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Driefontein Farm
House is the only remaining original farmhouse in Parkmore. It is
now a heritage site and well worth a visit. Please find the
curator, Khumalo, who lives on the property to get permission to
walk around.
The property still retains two four-metre tall water tanks, left
as reminders of early farming life.
The house has a solid stone base and white-washed walls and an iron
roof. It has a well-maintained garden, with toilets situated in the
small outbuildings.
The house belonged to Leo Weber, son of Max, a Swiss
archaeologist who was the first curator of the Johannesburg
geological museum. Leo died in 1980, leaving the house to his son
Ralph, who lives in Germany.
In the early 1980s the house was placed under threat after the
proposal of a road-widening scheme in the area. But in 1983 the
scheme was dropped and the house was saved. In August 1983 the
house was sold by auction and bought by Dr Bruno Foli, who gave the
house to the Sandton council in 1989, to be used as a "cultural
centre and the headquarters of the Sandton Historical Foundation",
according to the Sandton Chronicle of 21 July.
In 1990 the house was renovated and the ablution block was built.
In the process, the original kitchen and bathroom, both
considerably dilapidated, were demolished. Family gravestones from
a nearby woodland were moved to the garden of Driefontein.
Replacing the busy farming settlement which once supplied the
town's fresh fruit and vegetable needs, the house is today
surrounded by upmarket houses and townhouse complexes.
History of Driefontein Farm
House
According to Dr Jane Carruthers, who has written a short history
of the farm Driefontein, the first owner of the property was LP van
Vuuren. He sold it to JJC Erasmus who sold the property to Johannes
Lodewikus Pretorius, who came into possession of 3422 morgen,
stretching from Witkoppen to Craighall. The three springs (drie
fontein) suggested by the title have not been located but it is
known the Braamfontein Spruit ran through the original
property.
In 1877 Pretorius sold a third of the farm, around 894 morgen (the
south-eastern part of Bryanston), to Jan Antonie Smit, and
continued to farm the remainder of Driefontein, says
Carruthers.
When Pretorius died in 1888, the farm was divided among his nine
sons, each of them paying £60 for a 280-morgen share. The value of
the land had risen considerably since 1886 when gold was discovered
on the Witwatersrand.
In 1890 one of the sons, Gerhardus Jacobus, bought his brothers'
portions and consolidated the farm again. But as the town spread
northwards, he began to sell off portions, one of which went to
Herbert Gladstone Nolan, who sold it to adventure-seekers Adolf and
Elsa Wilhelmi, who arrived in Johannesburg from Germany in 1891. In
1893 they bought 51 morgen and planted fruit trees - some of which
still exist - and supplied the growing town with produce.
Elsa sub-divided the land and sold 9,56 morgen to the Salvation
Army, and 42 morgen to Ralph Sandilands Arderne. At the beginning
of the South African War of 1899-1902 she returned to Germany,
where her husband joined her, avoiding imprisonment for fighting
for the Boers.
They returned to South Africa at the end of the war, and, having no
land, became tenants on their previous farm, courtesy of Arderne.
In 1906, says Carruthers, Arderne generously gave them back almost
half of the land – some 20 morgen - he had bought from them
in 1899.
Elsa farmed this land and in 1937 sold it to Philip Arnold, who
built a large house, now the property of the Sandston Field and
Study Centre, acquired in 1977.
Elsa's daughter, Freya, was given a two-morgen piece of land by
Arderne, and the Driefontein farmhouse was built at the top of the
hill, with the Braamfontein Spruit half a kilometre to the north of
the house.
In the meantime, another immigrant, Max Weber, bought land
adjoining Freya's piece, and subsequently married her, extending
her farm with the addition of his two pieces – 5,5 morgen and
10,2 morgen.
Max Weber
Max Weber was born in 1874 and trained as a manufacturer of
scientific instruments. In his early 20s, says researcher Avril
Reid, he decided to go to America but on the dockside of Marseilles
harbour he impulsively changed his mind and jumped aboard a ship
for Cape Town.
He is next found fighting for the Boers in Natal, where he was
wounded and sent to Joburg to recover. But the town had just been
taken by the British and, fearing arrest as an "uitlander"
(foreigner) , he took refuge north of the town, possibly on
Driefontein, where he met the Wilhelmi family, says Reid. In 1900
he moved north, possibly meeting up with Adolf Wilhelmi, who was
fighting with Boer commander General de la Rey.
After the war he developed a "passionate interest" in geology and
became an "accomplished geologist", building a laboratory near the
farmhouse. He later became curator of the Johannesburg geological
museum.
He was appointed as consultant geologist to the Messina copper
mine, and was the friend and partner of geologist Dr Hans
Merensky.
"Over the years Max Weber developed a special reputation for
recognising different minerals and he was a scientist of
distinction," says Reid.
He is described by author Juliet Marais Louw, who lived on nearby
Benmore Farm, as a "modest and self-effacing man". She describes
his laboratory as having the "air of an alchemist's den".
The laboratory was later altered by Leo, Max and Freya's son, and
became known as Railway Cottage because of the number of railway
sleepers used in the alteration. It was demolished in 1990.
Weber died in 1948 and Freya continued to run the farm before she
died in 1982, leaving the farm to be divided between their sons,
Normi and Leo.
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Freya
Weber
Louw recounts with much affection her relationship with Freya, whom
she first met with two small sons, Normi and Leo.
Louw describes her as "working on the farm like a man: ploughing,
planting crops and flowers, pruning fruit trees taking her produce
to Newtown market". |
"To me she always seemed to enjoy wholeheartedly everything she
did," adds Louw.
Freya had married 34-year-old Max when she was 17. As a child, she
was taught by her mother, and was sent to the German School at the
age of 12. But she was so homesick that her father brought her home
and she never went to school again. She continued to be taught by
her mother and Max gave her violin lessons.
"She was an extremely intelligent woman, good and kind and true as
steel," says Louw.
In her mother's day there was a little shop and post office on the
farm, called Post Office Freya. Her mother worked hard on the farm,
schooled her children at home, while fighting to get a school built
in the area. She was a great reader, and, says Carruthers, "she had
a great sense of humour and a bubbling personality which endeared
her to everyone who met her".
After Freya's father, Adolf, had dammed a section of the
Braamfontein Spruit, it became a favourite picnic place for the
German community in the town.
Max's income from the Messina Copper Mines meant that the family
didn't need to rely on farming to earn a living, but Freya loved
farm work and "continued to the end of her life more or less as she
had done in the lean years of her girlhood".
During the depression, says Louw, she helped out many families,
giving them money or accommodation.
She used to make trips to the Johannesburg library in town and
bring back books for the family and her mother, who read in German,
Afrikaans, English, Hollands and bit of French.
Louw recalls her visits to the Driefontein house, where "everybody
was always busy and yet there was such a feeling of peace". In the
face of family tragedies, it was "big, strong capable Freya, the
gentle one; warm-hearted, patient, understanding, humorous,
compassionate", who Louw remembers best
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