family tree(Laura Weber) This little bit of family history is in memory of my sister Isabella. She recently passed away peacefully in her sleep in Israel. She was in South Africa last July for a family gathering to celebrate her eightieth birthday. David, her son, asked me to write a few things about our heritage and general background. He wanted his children and their family in Israel to know that they also have family in other parts of the world. I am going to write a light hearted account of hearsay stories.

Bits and pieces of news about the Percivals.

Our Grandmother was Caroline Lavinia Percival (nee Powers). We are not sure where she was born, presumably Cape Town. She originates from an Anglo Irish family, from Dublin. Her father worked for the British Government and was sent to Cape Town posted to one of the administrative depts. of the Government.

Percival is a name of ancient Norman origin from a town called Percivella in Normandy. The name was brought to England in the wake of William the Conqueror's army. I have only managed to trace our family to Great Grandfather, Charles Henry Percival born l830, Wandsworth in Surrey.

I believe there are family still in the area. It is very hard and expensive to carry on the trace, but I will try. However we have obviously retained the name since the battle of Hasting in l066. The Percivals could have been soldiers in Williams' army.

My Grandfather Charles Henry immigrated to South Africa. He bought into a business, and it seems he knew quite a few people from Surrey who had also arrived and highly recommended a new way of an ideal life style. One or two second cousins from marriages also immigrated at the same time, as business prospects were good in Cape Town, which had now become well known and a popular destination from many people in Surrey.

Charles Henry was enticed by a good business offer with a South American Company who refrigerated, frozen beef to Argentina. They owned their own steam ship.

Business was extremely successful for twenty years and everyone was happy to make money. Charles Henry Jnr. was able to send his children to an English School run by the Anglican Church especially for British children from the Colonies. I think his uncle who was a Bishop probably encouraged the family to have his children educated in England. My father told me his Grandmother Harriet Allen was a bookish person. Actually I never thought to enquire what he meant by this statement.

It could mean any characteristic attached to her, like maybe a teacher or something in the library line or just books generally.

The Aunts and Uncles that I met all spoke with very good modulated English accents, and we had to mind our rather rough colonial Rhodesian way of speaking to them, otherwise we were severely corrected.

The business ran smoothly for about twenty years. One day they received the worst possible news; the ship bound for South America with a full cargo, tragically sank in a very rough sea with all aboard, and so did the money and investments in the Company. Because there was such a stigma attached to the loss against Charles Henry, that had begun to accumulate at a feverish rate, he decided to abandon everything in Cape Town, because he had started to lose his social standing in the community, a 'disgraceful affair'.

His eldest son lived and ran a small business in America, persuaded him to leave Africa and make a fresh start there. They crossed over to South Hampton in England and from there boarded a ship called the St. Louis in l904, bound for the United States of America. The ship was full of immigrants.

The children were by then old enough to finish their schooling in Cape Town and make up their own minds about what they wanted to do.

My father thought it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He loved America and what the United States stood for, the greatest democracy in the world. He said everyone wanted to work and advance to a better way of life without the class system to hinder their progress. The new immigrants were free to follow their dreams. He took great pride in being regarded as an American. The mass immigrants evolved and made a country far ahead of anyone in the world, even today by comparison.

The following paragraphs are of the uncles and aunts:

In the beginning my father stayed with his brother in Falls River, Bristol, Massachusetts and worked for him. He eventually attended night school in Boston to qualify in the building construction world. My father and his sister Carrie, who had decided to go with her parents, were inclined to be musical. Carrie played the piano in a Jazz Band in Boston.

Father was taking lessons in, I thought was the flute, my sister said the Piccolo, and my daughter said the Trombone, take your pick. His sister Laura Beatrice opted to stay in Cape Town, as she was engaged through an arrangement made by her father with a friend of his, Harry Sloggett Bawden, who had just recently started farming in Rhodesia.

Laura took the University of the Cape of Good Hope advanced examination, in singing and passed by the Examiner of the Royal College of Music, London. She had a very rich and deep contralto voice. Sadly none of her family and relatives inherited her gift. Although our mother secretly hoped my sister and I would sing like Aunty Laura, we unfortunately had developed rather flat toned voices. Once my Aunt Laura was married and became a farmer's wife there was actually not one audience she could sing to. The only time she got to use her voice, was singing her rather beautiful songs to Isabella and myself when we spent our short school holidays on the farm.

Walter Stanley was the eldest brother, and a Shakespearian scholar. He taught English at private schools in Cape Town. The only problem was the family only got rare glimpses of Walter for short periods, as he kept disappearing from time to time, and never told anyone where he was going. In between bouts of several years of suddenly appearing and then disappearing, it looks as if had joined up with some private army in South Africa and was sent to fight the German Colonists in South West Africa.

Then he left suddenly unbeknown to his family, as he never informed them of his plans or where he was. He turned up in Australia of all places to visit without giving any reasons. Once back in Africa his brother in law gave him a sheep farm. Walter hated the sheep and farm and soon left. However he stayed on in Rhodesia. The youngest brother Douglas wanted to live with his Grandmother Harriet, in England and study for the stage.

I met Douglas and he was quite an exciting man with lots of personality and gay as a bird. I was utterly fascinated by the dainty movements of his hands when he talked. When he came to visit us in Africa he stayed with his sister on the farm and with my parents in turn. He gave us a Noel Coward impersonation, and I played the piano for him and all the songs he taught me were played by air as we did not have music sheets. This was the one time Aunty Laura got to sing in front of an audience, however small in numbers. My parents were thrilled and delighted by the concert and gave some good hearty cheers.

It is said that if you want to study your ancestry, look carefully at our recent and our present history and we might get some idea of what to look for in our past generations, and how we inherited our genes. In a way it is like a reverse process. Interesting to see whose selective gene dominates a person.

I decided to go fishing in the gene pool, and mainly by coincidence pulled out quite a catch. The prize at the end was from our Great grandmother Harriet Allen.

I started from the present, with an academic point: My youngest granddaughter Jessica was granted a bursary from Wits University to study a further two years for a teacher's degree in English etc. My sister Isabella was a qualified teacher for thirty two years. Uncle Walter was a Student of Shakespeare and taught English, in between his act of disappearing every now and then. I can understand in a way what my father meant when he said Harriet was 'bookish'.

Somewhere in amongst all the talk and gossip trying to figure out who is who about the family, there were discussions about General Percival who was sent as CO to Malay in l940 to hold off the mighty Japanese Army, which was an impossible task. The General was forced to surrender. Headline news, Britain's shame at the loss of Malay and Singapore.

The blame fell entirely on Percivals' shoulders. Aunty Laura was quite vague about the distant cousin bit. In those days we had to rely on family knowledge rather than Google which was still a far distant dream to explode on the world. My curiosity got the better of me, so I read all about the historical account of the events. When all the hysteria had died down, he was years later completely vindicated. He had to surrender which he did with great dignity.

But the press turned on him and he must have suffered. In the prison of war camps he looked after his soldiers. The Japanese officers were very respectful towards him. My father told me he was sure it was the old generals conducting the war from London, who were a good deal responsible for the loss in of Malay.

To get back to l914 : When the Great War Started in l914, my father crossed over to Canada and joined the Army there and was accepted into the 69th O- Battalion CEF (Canadian Over-Seas Expedition Force) and was sent to France where he spent the next four years in the Trenches.

After the war he stayed on in Canada for a while and did quite a bit of travelling working his way around Quebec earning his keep by doing odd jobs for the many French farmers he encounted. He then went to Montreal as he had hopes of joining the Canadian Mounted Police. As I have never seen my father on a horse or even knew he had ever been in contact with one, I found it hard to imagine him riding on horseback for such a glamorous police force. My parents married in their late forties, and my sister and I were born when they were middle aged. From the age of six years old I saw my father with a mop of white hair and big horn rimmed glasses, dressed safari style, so I could not bring my mind around to envisage him in the Canadian Mounted Police Force. However a portrait photo of my father recently came to light from my cousin, and I must say he looked quite handsome.

Unfortunately his mother became very ill and wanted to come back to Cape Town. His father needed him to accompany to help care for his mother on the journey. My Dad loved America and Canada and did not want to leave. Sadly the American venture ended.

His sister Laura Beatrice, was delighted to see her brother again as she was suffering from terrible bouts of loneliness. Harry persuaded him to come and join them on the farm. Harry eagerly awaited his arrival; he had great hopes of getting someone at last to breed and farm his sheep so he generously gave my father the same small farm in the area suitable for sheep.

It turned out, like his brother Walter he hated sheep and farming. Father joined the B.S.A. Police; His duties were going to all the farms on a motorcycle which he quite enjoyed. He had applied and received a better offer from the British S.A. Railways. He was posted to Portugese East Africa, where he stayed for 2l years and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. He began his life as a Colonial in Beira a Seaport town.

He told me it was thanks to his experience working on building sites in America and attending night school in Boston, he obtained the position to run such an enormous complex. He brought a new way of working conditions unheard of in that part of the world. Life became tolerable and greatly improved for his staff. He was able to impart that knowledge and experience, he had learnt in America to the many people who worked under him.

My father loved Beira. He was an Engineer in charge of an enormous workshop which included the security and well being of Beira. His duties took him as far as Malawi and Rhodesia. His staff consisted of different nationalities. By the time war was declared, Dad was running a very tight secret service operation with all his staff involved and employed by him to keep a watch on any suspicious looking people or movements. Portugal was neutral, but this did not deter his small well trained undercover agents from watching and reporting. It was well known that German U Boats were around before the war, and had rights to refuelling at some of the islands.

In l930 he met and married my mother. They led quite an exciting social life. They acquired a taste for international cuisine, and definitely favoured Chinese meals.

My father wore the typical cream colonial safari suits very popular and fashionable, a bush jacket and matching trousers, a white helmet completed the outfit. For his spotless grooming as he was always dressed with impeccable care in crisp clothes, he had Thompson our servant to thank. My sister and I were absolutely enthralled to witness the tremendous effort and pride Thompson put into this procedure a master in his own right at the way he handled the charcoal iron with such skill.

His preparation with the iron was to fill it with charcoal and then light up, by blowing and puffing, with a great deal of vigour, until the charcoal started to burst into bright red flames alive with sparks, darting around the iron. He then proceeded to give the iron a couple of huge spits and thumps, a few good rough shakes above his head with sparks flying all over the place, ready for the ironing session, and with a flourish set to work, accompanied by a high pitched tuneless sort of keening that ranged higher and better than any opera diva. We never missed a performance; we were his most devoted fans.

The beaches in Beira were noted for the miles of golden sand, attracting many tourists from Rhodesia, favouring this destination as a school holiday resort.

My sister and I had a wonderful life. Our parents were in their forties when they married, and their whole life was given to making us happy. Like naughty children we took full advantage of this utopian state.

During the holidays a lot of children were dumped at the beach to play and while away the afternoons, no doubt to keep us out of the way to stop harassing our busy parents with demands. The beach was a marvellous playground so we kept ourselves happily occupied, especially at the ship wreck. At high tide the sea would flow into the wreck making it a safe place to paddle and frolic free from sharks.

There were many shark sighting just before the war. One afternoon my sister and I were wading in the waves looking for shells, when we heard a sound like a sort of swish, and behold a shark silver in colour flashed passed close by and what an absolutely magnificent sight of sheer primeval power, a creature from another early world. We were so impressed and frightened to the extent that our father felt quite confident we would not venture out to far and just play around the edge of the waves.

On one of our strolls at the beach my sister and I saw two nuns sitting behind a dune smoking cigarettes, speaking in a foreign language. But what struck us were the big black boots they were wearing. Fortunately we were Convent School girls, so we crept away knowing something was not right, and raced to the car park to wait for Dad to pick us up. I will always remember the look of delighted surprise on his face that we were actually there for a change waiting for him. Usually he had to hoot for several minutes, and then get out of the car to come and look for us.

Needleless to say the two nuns or correctly German spies were caught two hours later walking in town. It was the boots that gave them away.
My parents had made friends with Captain Smith of a Merchant Ship called the City of London, The ship sailed all over the Far East and Capt. Smith bought many beautiful art pieces, and china, carvings, pictures, and luxurious goods. He knew exactly when the time was right to buy and sell. When Captain Smith came back from his travels, he always bought Chinese and Indian ornament gifts for them. We still have quite a collection. My father loved the delicate Chinese china and art. I inherited two china vases displayed here. It was his piece de resistance. He loved the beautiful elegant picture of the peacocks on the vases.

The vases travelled many journeys and moved in packing cases with my parents and later with me, eventually arriving in Cape Town, much the worse for wear, chipped and cracked in places. I put the vases away at the back of my cupboard. Last year when my son and his wife Petro came to my sister's birthday celebration, I showed Petro the two vases and asked her if she could do anything with them. The vases go back to pre war.

Petro restores broken and worn objects for the love of bringing beautiful things back to life, took on the work. I said to her if you can fix this, I will give them to you with much love.

I remember my father and mother always placed the vases in a good position to get a certain light to see them at their best. Petro has done the same with pride. The vases go back pre war.

When war was declared in l939, the City of London was taken over by the British Government and the Red Cross, which included taking frail children to Australia. The ship was torpedoed by a German U Boat. My father was horrified and saddened by the loss of such a good friendship that they had over the years.

All too soon it was time for my parents to bid farewell to Beira and the colonial way of life. My mother told me on the day they were driven to the station, which was crowded with hundreds of cheering people wishing them well. My parents stood on the coach balcony as the train slowly pulled away, the driver blowing the whistle all the way down the line for the waiting people who could not make it to the station.

Father had tears streaming down his eyes, as he had never expected the love and respect they showed him that day.

I have not written about my mother's side of the family as the trace is still a work in progress. I found my Scottish uncles very adventurous and vibrant. They came to the Eastern Cape in or about l830, and as a child I was absolutely intrigued by what they did. They flourished and ran successful trading stations. My uncles were very quiet men, but believe me there is no truer saying as actions speak louder than words.

This is a good time to end the story of the older generation, which I am now thought of as one by my grandchildren. I shall endeavour to try and do a trace about Harriet Allen and her side of the family through the British ancestry documents.

---