Martha Magdalena Engelbrecht

   Another name for Martha was Mattie.

  General Notes:

The Old Lady 16^th March 1996

My tribute is as one who came into the family 49 years ago, half her lifetime.
Mattie to her friends, to her family Mum, to her grandchildren and great grandchildren Granny or Ouma.. To Derek she was always " The old lady ''. She was the old lady at 38! Mom was born before the turn of the century and as a 22 year old I was fascinated at the stories she had to tell of Africa, as it was when she was a young woman. She was born into a world where people travelled in ox wagons, where candles were homemade from the fat of donkeys, a kitchen that was several yards away from the house with cooking done on a wood stove, water a precious commodity that must never be wasted. Food had to be grown or raised or shot with a hunting rifle. She came from Afrikaans stock and grew up with that language but was taught by an English governess, so that her English was impeccable frequently better than that of those for whom it was their natural tongue. She had many friends English and Afrikaans, a few like myself were Scots. There was never a barrier for her of nationality, what you were was important.
She was brought up in the Afrikaanse tradition of hard work, at five years old she told me she had to get up at four in the morning and with her sister run through the dark and often the cold to light the aforementioned stove and make coffee for the family which had to start early. From this she maintained children should be allowed to be children. Her standards for herself and others were high, honest in all things, half measures not good enough, nothing but the best.
She was hospitable in the extreme, no one but no one ever came to the door and was not welcomed with a cup of coffee, a meal, or a bed for the night if needed. I have seen a visitor arriving at dinnertime and being invited to dinner after the plates were served up. Mom would quickly take a little from each plate, open a tin of baked beans and serve them out taking the plate of scratched together pieces for herself and the visitor none the wiser. Her house was home to anyone who needed it, she became a mother to her two younger sisters when they were not able to live at home, relatives on both sides of the family came and lived with her and Dad, nephews and nieces, cousins etc all were made welcome. She loved company, she loved people. Most of all she loved children, she once remarked that she never had a garden because what the dog failed to damage the boys dug up. Derek and his cousins, dug pits and made tunnels; under the neighbours garden of all things till the poor mans veges disappeared down a hole. In Lobatsi in the then Bechuanaland, these same lads caught playing with the precious water took to their heels and an irate mother unable to catch them stopped and threw her high heeled shoe, catching her son fair and square right in the middle of his back. as he continued on he was heard to say somewhat admiringly " The old lady can still throw straight eh''.
Mom was interested in everything, she read extensively with a constant flow of books thorough the flat and kept abreast of affairs she was always interested in discussing national and international situations and had her own opinions, there were many excited and stimulating discussions conducted on the end of her bed after we returned from a visit to the bioscope (cinema to the uninitiated). This was the time when I heard most of the tales of her early life so different to those of us from the European part of the world.
It was the interest she maintained in the outside world her whole life that gave her the ability to transcend the cultural and racial barriers she faced when she married an English speaking South African. She faced real hostility from some members of her own family although her father and husband had an amicable relationship. As a toddler she was incarcerated as part of a Boer family in an English concentration camp, during the second world war she worked in munitions and in the canteens for the armed forces for the British She survived the situations that arose in her life and tried to pass on the wisdom of that learning I owe a great deal to those times when I was setting out on my own life and she took the time to talk and share many of those things that were important then.
I wish her God speed in this final adventure of life that is death. --Maggie

The family farm was called "Grassmead" in Niekerks Hope, Priska, South Africa

Martha married Frederick Redvers Woodhead, son of Thomas Ludgate Woodhead and Mary Ellen Walton, on 20 Oct 1924 in Ermelo Transvaal South Africa.² (Frederick Redvers Woodhead was born on 6 Apr 1900 in Durban Natal South Africa and died on 6 Aug 1965 in Durban.)