Helen Martins was the creator of the Owl House located in the small Eastern Cape Village of Nieu-Bethesda. Her life and her creations have captured the imagination of a vast community and apart from being a central character in the Athol Fugard play (and movie) Road to Mecca, Miss Helen's erstwhile home has become a central tourist attraction in this special Karoo Village. So many of the residents of our village owes a huge debt to this artist who was in her life shunned by a large part of the community. I trust that this special cache will serve as a celebration of Miss Helen's life and legacy.
The Life of Miss Helen
Helen Elizabeth Martins was born on 23 December 1897 in Nieu-Bethesda. She was the youngest in a family of 10 children, but only six survived infancy. Her folks, Petrus Jacobus Martins and Hester Catherine Caroline Martins (nee Van der Merwe) brought the family up in Nieu-Bethesda. Helen attended the village school (today the tennis and bowls club). After school she attended the Teachers’ College in Graaff-Reine (today it is a police college). After graduating as a teacher, Helen married Johannes Pienaar in 1926. They moved to Volksrust where both of them were highly regarded teachers. During this time they also shared an interest in theatre and they travelled, appearing in theatre productions in the Transvaal, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.
The marriage was not happy and ended in divorce in 1926. It is rumoured she may have had two abortions during the short marriage, but sources differ on the accuracy of these claims. Following the divorce, Helen moved to the Transvaal. Her whereabouts thereafter are unclear and the subject of speculation. She may have been teaching, working in bookstores or even been waitressing. Her mother’s illness brought her wandering to an end and in 1928 she returned to Nieu-Bethesda to look after her ailing mother. She nursed her mother, who suffered from breast cancer until her death on 10 January 1941.
Helen remained in the family home, looking after her ageing father. According to all accounts Piet Martins was a difficult man. Over time the relationship between Helen and her father deteriorated. After her mother’s death, he was moved to a black painted windowless outhouse called “the lion’s den”. Her father passed away from bowel cancer at the age of ninety-three on 1 February 1945. With the death of her father the family house was left to Helen where she now ended up living alone.
According to her sister, Annie, Helen was lying sick in bed one night with the moon shining into the house when she realised how grey, dull and dreary things were. This sparked the idea to bring physical light into the house. This idea resulted in the creation of the colourful crushed glass patterns on the walls and ceilings in the Owl House as well as the large number of mirrors strategically located around the house to reflect the maximum amount of light into the colourful rooms.
Miss Helen was involved in a relationship of some twenty-three years with Johannes Hatting, a married man living in the area. They met after Hatting and his family relocated to Nieu-Bethesda from Middelburg. After being hit by lightning twice, his ability to manage his farm was diminished resulting in the farm going bankrupt. He then worked as a builder in the Nieu-Bethesda area. Their relationship is said to have started in 1940 when he did some building work for Helen and it lasted until his death in 1963. Hatting was the first of the four men that helped her in her creation of the Owl House. He assisted with work inside the house and it is thought that he was also involved in the creation of the early statues in the yard. In an alleged attempt to get Hatting to end his marriage, Helen married Jacobus Johannes Machiel Niemand on 4 July 1952. However, this marriage was apparently not consummated and was ended after only a few months.
Hatting never left his wife, but also did not end the relationship with Helen until his death from a brain tumour in 1963. In the period that Miss Helen worked on the interior of the Owl House, Jonas Adams and Piet van der Merwe were involved as labourers in the structural changes to the house, which included the replacing of the original small windows with large planes of glass that would let in more light. Piet van der Merwe was also involved in some early work in the yard. By the time of Hatting’s death the transformation of the interior of the Owl House was mostly complete.
Helen’s attention then shifted to the Camel Yard. The initial work included statues of mermaids, camels and some owls. In 1964 Helen employed Koos Malgas. For the next twelve years they worked together tirelessly and the Camel Yard filled up with a myriad of statues amounting to more than 300 by the time of Helen’s death in 1976. Malgas became her foremost friend and companion, and remained by her side for the last 12 years of her life. By 1976 Helen was 78 years old. She was suffering from arthritis and her eye-sight had deteriorated severely. The prospect of not being able to continue with her work filled her with deep depression and on 5 August 1976 Miss Helen drank a mixture of castor oil and caustic soda with a glass of water. After she was discovered, she was taken to the hospital in Graaff-Reinet where she died three days later on 8 August 1976.
Miss Helen’s legacy, the Owl House and the Camel Yard, remain for us all to enjoy in awe.
In preparing this listing I have amongst others used the following sources:
1. www.wikipedia.org
2. Nieu-Bethesda: A short guide to a little Great Karoo town 2014 Peter Frost Nieu Bethesda.com
3. Bethesda-kronieke en ander anekdotes 2012 Victor Dercksen Erfenis Publikasies
4. This is My World: The Life of Helen Martins the creator of the Owl House 1997 Sue Ross Oxford University Press
5. A Journey through the Owl House 1997 Anne Emslie Penguin
6. A Psychobiography of Helen Martins 2013 Donna Mitchell MA(Psychology) Rhodes University
7. www.owlhouse.org.za
8. www.sahistory.org.za
Logging Tasks:
- The published co-ordinates will bring you to an informal road sign pointing to some of the attractions in our village. The sign is located under a tree and comprises a number of directional arrows pointing to the right as you face the sign. Message me or e-mail me at jp.meintjes.za@gmail.com with (i) the 9 letter word that appears at the top of the sign and (ii) the colour of the triangular arrow points on the sign.
- In your log please include a photo of any interesting or noteworthy sight that captured your attention during your visit to Nieu-Bethesda.
Remember:
There is no filling station in Nieu-Bethesda; please ensure that you have sufficient fuel to reach Graaff-Reinet or Middelburg. There is also no ATM in Nieu-Bethesda. Most establishments do accept card payments but it is advisable to have some cash available for your visit to the Village.
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.
