Whilst Ruth Stevens may not have resided long in Hoedspruit, she must certainly have made an impact on people’s lives with many people putting her name forward to be interviewed for the ‘Hoedspruit and I’ segment.
The sprightly 94-year-old is bursting with charisma and only has positive words for our small town that she now calls home, “I am just so happy. I love it here. I now realise that I wasted 15 years, when I could have been here.”
Ruth is from Pietermaritzburg, where she lived a full life as a teacher and holds a strong sporting background, having represented KwaZulu-Natal in hockey, tennis and athletics.
“1952 was the best year, it was just a crazy six months,” Ruth recalls. In the April of 1952, she attended the SA tennis champs where she won the women’s doubles and was ranked third in South Africa. She then caught a train to Kimberley after the tennis tournament and represented Natal in the SA athletics championship, where she and her team came third in the relay. She then played centre-forward in hockey for Natal in the July, scoring 22 goals in the tournament. At the same time, the Natal tennis champs were taking place.
“I had to make a choice, there was an overlap between the hockey and the tennis. In the end, I ended up playing for both, playing hockey in the morning and tennis in the afternoon, it was quite crazy!” says Ruth.
Well she certainly performed, winning in the women’s doubles, singles and mixed games in the Natal tournament.
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Ruth said she loves sport but found athletics “very boring” and didn’t like losing at all, “I was a good loser on the surface, but a lousy one in private,” she jokes.
Her husband was also a keen sportsman and captained the SA soccer team. Ruth notes that it took seven years of marriage before the pair spent three months consecutively with one another. Their sporting commitments always keeping one of them away from home.
Ruth and her husband had one child together, Greer. After her husband’s passing, Ruth decided to stay in Pietermaritzburg as her two grandsons were at boarding school there whilst Greer and her husband were staying in Botswana, “I stayed there to be a guardian for them. Greer was an angel, a model child… It was a totally new education for me looking after those boys,” she giggles.
After the boys had matriculated, Ruth suddenly had had enough and by this time, Greer and her husband Kevin were living in Hoedspruit. At 90 years old, she made the move, “I had only been here for about a week and couldn’t believe how clean it is here. The first three months that I was here, I was so busy in the house. When I finally surfaced, I thought ‘What happens now?”’
This is when Ruth was visited by a woman called Sue who invited her to a weekly church group that is held on Thursdays. After some deliberation, she decided to attend and hasn’t looked back since, saying: “I am such a free spirit when I am there. I’ve realised that you are never too old to learn, I have grown enormously since I’ve been in Hoedspruit.”
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“The people at the group have so much humility and acceptance of people. And there is sincerity, it’s not just talking. I have learned a lot, I have laughed a lot,” she beams.
Ruth is also a regular at the gym and says it is just to keep her mobile, “I’m not there to sweat!” she laughs. She says she has found the people of Hoedspruit extraordinary, noting that when she goes to the gym, all of the equipment and machines are set up for her. She commends the staff at Pick n Pay too, “Matthew is an absolute honey, the service there is just unbelievable.”
She most definitely doesn’t have a single bad word to say about Hoedspruit, “I love the game drives, I’ve learned so much about the animals.”
Ruth recalls a time when she had a warthog in her house and tried her best to remember what she had been taught, should she come face to face with a wild animal. Her recount of the tale is hilarious and won’t be done justice in print, but she proudly paints the perfect picture of woman vs. warthog.
Ruth is one of those salt of the earth kind of people. She doesn’t mince her words and made it quite obvious that she was dreading my visit. However, after a good cup of tea and a long chat putting the world to rights, I can safely say I have a new friend in Hoedspruit.
