From wartime service to old George: Oom Piet shares memories at 103

GEORGE NEWS - Before television, tarred roads and sprawling neighbourhoods, there was a George where frogs called from Paddagat's wetlands, and farmland stretched down Stander Street. At 103, one resident still remembers it.

Pieter Frederick Renier Schuin, affectionately known as Oom Piet, has watched his hometown change over more than a century.

Born on the Island, now known as Denneoord, he lives with his daughter in the Mann Street house his father built when he was a teenager.

Friends and family gathered at the house on Sunday 8 November to celebrate his 103rd birthday. Four days earlier, he had cast his special vote in the local elections.

When George Herald visited on Monday, Oom Piet recalled a lifetime of work, sport and family, wartime service in Egypt and a wedding that briefly interrupted the minister's wife's breadmaking.

He has no particular secret to reaching 103. There are no magic potions, just an acceptance of each day.

"I take each day as it comes. The Bible says that before you are born, your path is already laid out," he said.

A different George

Born on 8 November 1923, the third-generation George resident remembers large properties, gravel roads and evenings when the radio provided entertainment.

The showgrounds were beside Courtenay Street, opposite Paddagat, which was then a wetland alive with frogs.

Farmland extended down Stander Street and, as he remembers it, the town effectively ended at Fifth Avenue.

His father, John George Messer Schuin, ran a dairy from which milk was distributed.

The family home on Mann Street would remain an important part of Oom Piet's life, eventually becoming home to him and his wife and, many years later, to him and his daughter.

He has outlived his siblings, and his oldest sister, Maria Rippon, died at the age of 95.

Oom Piet at the voting station during the most recent local elections. Photo: Supplied

School days and wartime

Oom Piet began his schooling at the Convent School, now Holy Cross Primary. In Standard 4, today's Grade 6, he moved to the boys' school, Manie le Roux.

George also had a separate girls' school. According to him, the two primary schools later merged to become Outeniqua Primary.

He continued at Outeniqua High School, leaving after Standard 7, today's Grade 9, to start working.

In 2023, he shared a milestone with his former high school: both turned 100. He returned to the school during its centenary celebrations.

His working life began at Modern Shoes, a factory in Stockenström Street owned by the Smit family from Knysna. Then came the Second World War and service in Egypt and Algeria.

He returned to the shoe factory in 1946. The following year, he recalls, it moved to premises near where Shoprite stands in the CBD today.

Work later took him to East Rand Proprietary Mines, better known as ERPM, in Boksburg.

Back in George, he became involved in the building industry and was part of the team that built the old cinema on Meade Street. He also worked on Overdale farm for a man he remembers as 'Spykerman' Verhagen.

In 1953, he went looking for work at an auditing firm at Hurteria House and secured a job.

Later that year he joined Ossie Urban's business, Urban's Industries, whose interests included leather, plantations and farming. His work involved administration, money and figures. He remained with the business until he was 74 years old.

A photo of Oom Piet with his family in a hops field in Stander Street.

A wedding without fuss

In August 1953, after asking both her parents for permission to marry her, Oom Piet obtained a marriage licence and married Johanna Stoffelina Roelofse in the Dutch Reformed Church on Courtenay Street.

There was no elaborate celebration. The minister conducted the ceremony, with Oom Piet's father-in-law and the minister's wife as witnesses.

The minister's wife had been kneading dough when she was asked to step away briefly to witness the marriage.

The couple lived with his parents on Mann Street for a while before buying their own home on Hope Street for £750, in the days when South Africans still used pounds and shillings.

In 1980, Oom Piet and Johanna moved to Môreson Children's Home, where she was appointed as a housemother.

After many years of service there, the couple returned to the Mann Street house where Oom Piet now lives with his daughter Susana Robertson.

The couple were married for 67 years until Johanna passed away in 2020 at the age of 85.

Together, they had four children: Messer, Susana, Nellus and Reinier. Messer has since passed.

Oom Piet and his late wife Johanna.

Bicycles and ball games

Although he owned a car, Oom Piet preferred getting around by bicycle. He remembers taking his daughter to the girls' school, sitting on the handlebars of his bike.

Sport was another important part of his life. He played rugby and soccer for George, and played soccer into his 50s.

A hockey match in Mossel Bay in 1958 left him with a permanent injury when a ball deflected off a stick and struck his eye, causing him to lose sight in that eye.

He also loved going to the movies, checking newspaper advertisements in the Het Suid-Western (now George Herald) to see what was showing.

Election meetings provided their own spectacle. He remembers lively encounters between the 'Natte' and the 'Sappe', the rival political camps whose meetings could become heated.

Decades later, he still makes his own mark at the ballot box.

And in the Mann Street home that has sheltered generations of his family, Oom Piet continues taking each day as it comes.

Oom Piet Schuin's military discharge certificate, volunteer's identity book and unemployment insurance record card, alongside a photograph from his days in Egypt. Photo: Kristy Ayliffe