Grandparents

Our son Steven put in a request for me to write something about my family.  First up, an entry on my grandparents.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, all four of my grandparents were born in South Africa but all eight of my great-grandparents emigrated from various parts of the British Isles.  The Couper branch came from Scotland.  The image shows the postcodes where the last name Couper is currently most common in the UK - around Glasgow and in some islands off to the north-east.  The map was produced using http://named.publicprofiler.org/.  

Three of my four grandparents lived to an older age than either of my parents (or either of Riëtta's parents).  The only one who didn't was my maternal grandfather Patrick Cuthbert, who died of cancer (of the stomach, I think) when he was 62 and I was just 5.  He was older than my mother, but not than my father or Riëtta's parents.

Maternal grandparents

Patrick and Iona Cuthbert lived in Knysna, a coastal resort where Patrick had the local Ford dealership and the Shell petrol / gas franchise.  (In South Africa, particularly in small towns, new car dealerships and gas stations were usually co-located, much like gas stations and convenience stores in the US.)  Their house, called "Patriona" was at the edge of the Knysna lagoon, about where the upward-pointing arrow is in the aerial photo.  The image was clearly taken at low tide - at high tide water would cover most of where that arrow is placed as well as most of the downward-facing arrow.  Patrick and Iona had two children, my mother and a younger brother, David.

The photo below shows Patrick and Iona with my parents (and me).

After Patrick passed away Iona continued to live at Patriona for several more years.  She was still there when we lived with her when I was in the second half of 5th grade, which I spent at Knysna Primary School.  I think David was in college when his father passed away and abandoned his studies to take over the family business.  David later married Isabel and they in turn had two children, my cousins Paul and Patrick.  (After having lost contact with them for a number of years, I was pleased to be able to re-connect with Paul through Facebook.  When Steven and Stephany visited South Africa in 2016 they met Paul and his family, plus various other relatives.)  Some time later Iona sold out to a developer and moved to a new house in the Hunters Home area, just above the golf course.  The rightward-pointing arrow shows the approximate location.  We had several other relatives in the Knsyna area, including some who lived in a rather gloomy old house at The Heads (the downward-pointing arrow).  David and Isabel initially had a house at Hunters Home but then bought the house at The Heads from the elderly relatives.  They remodeled and turned what had been such a gloomy house into a wonderful bright, sunny home.  (I was not just sad but also a little annoyed when David, my favorite uncle, died of colon cancer.  The reason for the annoyance is that after my mother - his sister - died of colon cancer he should have been screened frequently.)

This photo is from the (previously gloomy) house at The Heads.

Iona was a feisty old lady.  We (or at least I presume my brothers felt likewise) enjoyed staying with her because she always fed us so well, including buying wonderful cakes from the local bakery.  Because Knysna is relatively close to Port Elizabeth, we often spent summer vacations there and I have good memories of the area.  Iona not only fed us well, she ate (and drank) well too and later in life became quite rotund.  It is ironic that my mother was much more careful about what she ate and watched her weight yet passed away just a year or so after her mother.  (I presume Iona was in her late '70s or early '80s when she died but don't know either her actual age or exactly when she passed away.)

Paternal grandparents

I have fewer memories though more printed material about my paternal grandparents, particularly my grandfather.  John and Grace Couper lived in Gillitts, a small town near Durban.  Partly because Durban is much further from Port Elizabeth, we seldom saw those grandparents.  I think we visited Gillitts just twice when I was young.  Grace was ill for several years before she passed away in 1971, aged 78.  According to her death certificate, she had a stroke (which is also what later killed my father) and bronchopneumonia, as well as coronary sclerosis.  (I should add that from my line of work I know that death certificates are notoriously inaccurate about the exact cause of death.)

This photo of John and Grace was probably taken at their house in Gillitts.

My grandfather and my father used to write to one another quite frequently, with my grandfather always typing his.  I think this was the last letter from my grandfather, when he was 99.

John and Grace had four children, first two girls, Elizabeth ("Beth") and Ruth, then my father John and his brother Derrick.  Beth and her husband lived in what was then Rhodesia.  They had two children, Lesley and Rory, who I last saw in 1971 or 1972 when I was still in high school.  Our family visited them in Rhodesia.  While we were there I accompanied Lesley when she drove Rory back to his boarding school, quite some distance away.  On the return journey (in the dark), we were travelling at around 70 miles/hr when Lesley tried to change the channel on the car radio, went off the road, over-corrected and flipped the car multiple times.  I am reasonably sure we weren't wearing seatbelts (most cars probably didn't even have them then).  The rolling of the car felt like being caught in a big wave at the beach.  I managed to crawl out of the car unscathed.  People in a car ahead of us had noticed our headlights making strange movements and came back to see what had happened.  Lesley was in a lot of pain (it turned out she had broken some vertebrae, though fortunately without damaging the spinal cord).  The people who had stopped to help drove us home.  Lesley was in too much pain to provide directions yet somehow even though I'd been on that road just once before, in daylight and going the other way, I managed to guide them.  That was obviously long before smartphones with maps and GPS.  (The trip was the first time I'd been outside South Africa and also the first time I saw TV - South Africa didn't get TV until a few years later.) 

Ruth and her husband didn't have children.  Several years after her husband died, Ruth married Bill Cochrane, who had won the Comrades (ultra) Marathon in 1935 and 1946 (the race was not held in 1941-45 because of World War II).  Bill's running days were many years behind him when he became part of the family rather late in his life (at age 63).  

Derrick and his first wife had a son Blair, who I am not sure I have ever met.  Derrick married at least three times - as far as I know he is the only one on either side of my family to have been through a divorce.  I think Blair is his only child though.

John lived to be 99.  One of his brothers reached 100 and John had hoped to do so too but apparently lost interest in life rather suddenly somewhere in his 100th year.  He'd been doing well until shortly before that - see the article at the end of this piece about him still playing bridge at 99.  The article has some interesting historical notes such as this one about headlamps on cars:"… he bought a second hand Ford Tin Lizzie for 25 pounds in 1919.  It had no self starter, only a crank.  There were no headlamps, one had to stop when darkness fell, to light the gas carbide lamps."

As the article about John playing bridge at 99 notes, in the First World War he was wounded at Delville Wood, a historic battle in which South African troops performed heroically despite a very high casualty rate   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Delville_Wood.  

[I have just a very poor copy of the clipping of the newspaper article from which the transcription below was taken.  One of our relatives transcribed the article.]

Highway Mail April 26, 1986

John is still playing bridge at age 99

by Liz Gower-Jackson

Wounded at the battle of Delville Wood in 1916, living in Durban at the turn of the century and filled with intriguing memories of those early days, John Couper of Hillcrest turned 99 on April 17.

He rises at 5.00am each day, polishes his own shoes and dresses neatly to face the day.  He is charming and dapper, and has a memory better than many half his age.  He told me of taking up playing bridge seriously when he was 92  because he broke his leg and could no longer play bowls.  His twice weekly bridge afternoons add interest and a social fullness to his life.

Always bright and cheerful, John is grateful for his long and happy life.  He has given much time to his fellow man through those years.  Well over 50 years as an elder of the Presbyterian Church and 25 years as Sunday School Superintendent  at the Berea Presbyterian Church, are indicative of his quiet service.  When that church celebrated its centenary recently John Couper seemed surprised at the fuss everyone made of him.  When asked for an interview he said "But a 99th birthday is not special.  I am not 100."

John lives at Hillcrest with his daughter Ruth and her husband Bill Cochrane.  He has shared a home with Ruth since his wife died in 1972.  They had married in 1917 and Ruth is one of four children.  John is a professor of Anaestheology at the Medical University of South Africa in Pretoria.  Elizabeth is a nurse who is married to a man who was in the Indian Army, and Derrick has recently opened a typesetting business in Westville.  Ruth is well known in the bowling world, having been president of the Southern Natal Bowling Association.  She and Bill are keen bowlers at Hillcrest bowling club.

John started playing bowls in 1918 at the Maritzburg Bowling Club when he returned to civilian life after being wounded at Delville Wood and found he could not return to tennis, which was his first love.

In 1923, returning to live in Durban, John joined the Silverton Bowling Club, just over the road from where he had lived as a child.  He can remember riding to church each Sunday with his mother in a carriage and pair, and having to pay toll at Tollgate.  The toll keeper was a Mr. Hulyone (?) who kept a small store to supplement his meagre income.  

All the discussion of the new toll road on the N3 reminded John of that other toll gate all those years ago.  The Coupers had to pay toll when they went to Durban because they lived on the upper side of Ridge Road but many folk slipped through the property  of David Don who lived on the corner, to avoid the tollgate and save precious pennies.  

John Couper drove a car until he was 95 but he can still remember his first car.  He had ridden a motor cycle from 1912, but after World War I, as a married man, he bought a second hand Ford Tin Lizzie for 25 pounds in 1919.  It had no self starter, only a crank.  There were no headlamps, one had to stop when darkness fell, to light the gas carbide lamps.

That car lasted for 10 years before John replaced it with a second hand Buick, and then he had a Chevrolet, and a Zephyr the English Ford was his next car.

In all his years of driving he had only one minor accident, when a motor cycle ran into him.

Looking back over the span of his 99 years, John Couper can remember when there was no electricity, no radios, no motor cars, no movies, no aeroplanes and, of course, no television.  He watches the news on television, but otherwise he loathes its interrupting influence on our lives. 

He says the first electric lights came to Durban about 1900 when progressive and proud householders had just a single electric light, usually in the parlour of their homes.

In another tie with contemporary news John tells of how he came to do duty on the border of what is now Libya.  He left with the South African Brigade for France in World War I.  Arriving in England many of the colonial troops suffered from pulmonary complaints so the South Africans were sent to Egypt where they served on that border, and John's friend, Bob Jones from Durban, was killed.

After being wounded at Delville Wood in July 1916 John ended up convalescing in Ireland for three months.  He says his military service afforded him a veritable Cook's tour.

Career-wise John had to fend for himself from an early age.  He joined a general merchant's business as an office boy at R5 a month, and was earning R10 a month by 1902.  When his employer Arthur George May went into milling in 1905 John went over to the new project which was to become the Union Flour Mills and eventually it was taken over by Premier Milling.  Mr. May was killed in his late 30s when he was thrown from a horse while riding in New Forest, England, where he was holidaying.  Mr. Couper stayed with the firm until he retired at 70. 

Always one to keep up with the times, John has applied for a military pension, feeling that he should qualify under the new rulings announced recently by the Government.