Her residence of the past 10 years, Huis De Kuilen ensured there was cake to mark the milestone, but as an added surprise Frances Redcliffe received a colourful bouquet and a handwritten note from Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis to mark her 100th birthday on Thursday 7 March.
On Saturday at a birthday celebration held for Frances at the Anglican church St George the Martyr in Sarepta one of her sons, Rodney revealed he contacted the mayor’s office a month before.
Rodney said his mother was always involved at church. She was a “spiritual lantern”, always very talkative and could easily speak to strangers. He admired her ability to speak to the ill whom she uplifted.
Rodney recalled that they – six sons and one daughter – grew up with strict dicipline.
Retired reverend Fred Hendricks said Frances “received and shared”. He recalled visits to the ill within their parish. “Frances was always the most energetic. She encouraged me as a priest.”
He added: “A woman who can keep so many boys in a straight line, she must have special qualities.’’
Bernie September said it still feels wrong if she uses the abbreviation for Anglican Women’s Fellowship as Frances always insisted: “AWF sounds like nothing”.
When she joined the fellowship 20 years ago Frances was already 80, but seemed 50, she said. “You (Frances) were an influencer then.” She recalled Frances was all about duty, discipline, and a straight talker, who kept the divas in check. “You were a real commander.”
Mission station
Frances came to Cape Town in the late 1990s. Her third eldest, Abraham (Abe) Redcliffe, says she speaks fondly of her childhood days in Shiloh, a Moravian Mission Station near Whittlesea in the Eastern Cape, where she was born.
Frances ascribes her fluency in isiXhosa to attending the local Moravian Mission school along with Xhosa-speaking children.
As a member of the Moravian church, her father, James Redcliffe was given land to build a house and cultivate a garden to provide for his family, Abe says.
Frances can remember various kinds of fruit trees on their plot. “She also remembers carrying buckets of water from the river on her head for household use, and crushing mealies – all their food came from their garden and livestock.
“She says her father would get up early in the morning to check that he gets his full quota of irrigation water and that someone else is not blocking his irrigation channel to divert the water away from his garden.
Abe says Frances recalls her father going on horseback to outlying farms to build animal kraals for the rich farmers. “At times he was accompanied by her three older brothers (the girls stayed at home with their mother) – because of the distances he had to travel, he was often away from home for more than a week.”
Life on a remote mission station was not always easy.
Abe says Frances recalls how the Moravian ministers took charge of every eventuality – even acting as “dentist” or “doctor”.
Once Frances went to the minister with a severe toothache. “His assistant was his sturdily built daughter who held her head down firmly while he extracted the tooth with pliers. Luckily, she has forgotten how painful that visit to the “dentist” was,” Abe says.
“She also remembers the clear-as-water “medicine” that was dispensed to everyone no matter what the ailment. She now believes it was just plain water, but says, ‘Somehow it seemed to work’.’’
Abe says as seperate development policy reach the area a seperate school was built for “coloured” children where Frances continued and finished her schooling up to Standard 6 (Grade 8).
“It must have been her interest in people that induced the principal to ask her to help with the younger learners – a task she greatly enjoyed.
She always loved reading and used to read aloud to our father while he was resting on the bed on Sunday afternoons.”
Frances married her husband, Charles, in Shiloh in 1946, a year after the end of the Second World War. Abe says Charles joined the army at age 19.
Charles who had a successful shoemaking business in Shiloh and then Uitenhage, sadly passed away at age 49, Abe says.
“It was during this time that her aged and widowed father moved in. She cared for him until his death at 94 years old.
“She remembers these were tough times, but that God was good to her and her family throughout her life and that she truly lived a good life.”
Church
Abe says in Uitenhage, the family worshipped at the Anglican Church of St Catherine’s where Frances was involved as a lay minister and served in the Anglican Women’s Association, predecessor of the AWF.
“Because of the Group Areas Act, St. Simon of Cyrene Anglican Church was built in the “coloured” area of Thomas Gamble where she continued her service in the church.”
From Uitenhage she moved to stay with her daughter, Margaret. “Here she worshipped at St Luke’s and was involved as lay minister, Chairlady of the AWF and was part of a group that held prayer meetings at homes.”
She moved with Margaret and family to Durban where she continued as lay minister and served in the AWF at St James.
When she moved to Cape Town she first worshipped at St Marks, Parow where she joined the AWF and was involved when Alpha (evangelistic course) was first started, Abe says.
“From St Mark’s she joined St George the Martyr where she served in the AWF, was lay minister, and involved in the Care Group and Alpha.”
Abe says there is no doubt he is following in his mother’s footsteps as a lay minister at St.George, as does his brother Rodney at St. Simon of Cyrene in Uitenhage.
He says his mother has a deep and sincere love for God and her neighbours at Huis De Kuilen. “Of her it can be said: she loves the Lord her God with all her heart, with all her soul and with all her mind and that she truly loves her neighbour as herself [Luke 10:27]”.
Abe says Frances can effortlessly say her children’s names in order of birth. The eldest, Charles, passed away a few years ago, but Richard, Abraham, Patrick, Rodney, Margaret and Mark are still here, along with 18 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.
