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).
Image: 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.)
Image: 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.
Image: 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.
Image: Dad and Margie
in March 1996
Image: 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 90th
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.
In one version of the photo above this one, we were holding
a photo take 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).
Image: 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.
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