Chronicling Sandton-born attorney Ceri Von Ludwig
Meet Ceri Von Ludwig, a lifelong resident of Sandton since before it became the economic hub it is today.
Ceri Von Ludwig was born, raised, and still chooses to reside in Sandton – the community which she also works in as a divorce and family law and mediation attorney.
Von Ludwig’s journey as a Sandtonite began three years before she was born, when her parents bought a property in Sandton because her mom worked at Tara Hospital as a social worker a year before they officially tied the knot in 1961.
“I was born in 1963, and I’ve lived in that home all my life,” Von Ludwig said. “I was around when Hyde Park Shopping Centre was a tiny little shopping centre. It’s amazing to see. I was around before the Saxon Hotel existed.”
Recalling scenes from her childhood – from attending Kingsmead College in Rosebank right through her schooling career, to playing as children in Sandton in the years before social digital expansion; the moments spent with Von Ludwig translated into a transportive voyage into her childhood in the years that Sandton was becoming the biggest economic and business hub in Africa.
“As little girls, we had the Sandton Secret Society, which was our little girls’ club that used to meet in a Wendy house in my garden when I was in primary school,” Von Ludwig recalls. “My mom made us a little green badges that said SSS, and we’d play all types of games in the garden as kids did in those days; you’d play cowboys and crooks, you’d play murder mysteries and we sewed little things. We had wonderful childhoods.”
From a childhood of playing outside, to working as a family and divorce attorney; Von Ludwig shared both good and bad highlights from her career thus far.
“I will say that my most horrendous cases have been the ones of abuse, particularly the ones of child abuse; and, there are ones of child sexual abuse. Those are very hard to deal with,” Von Ludwig said. “My most beautiful ones are always where you manage to keep a family not together – because, obviously, they want to separate; but you manage to reach a solution where there’s no hating, there’s just sadness.”
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