Pharaoh’s Dreams

 On 24th October 1929 seven gaunt and ugly cows devoured America’s sleek, fat cows and in the other dream thin heads of grain greedily swallowed up the healthy, full heads. On Black Thursday the roaring twenties screeched to a halt – the United States sneezed and an economic pandemic, for which there was no vaccine, engulfed the world. Wall Street went into a tailspin and brick by brick the world economy crashed into a Great Depression.

South African Prime Minister, General Hertzog, confidently declared that, since few South Africans were heavily invested in Wall Street, the country had naught to fear: “There is no reason to anticipate a slump.” (Cameron- Dow, 2007) By Jove, was he mistaken!

When the bubble popped, ripples spread across the globe. Since the Industrial Revolution a new economic reality had changed the world and a new inter-connectedness, facilitated by burgeoning global trade, had been fashioned. The collapse of a major economic power prevented escape from the vortex of financial doom, as one market after another descended into economic ruin and slammed shut the export markets of a largely under industrialised state reliant on mining and agricultural products. As prices fell, South Africa slid down a slippery slope that culminated, within a decade, in staggering unemployment and dire poverty for those who had held their own during the good times, but were insufficiently prepared for a disaster such as this. It was as if the universe had conspired to make a bad situation worse as severe drought grasped the agricultural sector and squeezed the last remaining drops out of it.

This was the reality that upended the lives of a family that had plodded along, building up a business in the working class suburb of Woodstock, Cape Town. Trained as a confectioner, Jacobus Izak Steenekamp had set up shop in Mountain Road, Woodstock. He and his wife and six children lived in an annex behind the street-facing confectionery and bakery. Over time the shop had managed to build up a loyal clientele in the mixed race and cosmopolitan district. A cheerful little corner in the shop seated a few patrons in what had grown into a delightful quasi tea room. It was a “chattery” where Jewish shopkeepers, Portuguese fruit and vegetable traders,  coloured and white Afrikaner labourers and a motley assortment of West Indians, St Helenians and Cape Muslims happily rubbed shoulders with fishermen of Philippine heritage. They would breeze in and out, sometimes sitting down for a sweet treat and a friendly chat with the rich assortment of folk from the area. 

As the agricultural sector strained under the weight of the depression, being a “bywoner” (tenant on a farm and in exchange for their labour, the provision of a roof and some sustenance) became less of an option. Derelict farms were denuded on folk who found their way into Woodstock and surrounds in search of some sort of employment to eke out a meagre living. The South African Railways stepped in to ameliorate the problem of poverty to some extent – providing jobs as porters at the station, work gangs for the manual maintenance of rolling stock and lines and a variety of other unskilled labour for folk who could barely read and write, but were willing to break their backs to feed their kids. The SAR became a major source of sheltered employment in the dark days of deep economic woe. (Giliomee, 2004)

It was in this milieu that Jacobus, much to the indignation of his wife, would operate a backdoor “soup kitchen” for the downtrodden and desperately hungry. He would hand out bread and other odds and ends to all and sundry who would knock on his door in desperation. His kind heart, given the growing extent of the problem, soon led to his business teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Before he would run the risk of surrendering his business to the bank and other creditors, he decided to wind it down himself. Sadly, the tea room, bakery and confectionery shut its welcoming doors – a victim of times in which less money was available for sweet luxury treats and a sit-down experience in a tea room, as well as the generosity of old Jacobus whose abundant kindness led to his own undoing. The closing of the confectionery put another large family in harms way. There were still eight mouths to feed and clothing banks and “depression tackies” could only help to a degree. By the mid-1930s, he had migrated to the outskirts of Woodstock and occupied a two-roomed corrugated iron rental “shack”. Few houses in Woodstock in those days had the luxury of indoor plumbing and electricity was in its infancy as a household utility. Most were accustomed to using an “outhouse” which would be serviced by a midnight cart that ferried the malodourous waste away. Most folk spent evenings cloistered around paraffin lamps. However, the corrugated abode took these deprivations to a whole new level as water had to be fetched in pails from a communal faucet, and the roof leaked like a sieve during the incessant rain and wind of Cape Town’s winters.

Odd jobs distantly removed from Jacobus Izak’s skills as an adept confectioner, kept the family alive. The kids went to Mountain Road School – their clothing buckling under the extent of over-wear and their mom’s limited needlework equipment and her ability to patch up when and where she could. The old man would keep the depression tackies going as an amateur cobbler. 

Recovery from the Great Depression took many years and most people became self-reliant in a bid to keep the wolf of hunger at bay. No less this family that slowly worked its way to survival and decades later, a degree of prosperity. 

Sadly, the cycle of poverty and economic deprivation continues despite twenty-first century prosperity surrounding it. It is a cycle that repeats itself with monotonous regularity, just with different players and different families. Unemployment still dogs the nation. Folk still use their ingenuity to eke out a living, despite the overwhelming odds. 

The indomitable human spirit continues to astound.

References:

Cameron- Dow, J. (2007). A newspaper history of South Africa. Cape Town: Don Nelson Publishers.

Giliomee, H. (2004). Die Afrikaners. Cape Town: Tafelberg.

©Paul M Haupt