“Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant!”

Matthew 25:21

“Lewies”

            This is not a story that I wanted to write but there have been forces stronger than myself urging me to do so.   I can now sleep peacefully without dreaming about this old man.

            During 1940 when I was only about seven years old, I attended a funeral on our farm “Maizefield” in the Free State, with my parents and my grandfather David Randall, his three sons and daughters-in-law and some of their children.   I understand that my sister were also there.  There were also some black farm labourers and their wives.   It was the funeral of old Lewies, an old black man that I had known since I was born.   He had been a personal servant and friend of Dave Randall for about 55 years.

            David Randall was born and grew up on the farm “Hogsback” on the coast, east of the Great Fish River.  He and his three brothers inherited this farm after their mother died in 1873, but as he was only a boy of eleven he stayed on with his married brother until he was about eighteen years of age.   He then moved to the Free State where he became involved in the Tribal Wars.

David Randall (Dave)

            There was a lot of unrest in the Free State with tribal migration and the raiding of farms.   Black tribes such as the ‘Wildcat’ People were attacking other tribes and in some cases the whole tribe would be wiped out.   The White farmers joined the Commandos to try and keep the peace or to try and save the weaker tribes from being overrun and wiped out by the stronger ones.  The ‘Basters’ from the Orange River were also attacking and murdering the Blacks and stealing all their cattle.

            It was on one of these peace keeping reconnaissance patrols that the commando came upon a native kraal where all the people had been killed and their huts burned down.   While some of the Soldiers and their black lackeys were digging a mass grave to bury all the dead, Dave Randall was looking for dead bodies when he came across a black boy of about twelve years old who had an assegai wound and was terrified out of his mind.   Not one of the soldiers, nor their assistants, could understand him, so Dave tried IsiXhosa which he could speak from growing up in the Peddie Area.   The youngster clung to him and asked him to please save his life.   He said that all his people were dead and that this was the third time that he had managed to escape from the ‘Wildcat’ People.   The Commando still had a long way to go and there was no way that they could take a wounded boy with them and there were no native kraals in the area.   The Black people were also very superstitious and would never help a child who had escaped death and was alone.   Surely he would have had some super natural powers!

            Most of the men said that the boy should be left there, but Dave pleaded that the boy’s life be spared.   It was then agreed that he could be relieved of his duties to take the child home to where his brother, John Henry Randall, was farming in the Frankfort district.  When Dave asked him what his name was he said something that sounded like “Lewies”   So “Lewies” he became and stayed so until he died.   He was not a person of a pure black race as his mother had been raped by a Baster while still in her teens and as a result she became an outcast of her tribe and so was her son when he was born.   Over the years on the farm, where he worked and played with the white boys, he forgot his own language and learned to speak Afrikaans, which he did for the rest of his life.  Unfortunately he was always shunned by the Blacks.   (The Basters were the descendants of Hottentots, Bushman, run-away slaves, Whites and Blacks; a real mixture of South African races)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Up to this point I have written this story from bits and pieces of information that was passed down to me over the years.   Along the way I have had to make my own assumptions as to what exactly had occurred.   Lewies obviously had coloured blood and refused to be known as anything other than “Baas Dave se Volk”.

Ellen Marshall

            Lewies was rather a small man when he grew up, so there could possibly have Bushman blood in his veins.   He was devoted to the man who had saved his life and, when Dave started transport riding, Lewies was his ‘Touleier’ and his cook.   Always reliable, honest and faithful .  At one stage in his life, Dave went to Rhodesia where he joined the Rhodesian Police Force.   We can only surmise that this was when Lewies was growing up on John Randall’s farm.   In November 1890 Dave married Ellen Marshall in Lindley in the Free State.   He bought his own farm “Sansoucie” in the Heilbron district where he and Ellen settled and where five of their children were born.   Lewies was their ‘houseboy’ and slept under the kitchen table where he could make the early morning coffee.   He never associated with the Black folk so he never married.   My mother said that he bribed them to pinch some of Oupa Dave’s tobacco for him and in turn would give the children, who brought him some tobacco, coffee in bed.   The Old Baas knew what was going on, but turned a blind eye to it.   Lewies was their friend, but it was no use asking him to cover for you for any of your wrong doings.

Oupa Dave Randall

            When Dave Randall lost his farm, Lewies moved with the family to “Zwartkuil” in the Kroonstad district.   This was Uncle George Hodgman’s farm and he allowed them to live on a portion of it and to plough a land for themselves.   Lewies helped with the twins, Jim and Paaitjie, and they nicknamed him as “Poon”, their horse, on whose back the rode.   He was there when Granny Ellen died from a stroke in 1930 and made it his special task after that of taking care of his “Old Baas”.   He moved to “Maizefield” when Jim and Paaitjie bought Uncle Arthur Whittal’s half.   Dave Randall moved with his sons who were both still unmarried.   He was there when Paaitjie Randall married Stienie Griesel and he served them faithfully.   This was where I got to know the old fellow who was treated with great respect by the whole family.   And then he died……

            I witnessed white men digging a grave for an old grey-headed black man, carrying his coffin and letting it slowly down into the grave.   Many tears were shed even by David Randall who was then 78 years old.   The Randall brothers filled the grave themselves.   R I P