Ancyent blog13 Parents, part 5, through to my father's death

At the end of the previous episode we had moved to Seattle and my Dad was searching for a new wife.

My father had long been interested in the history of his profession and over the years collected related information and artefacts.  He eventually enrolled for a Ph.D. in Medical History through MEDUNSA and in 1991 was awarded that degree for his thesis “The Introduction of Ether Anaesthesia into South Africa”.  He was very proud of this achievement.  He sent me (and presumably also my brothers) a signed copy of his thesis and a large hard-copy of the photo below.  In contrast, he didn’t seem particularly interested in my Ph.D. and didn’t ever ask to see a copy of my dissertation.  I presume he showed a similar lack of interest in Mick’s Ph.D.  (That’s not to say he wasn’t proud of our achievements, probably just not interested in details.)  I couldn’t have sent him a photo of me receiving my Ph.D. or photos from any of my other graduations, because I didn’t ever attend one (partly because I was never in the same city at the time of the ceremony).

My father being awarded his Ph.D.  In case it is not obvious, he is the one on the right.

I don’t recall from my father’s letters to us when he met Margie Sandilands, a divorced mother of two girls.  (Sometimes she writes her name as Margi, other times as Margie.)  The divorced part is relevant because, although Anglican rather than Catholic, my father and Margie attended a rather conservative Anglican church and they apparently had to get the church to annul Margie’s first marriage before she and my father could wed.  They were married in 1992 and on their honeymoon visited us in Seattle.  Unlike the other women my father had dated, we felt that Margie was very suitable and we had no qualms about welcoming her into the family.  If I remember correctly, at the time one of her daughters was finishing high school and the other was in college.  So in my late thirties I acquired a step-mother and two step-sisters.  I still find it hard to think of them as step-sisters though because we have never lived under the same roof.  (I am Facebook friends with my step-sisters and with my sisters-in-law, though not with my brothers as they are not on Facebook.)

Dad and Margie’s wedding, with my brother Ian on the left and Margie’s daughters, Janet and Lyndall, on the right.

Riëtta was pregnant with Lisa when Dad and Margie married and they were hoping to see the new grandchild when they visited us in Seattle.  But Lisa inherited a stubborn streak from both sides of the family (on my side it bypassed me J) and she waited until after they had left before making her appearance.

Shortly after Dad and Margie arrived back in South Africa my father suffered a stroke.  He was scrubbing up to go into the operating theater when it happened.  He apparently hadn’t been aware that his blood pressure was very high.  He survived the stroke, but his speech and ability to read were somewhat compromised.  He eventually recovered sufficiently to be able to return to work, though from being in quite robust good health that was the beginning of a downward spiral.  It was a cruel blow for Margie, after a few short weeks of marriage she had to take on what became more and more of a caregiver role.

We moved back to Pretoria in June 1993 and for a little over 6 months rented a house a couple of blocks away from Dad and Margie.  That provided an opportunity for my father to be reacquainted with Steven and to get to know his only grand-daughter.

Christmas dinner at my father’s house, 1993.  In the foreground is our daughter Lisa, who was then about 20 months old.  Others round the table, clockwise from the left, are Margie’s daughter Lyndall, my Dad, Margie, my brother Ian, Ian’s wife Jacqui, their son Tim (whose wedding we attended in March 2019), and our son Steven.  I don’t recall what Steven was looking at.  If this had bene a recent photo, I would have suspected a smartphone, but 1993 was well before smartphones and most other small hand-held electronics.

In February 1994 we left South Africa again, this time for Hobart, Australia.  Despite his declining health, my father was still interested in travelling internationally.  In 1995 he and Margie (and my brother Ian) visited us in Hobart.  Dad was clearly struggling mentally and physically but was still trying to make plans for further trips.  If I remember correctly, he was wanting to visit Russia again.  He had last been there when it was still part of the USSR.

Dad and Margie in March 1996

Dad and my brother Mick, visiting from the US, on the same trip in March 1996

My father had long had a keen interest in photography.  He mostly took slides, rather than making prints.  One of my brothers has all the slides and the other has the cine film he took on some occasions.  Both those formats make it difficult to sort through and share images and movies, so they haven’t had a chance to pass on much to me yet.  I have older prints from an earlier time, including many of relatives I don’t recognize.  The slides my father took – and he took thousands – included many of family gatherings and of his travels, both within South Africa and internationally.  But even by the time he and Margie visited us in Hobart he was struggling to operate his fancy camera.  I’m not sure how aware he was of his difficulties.

Although he hadn’t been in a hurry to retire, and probably would have continued working for several more years had he been able to, he had plans for doing a lot of reading, writing and photography once he eventually retired.  Unfortunately the series of strokes affected his reading and writing so badly that he was unable to do any of what he had planned.  (Moral of the story – don’t put off things you’d like to do for some vague time in the future.  That time might not happen for you and even if it does you may not be capable of doing what you had planned.)

We were still living in Hobart when my father passed away in January 1997.  When he was on his deathbed I was asked whether he should be kept alive on machines so I could see him one last time before he passed away.  I didn’t see any point in that, particularly because he wouldn’t even have known I was there.  I did fly back for the funeral though.  I was somewhat surprised when I saw his death certificate in that it had the underlying cause of death as infection – from the leg wound he had suffered more than 45 years previously (mentioned in part 1 of the sequence of posts about my parents).

After the funeral there was a reception at my father’s old house.  It was great to see family and some of my parents’ friends who I hadn’t seen in many years.  Some photos from the reception:

From the left:  My brother Ian’s good friend Rowan Duval, my mother’s cousin Jenni Law, my brother Mick, our cousin Paul and his wife Bronwen, my parents’ friends Margaret and Errol Parry, who lived next door to us in Port Elizabeth for several years before they moved to Johannesburg about 10 years before my parents left Port Elizabeth.  Errol celebrated his 90^th birthday a few months ago.

 

Family photo:  My Dad’s sister Ruth, my brother Ian with his son Tim, Yours Truly, my other brother Mick with Ian’s son Mike, my Dad’s brother Derrick.

My Dad’s brother Derrick, Hank Doeg, a long-time friend of my parents who moved to Pretoria several years before my parents.  For the first 6 months after my father moved to Pretoria he boarded with Hank and Jerice Doeg.  Hank passed away last August, aged 85.  Jerice survives him after 61 years of marriage!  I don’t recognize the guy on the right in the photo, though the belt and tie are both in my possession. 

The Three Stooges

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In one version of the photo above this one, we were holding a photo taken when we were young.  When we were in South Africa last March someone hauled out a copy of that photo and made us pose again, holding that photo containing the earlier photo.

While I was in Pretoria, Margie and my brothers and I went through the house marking the artworks and other objects we each wanted when Margie eventually wanted to move to a smaller place.  We managed to divide things up without any wrangling.  Several years later Margie shipped to the US everything that I had marked as wanting, including the painting below (because I had been the one who remembered when my father won it in a raffle – see an earlier episode – “Ancyent blog11 Parents, part 3”).

 We are very grateful that Margie came into my father’s life (and into ours).  We saw her most recently in March 2019 when we were in South Africa for the wedding of Ian’s son Tim.  Margie, her daughter Janet, and Janet’s son Matthew, represented their side of the family at the wedding.

Mick’s wife, Mary Beth, Margie, Matthew, Janet.

Neither of my parents had a visitation/wake/viewing or an open casket funeral as these are not parts of our tradition.  Also, both were cremated.  I have no idea what happened to their ashes and don’t care.  I don’t need a gravestone, ashes or other physical reminder.  It is enough to know that they provided a good home environment and opportunities for their kids that many others have not been fortunate enough to receive.  What does, however, make me very sad is that they didn’t live long enough to see how well their grandchildren (not just our kids but those of Ian and Jacqui too) have turned out.

That's the end of the series about my parents.  Now perhaps I’ll write more about myself again.  Nah, I think I’ll first write something about our old neighborhood in Port Elizabeth and some of my parents’ friends.