Happy 100th birthday Ouma Sadie
Family and friends recently celebrated the 100-year milestone of Ouma Sadie du Plessis, (née Smal) and this is her story.
From the invention of a TV in the 1920s and the birth of McDonald’s in 1940 to the smartphones we have today, Sadie du Plessis has either seen, heard or lived through it all.
Family and friends recently celebrated the 100-year milestone of Ouma Sadie du Plessis, (née Smal) and this is her story.
Ouma Sadie was born in 1922 on the farm Rietfontein in the Caledon district.
The eldest of 12 children and having no transport to school, she had to remain on the farm and raise the rest of the children until three of them were old enough to go to school by horse cart. Because she was clever and older, she only spent three years in primary school before being promoted to high school.
She qualified as teacher at the Grahamstown College of Education and started teaching at the Mission farm settlement near Caledon. She later taught in Bredasdorp, where she met her heartthrob, Hannes du Plessis, a war aircraft navigator, whom she married just after the Second World War in 1945.
They moved to Krugersdorp where they had five children, three of whom are still alive and living in Krugersdorp. Life was expensive with five children and she became a working mom, pursuing careers at Old Mutual, the Provincial Hospital (now Dr Yusuf Dadoo) and Krugersdorp Municipality, from where she retired after she served 14 years in the Water and Electricity Department.
Sadie was well known for her handcrafts: Smock dresses, porcelain dolls, oil paintings, needlecraft art and knitting. She stacked up many prizes through community clubs and exhibits. She outlived all but one of her 12 siblings.
She is mother to three children, grandmother to eight and great-grandmother to eight.
