A CENTENNIAL celebration is a blessing cherished by those favoured to be able to share it with family and friends, like Elaine Valda ‘Val’ Snape did recently.

The centenarian has lived a life marked by tragic losses, and love, its fullness rounded by the charity work she continues to this day by knitting with her dainty hands squares for blankets for sick or orphaned infants of wild animals such as the calves of rhinos and hippos.

Val was only 12-years-old when she lost her last living parent, her father, and so had to be raised by her grandparents.

She was only a toddler, two years old, when her mother died.

Born at KwaBhaca (formerly known as Mount Frere) in the Eastern Cape on November 6, 1926, Val attended the local primary school and then moved to Durban to live with an aunt so she could go to school at Penzance, and later the Durban Business College.

After meeting and falling in love with Ted Walsh, the pair tied the knot on November 8, 1947, and was blessed with two sons, Neil born in 1952, and Ian born in 1957.

Unfortunately, tragedy visited the family, leaving Val widowed and her sons without a father.

Also read: VIDEO: Kloof home celebrates resident’s 103rd birthday

But in 1965, Val found love again and married Ginger Snape.

In 2012, the pain of loss would strike again in Val’s life when her eldest son, Neil, died.

Val has three grandchildren, Debbie, Luke and Emma.

She celebrated her 100^th  birthday with her family and friends, including two of her remaining cousins.

“May she enjoy many more happy birthdays in good health,” said her family and friends.

Val and her family have lived on the Bluff for 65 years but now she lives with her cousin in Waterfall.

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