Vaalbank
One farm, two deaths, thirty-five years apart, and the same family on it both times. Jan Gerthardus Lodewikus Booijsen — born district Graaff-Reinet about 1818, fifth child on the 1876 Sterfkennis — died here on 25 May 1885. His daughter Magdalena Susanna Maria, born about 1860, died here on 1 May 1920. It is the clearest evidence this archive has that the family did not merely pass through the western Transvaal but settled in it, two generations before anyone reached Johannesburg. The coordinates are approximate: the district is certain, the farm is not yet placed. AND A SCHOOL ON IT. The education files of the South African Republic hold a school at Vaalbank, district Lichtenburg, post office Rietkuil, teacher J.P. Louw, running through 1898 and 1899 — and the man beside the teacher on its money papers is written DS. BOOYSEN and DS BOOIJSEN. In February 1899 he wrote to the government to ask how school materials could be provided TO ORPHANS, arising from a case among them. Whether DS. is a David Schalk or the Dutch abbreviation for a minister cannot be read off an index line, and six weeks earlier the same school wrote “DS VAN ROOJEN” in the same slot.
The place
| Name | Vaalbank |
| Kind | Farm |
| Region | District Lichtenburg, Transvaal |
| Standing | Documented |
Why it is here
One farm, two deaths, thirty-five years apart, and the same family on it both times. Jan Gerthardus Lodewikus Booijsen — born district Graaff-Reinet about 1818, fifth child on the 1876 Sterfkennis — died here on 25 May 1885. His daughter Magdalena Susanna Maria, born about 1860, died here on 1 May 1920. It is the clearest evidence this archive has that the family did not merely pass through the western Transvaal but settled in it, two generations before anyone reached Johannesburg. The coordinates are approximate: the district is certain, the farm is not yet placed. AND A SCHOOL ON IT. The education files of the South African Republic hold a school at Vaalbank, district Lichtenburg, post office Rietkuil, teacher J.P. Louw, running through 1898 and 1899 — and the man beside the teacher on its money papers is written DS. BOOYSEN and DS BOOIJSEN. In February 1899 he wrote to the government to ask how school materials could be provided TO ORPHANS, arising from a case among them. Whether DS. is a David Schalk or the Dutch abbreviation for a minister cannot be read off an index line, and six weeks earlier the same school wrote “DS VAN ROOJEN” in the same slot.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| 25 May 1885 | Jan Gerthardus Lodewikus Booijsen dies here, aged 67 |
| 1 May 1920 | Magdalena Susanna Maria van den Berg, born Booyzen, dies here, aged 59 years 9 months |
| Dec 1898 | DS. Booysen sends the school's power of attorney and eighteen pence in stamps to the government bookkeeper — TAB OD OR19199/98 |
| 6 Feb 1899 | he asks the department how school materials may be got for orphans — TAB OD OR2037/99 |