Elizabeth Johanna Maria van Staden
Reader, Homemaker, Gardener, and Heart of the Family
Story Introduction
When I think back about my mother, certain memories immediately return.
- The smell of rusks baking in the oven.
- Freshly baked biscuits cooling on the kitchen table.
- Swiss rolls unlike anything I have ever tasted — soft, light, and dusted with sugar.
- The smell of perfume drifting through the house.
- Books lying open beside a chair.
- Music softly playing in the background.
- And always, her voice.
She could read aloud for hours without tiring. Those evenings shaped my entire life. My mother gave me the gift of reading long before I ever entered a classroom. Thanks to her patience and love for books, I could already read fluently when I started school. Looking back now, I realise what an extraordinary gift that truly was.
Elizabeth Johanna Maria van Staden was born on 24 September 1937 on the farm Genadendal in the Groot Marico district.
The nearest settlement was Derdepoort, deep in the Bushveld country made famous through the stories of Herman Charles Bosman.
She grew up in a world very different from modern South Africa. The western Transvaal during those years remained isolated and deeply rural. Roads were poor, farms far apart, and transport limited. Families depended heavily on windmills, wood stoves, donkey carts, and hard physical work to survive.
Her early childhood unfolded against the backdrop of droughts, economic hardship, and the lingering effects of the Great Depression, which affected farming communities across South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s. She attended primary school at Nietverdiend, a small farm school where children from isolated farming districts boarded in the hostel during the school term.
Transport was still by donkey cart or horseback. Later the family relocated to a farm called Doringhoek, which her parents rented from Attie Botha. I can still remember that farm vividly.
It was a typical Bushveld farmhouse:
– cool, dark rooms protected against the heat,
– the smell of freshly ground coffee in the kitchen,
– flower pots standing outside,
– and a black coal stove constantly burning.
Beside the old black “Meraai” stove stood a wooden box filled with firewood, while a large coffee kettle remained permanently simmering on the stove. When droughts struck the Bushveld, maintaining even a small garden became difficult. Water had to be carried by hand from the windmill to the front of the house to keep the flower pots alive. Looking back now, I can easily imagine my mother as a young girl carrying buckets of water, collecting wood for the stove, and helping with the endless daily work of farm life.
She later attended the Afrikaans High School at Groot Marico. Because of the enormous distances involved, learners stayed in hostels during the school term. The journey to school was nearly 120 kilometers. Family memories from those years remained vivid.
My Uncle Jannie van Staden later recalled that one of the highlights of the social calendar was the New Year’s Eve dance held at Mamba Klip near Nietverdiend. It was through chance that she met her future husband.
Hercules Jacobus Johannes McCarthy was visiting his uncle Piet McCarthy and aunt Lenie, who farmed in the district and were neighbours of the van Staden family. His motorcycle broke down nearby due to mechanical problems.
The van Stadens assisted him. Soon afterwards they attended a dance together. At the time my mother had completed matric while my father was busy completing his apprenticeship at Blyvooruitzicht Mine.
After qualifying, he travelled overseas to specialise in diesel mechanics before returning to South Africa.
On 28 April 1956 Elizabeth Johanna Maria van Staden married Hercules Jacobus Johannes McCarthy. She was only nineteen years old.
The young couple travelled to the South Coast on a motorcycle for their honeymoon — something that perfectly reflected the adventurous spirit of their early married years.
They initially settled at Blyvooruitzicht. Their only child, Gert Hendrik Rautenbach McCarthy, was born on 16 November 1957.
During her pregnancy she survived a frightening accident. While driving around the Blyvooruitzicht circle, the passenger door of the vehicle suddenly opened and she fell from the moving car. She was hospitalised, but both mother and child survived.
In 1958 my father resigned from Blyvooruitzicht Mine and joined his brother-in-law in a business venture in Makwassie. They started a service station. For a period the family stayed in the small local hotel while trying to establish themselves in the town.
Those years remain among my strongest childhood memories. My mother was exceptionally neat, organised, and methodical.
But above all, she created warmth. Coming home from school, there was always a carefully prepared plate of food waiting. The house always smelled of baking, coffee, polish, flowers, or cooking. She loved books passionately.
She belonged to several Afrikaans book clubs including:
- Van der Walt en Seuns
- Keur
- President Boekklub
She knew the authors of the day and read constantly. She also loved music. Our old Hammerstein gramophone filled the house with the music of:
- Wagner
- Mozart
- Jim Reeves
- and many other favourites.
She took pride in her appearance and loved experimenting with hairstyles and clothing. Trips to the hairdresser became part of her regular routine. At the same time she remained deeply compassionate toward elderly people and those in need. I still remember accompanying her while delivering food or visiting older people simply to spend time with them.
Eventually severe drought conditions in the western Transvaal forced my father to leave the Makwassie business and return to the mining industry near Carletonville. Like many South African families during the 1960s, we moved where work could be found.
For a short period we lived in Fochville before relocating to the Western Deep Levels mining property. There my mother once again transformed an ordinary mining house into a home. She adored gardening. Roses were her great love, but she also maintained vegetable gardens filled with:
- beans
- pumpkins
- carrots
- lettuce
- There were always dogs in the house as well. Weekends followed familiar routines:
– washing cars,
– cleaning the garden,
– bathing the dogs,
– and trying not to upset my mother with untidy work or damaged books.
One lesson became unforgettable: never fold the corner of a page in one of her books. She was also deeply sentimental.
Small gifts and keepsakes were carefully stored away for years because they carried emotional meaning. Quietly, she nurtured another dream. She wanted to become a writer. At one stage she enrolled in a writing course and began working on manuscripts of her own. Although she never published a book, several of her handwritten stories and drafts still survive.
She remained active in church and community life for many years, assisting with church committees and helping elderly people wherever she could. Sadly her health began deteriorating while living at Western Deep Levels. Kidney problems eventually caused severe high blood pressure and over time she became increasingly housebound.
Even so, she continued maintaining her garden and home for as long as possible. My father later bought a house in Carletonville where she once again created beautiful flower and vegetable gardens despite her declining health.
In her later years she seldom wanted to leave the house. Then, only months after my father’s sudden death in December 1995, my mother herself became seriously ill. She was admitted to hospital in Carletonville and never returned home.
Elizabeth Johanna Maria McCarthy, born van Staden, died on 19 March 1996 at the age of fifty-eight.
She was buried in the Carletonville cemetery beside her husband.
Looking back now, it is impossible to separate my mother from the atmosphere she created around her:
– books,
– music,
– flowers,
– gardens,
– perfume,
– cakes,
– warm kitchens,
– and the quiet comfort of being cared for.
Through memories, manuscripts, recipes, photographs, and the lifelong love of reading she passed on to her family, Elizabeth Johanna Maria van Staden still remains one of the warmest and most influential figures in the McCarthy family story.
Timeline:
| Year | Event |
| 26 Jul 1927 | Gert Hendrik Rautenbach McCarthy married Elsie Rachel van der Merwe |
| 14 Oct 1928 | Hercules Jacobus Johannes McCarthy born |
| 24 Sep 1937 | Elizabeth Johanna Maria van Staden born on the farm Genadendal near Groot Marico |
| 1943 | Elsie and Hendrik McCarthy relocated to Blyvooruitzicht |
| 9 Apr 1947 | Hercules began apprenticeship at Blyvooruitzicht Mine |
| 27 Apr 1947 | Hercules became a member of the Ventersdorp Dutch Reformed Church |
| 1952 | Hercules qualified as a fitter at Blyvooruitzicht Mine |
| 1953 | Hercules issued with a driver’s licence in Fochville |
| 28 Apr 1956 | Elizabeth Johanna Maria van Staden married Hercules Jacobus Johannes McCarthy |
| 16 Nov 1957 | Son Gert Hendrik Rautenbach McCarthy born in Blyvooruitzicht |
Documents & Evidence:
Key records and sources connected to the life of Elizabeth Johanna Maria van Staden include:
- Birth and family records from the Groot Marico district
- Marriage records of Hercules Jacobus Johannes McCarthy and Elizabeth Johanna Maria van Staden
- School and hostel references connected to Nietverdiend and Groot Marico
- Oral family history preserved through Hendrik McCarthy and the van Staden family
- Book club memberships and surviving family book collections
- Handwritten manuscripts and writing-course material
- Family photographs from Blyvooruitzicht, Makwassie, Fochville, and Carletonville
- Church committee and community-service references
- Hospital and death records from Carletonville
- Personal memories connected to farm life at Doringhoek and Genadendal
Together these records and memories helped preserve the life of a woman who brought warmth, culture, reading, music, compassion, and dignity into the everyday life of her family.
Open Questions:
Despite the many memories preserved about Elizabeth Johanna Maria van Staden, several important questions still remain:
- Can additional photographs from her childhood years in Groot Marico still be located?
- Are there surviving records or photographs of the small school at Nietverdiend?
- Can the original manuscripts and stories she wrote be digitally preserved?
- Are there surviving letters or diaries connected to her years in Makwassie or Western Deep Levels?
- Can more information be found regarding the van Staden farming history around Derdepoort and Groot Marico?
- Are there surviving photographs from the motorcycle honeymoon journey along the South Coast?
- Can the original book collections and reading notes she preserved still be identified?
- Are there extended family members who still remember stories connected to Doringhoek, Genadendal, or the Groot Marico years?
- Can additional oral histories from the van Staden family still be recorded before they are lost to time?