I’m publishing some stories and memoirs from deceased relatives and ancestors here because too many of these stories firstly get ‘lost’ in a shoebox, and secondly for other descendants searching for fragments of family history, they cannot find them offline.
A third good reason is, I back everything on this site up to The Internet Archive so that is is not lost when this website goes offline one day. If this page is unavailable, its archive version can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20220000000000*/https://gadgeteer.co.za/myotherinterests/family-stories/. There is also an open standards GEDCOM-based family tree which I host separately for the family to access.
The stories are written from personal perspectives and recollections, and should also give a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary people living in Cape Town around the early to middle 1900’s.
The inspiration to start putting the stories online came after reading Judy Campbell’s book, The Silver Tea Service, which was published in 2019. Her book dealt with our mutual ancestors in the Luyt family in South Africa. My family tree, on my mom’s side, reaches back to the same Frederick Luyt, although we branched off on a different route down through Ceres.
Recollection of my Childhood by Billie Fourie (borne Billie Luyt)