In 1910 South Africa was declared a Union and by 1914 World War I was engaging most of the northern hemisphere. The little township of Alberton, with almost half of its residents being Afrikaans and the other half English, managed to maintain a balance.
When the war dragged to an end, the world-wide epidemic of Spanish flu hit the little town. Schools where closed and public places deserted.
The local butcher, Piet Krogh, erected a tent in front of his property to be a receiving station for black sufferers, where they were examined and given treatment by visiting doctors or sent to hospital.
His eldest son would lead the way from house to house as soon as the doctor had attended to the sick in the tent. Close on 300 of Alberton’s people were stricken with the flu virus. At the time there was no resident doctor and only 12 deaths were recorded. It is, however, impossible to estimate how many black sufferers never received treatment.
Extraordinary families in this era
*The Kroghs give an example of just how much community members meant to each other. Piet, whose brother was incarcerated as a rebel, was the first Justice of Peace in Alberton and served on the committee for the Germiston Hospital.
Besides starting the first butcher shop, his wife Anna was a founder member and chairlady of the first branch of the Vrouefederasie, a charitable organisation. Their eldest daughter played the organ in the corrugated iron church and became the first music teacher in Alberton – for a long time, the only music teacher.
*Another well known member was in fact not a resident. Old Lala, the Indian gentleman who came to South-Africa in 1903, lived at the Asiatic bazaar in Germiston. From there he walked carrying a basket of fruit and vegetable so sell to the early residents.
Twice a week he would trudge to the Indian wholesalers in Diagonal Street and then back to Rosherville, Jupiter and Alberton. He prospered and bought first one, then another horse and cart to hawk his vegetables. He later had enough to bring his family to South Africa. Still not allowed to own property in the town, he was later allowed to do business on the eastern boundary of the town.
Mr Lala’s brother established a grocery store and the generation began a men’s outfitters. The idea of being cooped up in a shop all day did not appeal to Old Lala, and he continued to sell vegetables from his cart up to his death in 1946.
*1918 also saw the establishment of Alberton’s first factory. Mr John Atmore establised Atmore Torch Company up towards the station in the north-eastern part of town. Here he produced a commodity called cheesa sticks – cheesa being the mining slang for ‘hot’. These were rather like sticks of dynamite in appearance or a ‘roman candle’, a type of slow-burning flare almost impossible to extinguish, and used to light blasting fuses underground in mines.
*Taken from An Alberton Album, published by the Alberton Town Council 1997
