Well-known educator turns 100
Montgomery Haven retirement village resident turns 100-years-old.
Dirk Johannes van Dellen from the Montgomery Haven retirement village in Montgomery Park turned 100 years on 31 July.
According to his 70-year-old son James van Dellen, his father has always been active and felt the need to be independent because his mother died when he was still young. “In the 1950s while we were living in Emmarentia, he used to jog in his trousers and shoes around the Emmarentia dam towards the Melville Koppies area.”
Van Dellen, father of four never smoked and drank alcohol and he was a hurdler and pole-vaulter athlete when he was young.
He was a teacher for more than 50 years in different schools including Roosevelt High School where he retired from the profession in the early 1980s. He carried on giving extra tutorials to pupils, even in his 70s he was an A-rated mathematics and Afrikaans specialist.
James said his father was in the Second World War in North Africa in the early 1940s. “There are very few people his age who do not know him in the area because we moved to Emmarentia in 1954.”
Elbie Viljoen, a matron at the retirement village said from February 2008 since Van Dellen arrived at the village, he had been extremely positive and never complained about anything even at his age. He was grateful for everything that the village employees were doing for him, always came out of his room looking neat and never forgot to put on his favourite black hat.
