Hilda Basson Oettle née Malan
*14-07-1889
†26-11-1986
Hilda Malan was born in Wellington, Cape Colony, and grew up in a family with a firm Calvinist faith. Her father, Albertus Johannes Malan (*1856) was a leading wagon-builder in the town.
Albertus,
the youngest of a large family, was born on the Malan family farm Salamosvlei,
in the Klein Drakenstein, close to the town of Paarl. His father, Jan Jacobus
Malan, provided his elder sons with their own farms, but financial difficulties
forced him to hand Salamosvlei over to a relative, and to apprentice Albertus
to a wagon-builder in Wellington,[1]
some 12 km north along the Berg River. Albertus went to board with his
uncle and aunt, Charl[2]
and Magdalena Malan, and there fell in love with his cousin Elsje, two years
older than himself, and married her.
The young couple were descendants of Jacques Malan[3] and his wife Isabeau le Long, Protestant refugees from the French region of Provence, who settled at the Cape in 1688, part of a settlement scheme arranged by the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) for French refugees.
In
later years these refugees came to be called Huguenots, a term used in honour
and pride at their steadfastness in their Protestant Faith – they had been
forced to flee France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by King
Louis XIV in 1685. However, in their own time, “Huguenot” was a term of abuse,
and the Dutch officials referred to them simply as Fransche uitgewekenen
(French refugees), while the refugees spoke of themselves as Réformes or
Gereformeerden (Reformed Christians).
Many
of the descendants of these Huguenot settlers married other Huguenot
descendants, but others married Cape settlers whose origins were elsewhere –
chiefly the Netherlands and Germany, but also Sweden and as far away as Bengal:
Albertus’s mother was Hilletje Johanna Basson, a descendant of the Dutch
immigrant Arnoldus Willemsz Baesson (*1647 †1698), who in 1669 married the
freedwoman[4]
Angela van Bengale.[5] Their son
Willem married Helena Clements, whose father was an immigrant from Stockholm.
Hilda – called Ouma by her grandchildren, both English- and Afrikaans-speaking – always recalled that her parents had prayed morning and night that their descendants might come to faith in Jesus Christ. She herself prayed this same prayer all her life.
Her family’s involvement in matters religious extended to providing a venue for Bible translation. Albertus, not being an educated man, does not appear to have been part of this process, but a number of relatives and friends would meet in the summerhouse in his garden. His youngest daughter, Ella,[6] went to school one day in great excitement and told her Dutch meester that she had seen the men who were translating the Bible into Afrikaans.[7] The Hollander’s belittling response was: “Ik hoop dit zal nooit gebeuren!”[8]
Although he was himself not formally educated, Albertus was a firm believer in educating his children – not only his son Jan Petrus, but all four of his daughters – to prepare them for careers. This was a controversial position in his day, and he came in for a great deal of criticism.
Like her sisters, Hilda was educated at the girls’ school in Wellington – a forerunner of the Hoërskool Hugenote that stands in the town today. Dr Andrew Murray, minister of the Nederduitsche Gereformeerde Kerk in the town, had ensured that the school had American women as teachers, and instruction (as was customary in the Cape Colony) was principally in English, although it included Dutch.
On completing her schooling she trained as a teacher at the Wellington Teachers’ Training College, and taught for a time at Riversdale (where she commissioned the artist Volschenk to paint her a view of the Sleeping Beauty mountain which dominates the town). While living in Riversdale, she had to travel by the New Cape Central Railway to Worcester, and then on a Cape Government Railways train to Wellington to visit her parents. Afterwards she obtained a teaching post in Worcester.
When Hilda was still at school her eldest sister Magdalena (known as Leen or Suster) spent three years in Stuttgart, in what was then the Kingdom of Württemberg, studying music. When she returned to the Cape she was fetched by her father, who travelled with her by sea. Aboard ship, Leen would entertain a select group of passengers each evening by playing the piano. Among her audience was a young man from Port Elizabeth, George Oettle, whose father came from Urbach, near Stuttgart, who was returning home after a visit to his relatives in Germany.
When George, who had joined the Cape Government Railways, worked in Cape Town he would visit the Malan family in Wellington, and at their holiday home at The Strand in midsummer. When his younger brother Erich also went to Cape Town, where he was studying for the Cape Law Examination at the South African College, he would join George on his visits to the Malans.
Erich admitted in later years that Hilda had caught his eye, but he was a “grown man” (although he was only 18 at the time of their first meeting), and she a “mere girl” of 10. He bided his time – which proved to be a long wait, as he incurred a large debt following the purchase of four farms in the Van Rhynsdorp district in 1912, and he first had to settle the debt. He had been posted to Van Rhynsdorp as assistant magistrate in 1911.
But eventually in 1917, calling on Hilda during a stopover in Worcester, he proposed marriage and was accepted. They were wed on 4 April 1918, and on 27 February 1919 their first child, Eric, was born.[9]
A wedding gift to the happy couple from Erich’s father[10] was a large Bible inscribed on the flyleaf: “To Erich and Hilda for Daily Use. 4.IV.1918. From Father. II Tim. 3,15-17”.[11]
I can attest that this volume was read daily, morning and night, in their home. On Sundays, when visiting members of the family gathered in the lounge of their home, Erich (known as Oupa) would read from the book. Hymn books (kept in the piano stool) were distributed and appropriate hymns would be sung, whether accompanied or not.
Hilda spent the next 2½ decades raising children while Erich was transferred from one magisterial post to another – the youngest of their five offspring, Marie-Selma, was born in February 1927.
Erich came from a Plymouth Brethren[12] family, Hilda from the NG Kerk. The compromise they reached was that they would attend the church nearest his magisterial residency – which meant that in one town they might go to the NG Kerk, in another the Methodist Church, and in another the Anglican. Their children were confirmed in whichever church they were currently attending.[13]
Erich became Chief Magistrate of Klerksdorp, then Windhoek and finally Paarl, where he retired. On retirement he was appointed Petrol Controller in Wynberg, as wartime fuel restrictions were still in effect following the end of hostilities. When this job came to an end, he and Hilda retired to their farm, Lausanne, at Vredendal,[14] in the late 1940s.
Erich was an active farmer and died at Lausanne in 1972, aged 90, still working hard. His sons Eric and Albert had in the meanwhile joined him on the farm. “Ouma” Oettle stayed on the farm for a while, but then moved to Pinelands, in the Cape Peninsula, eventually living with Marie-Selma. She died in November 1986, aged 99.
Erich’s death left her with more money than she knew what to do with, but she retained the frugal habits she had cultivated over many years – during the Great Depression, Erich, as a civil servant, had even had his salary reduced.
After her death it was learned that, after she had overheard that a young couple were about to lose their home because of their inability to pay their home loan, she had covered their outstanding debt. She had apparently done this several times, each time for complete strangers.
All five of her children had children of their own – there were 19 in all – and all grew up knowing their Ouma. She was firm but loving with them all, having no favourites.
Her life was not one of spectacular or publicised service to her Lord, but she served nonetheless, and many of her good works remain unknown – in keeping with Christ’s instructions to His followers.
My wife always says that of all the people she has known, Ouma was a saint.
– Mike Oettle
