A farmer, journalist, ward councillor, two AfriForum members and a man named Cowboy went on a grand tour of Westonaria’s old graves and found more than just headstones.
The tour was organised by Sannie Kruger, a member of AfriForum.
The tour guide aptly was long-time local and farmer in the area, Jopie Gerber. Gerhard Kruger jokingly told the Herald, “When you think about Venterspos, you think about the Gerbers,” to illustrate how well-known the family is in the area.
All the members of the tour fit into two bakkies and off the tour went. The first stop was the Kok family graveyard, which the Herald visited weeks earlier.
According to Gerber, the family who lived in the house approximately 1km away from the graveyard was in fact, the Kok family.
Kocksoord was named after the man who lived there. He allegedly was a general in the war. Interestingly, he was also the mayor of Venterspos years back when Venterspos was a municipality on its own,” Gerber said.
The tour moved on to the general’s home. In the back of the home – where the Herald didn’t dare wander with their last visit after hearing gunshots – was an old bread oven that looked very much like a standard pizza oven. The oven also seemed to be in perfect working order.
The next location took the tour on a dirt road that eventually met up with what Gerber said back then used to be the standard route between Potchefstroom and Johannesburg. Just off the random tar road in the field is a graveyard on Gerber’s rented land.
Surprisingly, this graveyard was well maintained and all the grave decorations from when people last visited were still intact. These graves date back to the 1800s.
At the next stop were graves right next to a railway line. There were less than 10.
The tour finally made it to the next location after driving through two fields and along a pipeline and ended up next to the R559. The strange thing about the graves at that site was that the inscriptions were carved on the back of the headstones.
The final graveyard to be visited was not too far from the ones off the R559 and by far were the most interesting. The first grave members of the tour saw when entering the graveyard was some distance away from the other graves. It was speculated that at the time those who committed suicide were buried away from the others.
There were also three, if not more, double graves, and twin graves of two little boys.
Gerber also gave an impromptu tour of some large and deep sinkholes in Westonaria and that being his train of thought, the last stop of the tour was another Kok plot where Gerber discovered a surprisingly deep hand-dug well.
The well went down possibly more than 10 metres and at the bottom used to be water, which the Kok family used to haul for their home.
Five graveyards in total were visited on the tour and a great deal more was learned about Westonaria’s history as well as how people used to live in those days.
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