Betty Weatherhead turns 100

-Ailsa Tudhope-

On the 26th November 1906 a daughter, Anne Elizabeth, was born to Samie and Florence Luttig in the little Karoo village of Prince Albert. One hundred years later family and friends gathered from around the world on the Luttig farm Drie Riviere to celebrate Betty Weatherhead’s 100th birthday.

Betty was in fine form, sipping a whiskey as she greeted her guests. Great-niece Johanna Luttig and her daughters Orscilla and Madri had created a feast in her honour, the champagne flowed and many happy memories were shared and created.

Betty can look back on a life filled with adventure and good, old fashioned hard work. Her childhood in Prince Albert saw her attending the little Anglican church of St John’s with her English mother, who played the organ there, and the Sunday School at the local NG Kerk, so she knows all the English and Afrikaans hymns. When she visited the Cango caves for the first time she travelled over the Swartberg Pass by donkey cart. The illumination in the caves was provided by magnesium wires - there are rumours that she set the guide’s trousers on fire…. At some stage in her teenage years a lovesick lad carved Betty’s name in the woodwork inside the NG Kerk tower – it can’t have been Betty herself, for she has a fear of heights and never climbed the tower. Some of Betty’s memories of early Prince Albert are sad: her mother nursed villagers during the Spanish Flu of 1918, when Betty and her brother and sister wore garlic bags around their necks to ward off the germs; others happier - Betty’s mother sometimes slipped her an extra sixpence in pocket money so that she could take “Mad Sannah”, a mentally handicapped woman, to Oom Gawie Beukes’ bioscope to see the latest film.

After training as a teacher Betty taught in Uitenhage and eventually moved to Eiffel Flats, a mining town in Southern Rhodesia, where she met and married Tim Weatherhead, a bank clerk. Their marriage produced three sons: John, Geoffrey and Andrew. Betty taught in several primary schools in Rhodesia and spent some years as a matron at a boys’ boarding school. The boys recognized the eternal child in Betty and would request a special prayer for bedtime. One can imagine the little fellows quivering as she intoned the old Scottish prayer: "From ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord preserve us!"

A 100th birthday calls for a little formality so John’s son, Paul read a poem, composed by his mother Mary in Betty’s honour. Godson Carl Luttig delivered a speech of congratulations and shared many happy memories of Betty’s visits to him and his family in Namibia and great-nephew Samie Luttig proposed the toast congratulating Betty on her centenary.

Betty returned to Prince Albert seven years ago and resides at Huis Kweekvallei. Her friends and family delight in her company and wish her many more happy and productive years. Happy Birthday “Ta Bêkie”.