Emily blows out her 90th birthday candle
Daveyton resident Emily Motshwane laughs when asked for the secret to staying healthy and fit, despite turning 90 on April 14.
“There is no secret,” she said.
”I don’t have a special diet, I eat everything that everyone else eats. I can safely say it’s God’s grace that has kept me alive all these years.”
Emily was born in Delmas and attended school in an area known as Weilaagte. She worked as a domestic worker and met her late husband, Solomon Motshwane, while she worked in Springs.
”He was a builder working in Pretoria; we got married in 1950 and moved to Benoni in 1956,” she added.
The couple had six children and, after Emily’s sister passed away, she took in her nephew and raised him as part of her brood.
Her husband died at the age of 84 in 2002, and the family lost another member when Emily’s first-born son, Thipe, died after a short illness in 2006, aged 57.
Emily continued as a domestic worker in Benoni, but her children asked her to slow down when she celebrated her 65th birthday in 1980.
“I was with a family in Rynfield at the time that the children asked me to retire,” she said.
”Although I stopped working for the family, that did not slow me down.”
She continues to play a big role in the African Catholic Church, in Daveyton, where her husband was a priest.
As the former pastor’s wife she is still an active member of the Hlanganani Women’s Prayer, a group that visits various members of the community to pray and share the Word of God.
“We walk from house to house spreading the Word of God and we also visit residents at the old age home,” Emily said.
As if her age is not surprising enough, Emily can still be found ironing, cooking, cleaning and walking to the Daveyton Mall, which is easily a 30-minute stroll away.
“I walk to the mall and back and I’m not out of breath or tired; I’m not on any medication for ailments such as high blood pressure. I laugh at my children who complain about all sorts of aches and pains,” she said.
Emily celebrated her birthday on April 25, at the Mbiwa Cindi Hall, Daveyton, surrounded by her children, Makepa Dineka (65), Letta Nyakale (61), Annah Bemba (57), Sinah Qalaza (55), Mutayi Motshwane (46) and Joas Tholo (32), as well as her 15 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
