Gallery Samples Stories of our Ancestors | Page 7

her and she insisted on taking Lauren, aged 10, as well. So while I made the plans Ruby carried on with her chart. I got leave from work where I was an intern psychologist at the time and made all the arrangements while Ruby’s share in the proceedings was to practice using the escalator at Stuttafords so that she would be prepared for the underground! AND she was far too busy doing her genealogical chart anyway to do mundane things like packing. In September 1988, Mother Ruby put down her pen at last and declared her project completed, the day before we were due to depart. Ruby was just about to turn 80 and little did we suspect that her sight was failing. Sadly, due to macular degeneration the freedom and joy of words and reading was soon to be lost to her forever. And now that my mother’s birth date is upon me once again I feel her presence close by demanding that I put all this information into story form, to make it more ‘user-friendly’ for our family to read. As we all know, there’s no stopping Ruby when she sets her mind on a task for someone else to do. In this situation she has been abled and abetted by my children Russel, Tracy and Lauren, who keep check on my progress and make sure I don’t stop until it is done! As Tracy said “Mom, you are the last one left with the legends that granny told. If you don’t write the stories down they will be lost forever”. So here we go. I CHAPTER 1: THE GENEALOGY t is important when you read this story that you have the Genealogical Chart at hand as there are frequent referrals to names and places and dates. One would lose quite a lot without the quick cross references. All the sisters and the brothers too, I think, were given copies. The Genealogical Chart centers in Carl Gustav Andersson, the founder of the Anderson family in South Africa. From the time of ???????????????????????A?????????????????????????)??????????????????M???????????????????????????????????????????????????)?????????M?????????) I0?UMQX?9IMM=8??????????Q