Pretoria, South Africa 1954-1956

Letters from South Africa 1954-56

I was going to stay with the travel theme for this blog series but thought it important to review events during the time Mom and Dad spent in Pretoria. Several years ago Aunt Lois gave me 60 aerogram letters that Mom and Dad had written to the Tolman family between 1954-56. Grandma Tolman numbered and saved them in a chocolate box. They wrote in detail about life in South Africa and also commented on family news from Canada.

After arriving in Durban, South Africa in August 1954, Mom and Dad travelled north to Pretoria to work in evangelism with "Bug" and Nona Freeman, missionaries from the United States. Dad got a full-time job at the South African Bureau of Standards where he worked in a lab testing various products. He had thirty days of vacation a year from the start. Church work was another job with services ten times a week;- Monday to Saturday and four services on Sunday. Mom wrote,

"We work 6 days a week and on the 7th we work twice as hard."

I can see how this introduction to lay missionary work set a pattern for the rest of their lives. (I wrote about this tendency in a recent blog post)

19 de Friedland St, Capital Park West, Pretoria

Dad and Mom rented a house and bought a female Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy called Jan. This is where we lived when my brother Nathan and I were born. The house can be seen on Google Maps but has been renovated and is now behind a fence with barbed wire. Mom was very sick on the sea passage to South Africa and lost thirteen pounds from morning sickness and sea sickness. As my birth approached she stayed home except for the daily church services. She sewed and cooked and typed letters to Canada. I would love to read what she wrote to her mom but those letters are gone.

I was born in January 1955 and was a much-loved little girl. During the next year, I travelled frequently with my parents visiting Victoria Falls, Kruger National Park, Durban and more. Dad enjoyed photography and had a good camera for the time. He took a lot of pictures for family as well as for deputation work in churches.

My parents did not tell their Canadian families that another baby was on the way until he was born on July 14, 1956. Nathan is just 18 months younger than me. Mom was pregnant for 15 of the 24 months they were in South Africa. I love the picture on the left taken on July 24, 1956, when Nathan was ten days old. At the time of his birth. tickets had already been purchased for our return by sea to Canada. How did Mom do it?!

During the first eight years of my life, our family had few possessions and we were very portable. Household items were stored in round shipping barrels. The barrels doubled as end tables and lamp stands wherever we lived. We had everything we needed but nothing was fancy. On subsequent journeys, Mom lugged her sewing machine, Sunbeam Mixmaster, accordion and typewriter while Dad always had an SLR camera, movie camera, screen and projector.

After arriving in South Africa as a couple in August 1954, Mom and Dad were ready to return to Canada in August 1956 with two babies in tow.

How we travelled will be the subject of the next post. Here are some pictures from our time in Pretoria.

Native Church

Church services were completely segregated. There were separate services for Natives, Europeans, and Indians. It is no wonder that so many were needed each week. Racial segregation was not God's plan for the church but apartheid was the way of life in South Africa at this time.