My Early Days, Nr 4

Another Family in the Claremont Church

In my last post I wrote about the Jeffes family and my interaction with them. Now I will focus on another prominent family in the church, namely, the Elffers.

I mention the names of three members of the family. There was Hubert Elffers, about my age. Then there was his sister, Jeanne, about five years older than Hubert. The third member, Bob Elffers, was quite a bit older than Jeanne.

In order to understand the Elffers family better, we pause to look at their grandfather, Professor Hubertus Elffers. He was born in Haarlem, Holland, in 1858 of Mennonite parents. At the age of 15 the family joined a Dutch Reformed congregation.

At the age of 18, Hubertus completed a two year Teacher Training course and soon left for Cape Town to teach Dutch and other subjects at the Dutch Reform Church’s Normal school. Two years later he joined the staff of the Stellenbosch Gymnasium as a teacher of Dutch.

In 1888 Hubertus accepted a headmaster position in Smithfield, Orange Free State. After four years he returned to Cape Town where he later established the Rustica Press and worked there as a translator.

In about 1893 he came into contact with Seventh-day Adventists in an interesting way. Pastor A T Robinson, leader of our early church, travelled by train from Claremont to Cape Town to work in our Roeland street church office. On one of these trips he saw this fine looking gentleman, Hubertus Elffers, and fell into conversation. As a result, Elffers was slowly introduced to the Adventist message.

Elffers was soon asked to teach Dutch at out newly established Claremont Union College and in 1895 Hubertus Elffers converted to Seventh-day Adventism. We pass over this period as Professor Elffers made rapid strides in his association with the church. In 1896 he received a ministerial license and in 1900 he was ordained to the Seventh-day Adventist ministry.

For the purpose of this post, I must pass over the next few years to concentrate on Professor Elffers’ son and grandchildren. The period was somewhat checkered for Elffers, largely due to tension between our Dutch and English speaking members. Professor Elffers believed that more attention should be given to the Dutch-speaking population. I wish I had been there to assist.

At a certain point, Professor Elffers’ son took over the Rustica Press and worked there for many years. He and his wife are the Elffers senior that I knew in the Claremont church. I cannot recall his name. They lived in Wynberg and adjoining their house was a large nursery.

Mrs Elffers was in charge of the nursery, assisted by her son Bob and his wife. I remember the nursery well as I worked there one summer holiday while in High School at Helderberg College. We started in the early morning and then around 10 o’clock, we all gathered in one of the rooms and had a brief morning devotional. This made an impression on my mind.

I do not remember much about Mr Elffers senior. I do recollect an incident one Sabbath afternoon when I was visiting his son, Hubert. I saw his dad sitting on the front porch of the house reading a National Geographic magazine. It is funny how something like that makes a mark in one’s mind. Mind you, it was not a bad way for Mr Elffers to remember the Sabbath day!

A brother of Bob, Jeanne and Hubert was a medical student. I have forgotten his name, but I do remember that tragedy knocked on the Elffers’ door. I think he was in his fourth year, when one morning in driving from his home to the medical school, he was involved in a motor-car accident and sadly lost his life!

I think I will end this post right here and take up more on the Elffers family next time, as I see my whole article is too long. So kindly look forward to more interesting facts about this family!

The two pictures at the beginning of this post are of the Fish Hoek Seventh-day Adventist church and the first company organized some years before on March 4 1989. This links with the Elffers family! More on that next time!