HSZ Chatline 12-02-2024 The Bester Trek

[Nat Quinn]

THE BESTER FAMILY TREK

This article was kindly provided to the HSZ by Dr Doug McClymont 

Mrs. Anna Maria Petronella Bester (née de Wet) was born in Heilbron, in the Orange Free State, on 27^th July 1879, and married Bernardus Hermanus Bester in Heilbron on 2^nd February 1897. The Bester family trekked to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) by mule wagons, arriving in Enkeldoorn (now Chivhu) on the 1^st October 1908. Their eldest daughter, Johanna Sophia (now Mrs de Wet) relates the following in a letter dated 10^th June 1976.

 “My parents started the trek by mule wagons: two big, long, tent wagons and one wagonette. One big wagon was driven by my mother’s brother, P. de Wet, who came with us. The people on the trek were my father and mother with four children, three girls and a boy and an adopted daughter, my father’s niece, an orphan, whose name was Judith Bester. The other wagon had my mother’s sister, her husband, G. Roeloffze, four children, two girls and two boys, and a brother of Uncle H. Roeloffze; so we were sixteen people including one Zulu, Kleinbooi, who was attached to my father.

My mother drove the wagonette drawn by four blue mules, very tame and good. At Pietersburg, Transvaal, a young man by the name of Albert Beck asked if he could come with us; father agreed, so we were seventeen now. We started the trek on the 1^st May 1908, and travelled for five long months until we reached Enkeldoorn on the 1^st of October. The wagons were laden with all kinds of food. A beast had been killed; also a pig, and biltong and boerewors were made. A big wooden tub was put in the middle of the wagon, and in it was a lot of corned beef and bacon in brine, and we had another tub with salted butter in it. We also brought a dog with her puppies.

 

When we were short of bread, mother would knead the dough, make a fire in a long furrow and when it was hot scoop out the fire, put in the bread-tins and cover them with a piece of roofing iron with the hot ashes on top. After an hour and a half, out would come lovely brown loaves. This baking process took place every week, and then the washing had to be done. We were very lucky that no serious sickness worried us on this trek. For the children it was one long picnic.

When we came to the Limpopo River we found a camp of five wagons which had been standing there for quite a few days. Lions had attacked their donkeys one night, killing some and chasing the others away so that they could not be found. Three of their men went back to the Transvaal to buy more donkeys. After a week, as the men had not returned, we had to be on our way. We were lucky, for not once did we see a lion; we only heard them roaring in the night. My father built big fires every night around the wagons.

When we came to Enkeldoorn, father leased four rondavels for us to live in for a time. Then he went off to Selukwe to cart wood for the mines; there was good money in it and after a month he came back with quite a good sum. He was able to pay for everything and started to build a pole and dagga house for us on the farm, Rietkop, eleven miles (18 km) from Enkeldoorn; it was rather small, but it was a shelter. We moved out to the farm in January 1909. Father went carting goods from Gwelo for a shop in Enkeldoorn before the railway line was finished. My uncle, who was a stone mason, was building our new house with stone. In 1912, when there was a rabies outbreak, we had to keep our dogs tied up during the day. One afternoon we were sitting behind the house in the shade when one of our dogs jumped on my five year old little sister, and bit her on the hand so that the blood flowed. Father had gone to the lands on horseback but returned just then, got a fright and said the dog must have rabies. He killed the dog at once, and told mother to pack a few things for him and Annie, for he said he must get her to the doctor within thirty six hours. He went off with the cart and horses but in Enkeldoorn the doctor said he must take her on to Salisbury as they had serum, there being none in Enkeldoorn. The doctor sent a telegram to Salisbury warning them that my father was coming.

 He travelled all night with the child wrapped in blankets and she had her first injection before the 36 hours were up. Father stayed with her for three weeks in Salisbury where she had injections every second day. She came home fit and well and got married in later years and had a family of six children.

 My mother did all her own housework, washing, baking and even making her own soap, which took up a lot of her time.

Bernardus Hermanus Bester died in Enkeldoorn on the 10^th of October 1939, and his wife, Anna Maria Petronella, five months later on the 22^nd March 1940”.

(Contributed by Mrs. J.S. de Wet, Hartley. Mrs Bester’s eldest daughter first printed this article in the book “Down Memory Lane” by Madeline Heald)

Doug McClymont

[Author]

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