous friends of my folks and the attendant children. Mom would go around to the homes of various friends, ring a table bell at the front door indicating that a visit to the farm was planned. The farm was 14 miles from Vryburg and there was a big stone house on the farm. When the “volk” saw the trail of dust coming towards the farm, they would open the house, light the fire in the house, put out the card tables and put out cups and saucers etc. While the adults pursued their card games, we (the children) would go off to swim in the dam. The water was green with lots of tadpoles, grasses etc. but we couldn’t have cared less. We were in there as fast as possible and had a wonderful time. In winter, we would climb the “koppies”+ to pick prickly pears and invariably, or inevitably, end up with thorns on our hands or sometimes in our palates. Oh, the simple joys of childhood!!

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What was true in the 1930s remained just as true five decades later.

 

Food, Travel, and Traditions

Farm breakfasts typically consisted of boerewors and eggs, accompanied by Worcestershire sauce—and, if we were lucky, macon and eggs. No trip to Johannesburg was complete without stopping for Nussbaum produce on Louis Botha Avenue.

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There were also hunting expeditions: springhares at night using a spotlight, and occasional game shoots. Maurice Joffe recalls visiting the Grace family farm in the Kalahari and hunting with them. Although old Morris Grace kept his distance from the community, he and Joe went back to the old country together. The Grace family employed a San (Bushman) farmhand named Koopmantitus, an extraordinarily skilled tracker.

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On Sundays, we would go into town by donkey or mule cart to collect the Sunday papers. Our parents enjoyed a few quiet hours, while we gained popularity among town residents by giving them lifts out to Waterloo. Many Sundays ended with a braai on the farm and a swim in the valley river. In years of good rainfall, Waterloo had a flowing stream, perfect for fishing and swimming.

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