Benoni Weldons

Weldons

Uncle Johnny worked as the Benoni postmaster, and had married Maria Reynecke, an Afrikaans women from Doornfontein (close to Jeppe, where he and his siblings had grown up). In consequence, their children (Johnny, known as “Boetie” when young, Mary and Joan) were completely bilingual. Patrick and John Charles were pretty close, and in the winter regularly attended football matches together every Saturday and some evenings. When they did so, the rest of the families were left together, either at our house, or theirs. In the summer, we also often got together almost every weekend, sometimes for a picnic or braai together. Johnny was just a year older than I was, Mary was Margaret’s age so we often had sleepovers at each other’s home – I would go to them while Mary came to us, or vice versa.

Johnny married an American woman, Galilee Borden, whom I met by chance when still a student, having a meal on Johannesburg station. They told me that Galilee was a Mormon, and Johnny obviously joined the church. I later heard from Mom that he was working as a missionary in Zambia (all young adult Mormon males are required to spend some time as missionaries). He and his family are now living in the North West USA. Just he has the same forenames as his father (John Charles II), making him John Charles III), I see that on Geni his eldest son and first grandson are called respectively John Charles IV and John Charles V.

Mary married a Samuel Brown, who died in 2001. Some time before that, she had herself suffered a stroke at an unusually young age. This was sufficiently serious to have her forced into retirement from work, but did not seem to affect her too badly in day to day functioning. She and her family once came to dinner with Bruce and myself in Kensington, and I did not notice anything particularly awkward in her functioning.

Joan married Chris Aggett, whom I met once or twice, but do not recall anything worth reporting.

All three have children and grandchildren of their own, of whom I know nothing other than what you can look up yourself on the genealogy websites.

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