‘The old lady on the bike’ dies
Dagmar "Dagi" Fernehough (87) will be remembered as "the old lady on the bike".
“She was very well known in the Benoni and Boksburg area in the years gone by,” said father Doug Cutter, of the Anglican Parish of Northmead – All Souls Church.
“She cycled everywhere.”
Fernehough died in her sleep on July 22.
She was born on August 2, 1927, in Germany.
Cutter told the City Times that her family fled Nazi Germany in WW2, to Czechoslovakia.
Her family returned to Germany towards the end of the war.
Fernehough moved to Port Elizabeth in the early ’60s.
She lived in Benoni for over 35 years and was dependant on her bicycle as her only means of transport.
The Northmead resident’s cycling escapades were cut short eight years ago, when her bicycle was stolen.
“It was no hassle for her to go all the way to Boksburg as far as the East Rand Mall,” said Cutter.
“When she could not cycle, she walked.
“She traversed Northmead right until she died.”
Cutter said the 87-year-old was a “legend in Northmead” and will be missed for her dedication to the congregation.
The father said Fernehough rang the church bell every Sunday morning, handed out church pamphlets, sold books at the church market, buttered bread on a daily basis for the soup kitchen and visited various old age homes over the years to socialise with the elderly and deliver church pamphlets, come rain or sunshine.
She would also withdraw her state pension on the first day of every month and would buy flowers for people on special occasions.
“She was a very special old lady; very difficult, but very special,” said Cutter.
Cutter admitted that Fernehough had “some very strong and often controversial views and opinions which she voiced freely”.
She leaves behind four of her five estranged children (a son and three daughters).
A funeral service was held at the All Souls Church on July 29.
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