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SEDGEFIELD NEWS - It's not easy lasting a whole century on this planet, but a woman from Sedgefield has done exactly that, thereby joining only a handful of local residents to reach this milestone.
On Sunday 6 May, Hester Magdalena Junius, affectionately known as "Ouma" to the residents and staff of Sedgemmer Park in Sedgefield, celebrated her 100th birthday with family and friends at the home. She was born the same year as former president Nelson Mandela, in 1918.
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According to her daughter Lynne Steyn, Ouma was born near Kuruman where she attended an agricultural school nearby, and later worked as a young girl in Johannesburg where she met her husband Charlie.
"They were married in 1940 and celebrated their 70th anniversary before he died in 2010 aged 97," said Steyn.
Before they moved to Sedgefield – where Ouma has been living at Sedgemeer Park for the past eight years – Steyn says her parents lived in Namibia where they raised four children. In 1982 they moved back to South Africa.
'Feisty and tough'
"My mother was always very feisty and tough, but recently she has become quite fragile. She always says 'getting old isn't for sissies'. I am convinced that one of the reasons she reached 100 years is because she used to walk a lot throughout her life.
Even when she was in her early 90s, when my parents visited us on our farm in the Kalahari, she would walk 3km every morning, and that was through the veld! She would set off across the pan, and after a kilometre she would strike the soft dune sand. She walked on and climbed the dune until she reached a certain brandy bush on top of the hill. There she picked a leaf from this bush as evidence of how far she has walked," Steyn says.
Ouma grew up during the Big Depression in the 1930s.
"One story she told me, that always made her sad, was how my grandfather had to barter farm animals for supplies for his family. Once he had to exchange one of his biggest and best cattle for only two bags of flour, two bags of sugar, two bags of rice and some coffee – supplies the family needed to survive for two months! No wonder Ouma is such a tough cookie," says Steyn.
Hester and Charlie Junius on their wedding day in 1940, Kempton Park. They were married for 70 years in 2010, before Hester lost her husband. He was 97.
'She never gives up'
In Ouma's lifetime, her daughter says, she even helped her husband build their first house. "In those days many of the farms in the old South West Africa were undeveloped and very few had houses. They had to build a small two-room house where they lived for a year until they could afford a bigger one.
"My mom helped my dad with this and they even made the bricks themselves. When she became old, she always bragged tongue-in-cheek, 'With these two small hands I built that house – all on my own!'"
Steyn says her mother has always been positive, outspoken, and even cheeky. "And she never ever gave up. Even at the age of 98 she would still refuse to take a nap after lunch. When everyone else went for a nap, she would sit up straight in her chair, because 'you only lie in bed during the day if you're sick!'."
To Steyn, her mother is her hero.
"There is no one I admire more. She is one of a kind. They don't make them like that anymore."
Some of Ouma's favourite sayings according to her daughter include "Elkeen het maar sy krulle en grille" (each one has his idiosyncrasies), "Swygen en denken doet niemand krenken" (no harm in keeping quiet and thinking), and "You know I was the beaut of Jo' Burg".
Here's wishing Ouma many more years from all at Knysna-Plett Herald.
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