Johanna “Joan” Hayter (néé Nel), who lived at the Ridgeview Retirement Village for 23 years, celebrated her 100th birthday on December 2.
She was born to Sophia Johanna Jacoba Nel on December 2, 1920, in the Paul Kruger House in Pretoria and weighed 3½ pounds at birth.
Her early childhood is happy memories of growing up on a farm, Rietfontein, in Potchefstroom, and later when she visited her grandparents on the farm Dublin, near Stella, in the North Western Cape.
When Joan started school in about 1926, she attended the convent in that area and remembers her aunt giving her a lift to school on a bicycle. She also had a tickey a day to buy sweets from the local shop after school.
Later she attended the Klipdrift School, on the Vereeniging Road, and when she moved to Pretoria she attended Bergerwright School.
In 1939, Joan married Joseph Charles Millett-Clay and the couple had four children – June, Marian, Charles and Robert.
The family lived in Welkom, in the Orange Free State, where Joe worked as a foreman fitter and turner at the Western Holdings Gold Mine for many years.
He died in 1973.
About two years later, Joan married Fred Hayter and when he died in 1987, Joan looked after her elderly mother and stepfather for seven years until they both died.
In 1995, Joan moved into the Ridgeview Retirement Village in Bartlett and in 2018 she moved to the Carewell Centre in Still Bay to be closer to her daughter. She has 10 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.
According to her family, Joan walks close to God and gives Him all the glory.
She spent her birthday at the Carewell Centre with family and friends.
(Information: Glynis Millett-Clay).
Also Read: Watch: Celebrating 100 years of memories
