His family wrote the following about his life:

Mr Zowitsky was born 22 September 1928 in Pretoria, where he grew up. He matriculated at the Afrikaans Hoër Seunsskool and joined the fire department thereafter which he loved. Even in his 90’s he could recite the symptoms of shock and treatment off rote.

While working in the fire department his entrepreneurial spirit took over and he started buying and repairing cars for resale. He later took a loan and bought a truck for transporting gravel. That business became so successful that he had to give up his career in the fire department.

He also bought a farm near Pretoria where he ran a piggery. In 1957 he sold up and bought the Jacaranda Hotel, bottle store, garage and cinema in Mookgopong (Naboomspruit). The hotel life was not for him, and he then bought and moved to a farm, Sterkstroom, in the Middelburg district in 1958.

He had a dairy, and farmed with maize, beans and almonds. He used to take the milk to the main road in a mule cart for collection. He raised his two daughters, Martie and Margaret, on his own for 2 ½ years, until he met Ma Sheila, and her four sons. They got married 12 November 1965, and later had two more children.

Karel continued farming, expanding to cattle farming on De Hoop in the Roossenekal area and also Balmoral. For many years he travelled to De Hoop twice a week to dip and count the cattle, always stopping for russians, chips and Coke at Vasco de Gama’s café near Blinkwater. Many happy family memories are centred around that farm which later had to be sold due to security concerns. Cattle remained Karel’s great love.

Apart from farming, he continued his transport business in Middelburg, supplying all the sand for the Middelburg Dam wall and the original RMB Alloys/Southern Cross Steel plant. He built and ran Arcade butchery, and built approximately fifty houses in Dennesig and Kanonkop.

He subsequently sold the Sterkstroom farm and relocated to Middelburg where he built a beautiful home for his large family at Rondebosch. He loved movies and was Gabby Kallel’s best customer at the Mascot cinema for many years. He was very active in his church and served on the stewardship committee of St Johns Presbyterian church for forty years.

He was a social man who valued his friends enormously. Their friends had weekly poker evenings, regular billiard evenings, had a group of friends called Happy Families who holidayed together regularly, particularly to the Kruger Park which was a great love of his, visiting regularly until deep in his eighties. In later years he also enjoyed playing bowls at the Middelburg Country Club.

He loved a “bargain” and was a regular at auctions for many years. He has been a prominent figure in the Middelburg community.

He leaves behind his wife Sheila, daughters Martie, Margaret, Jess and sons Hendrik, Charl, Phillip and Willie with 13 grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren.