Quinton and
Jeannette Dick are a major force at St Patrick’s. Jeannette is the sacristan
and used to clean the chapel weekly; Quinton is Alternate Chapel Warden,
Treasurer and lately has played a huge role in building up the chapel garden to
magnificence. Their loyalty, service and devotion are an example of disciple
hood.
Quinton
John Dick was born on 3 May 1937 in King William’s Town. His father was Charles
Wallace Dick and mother Eleanore Myrtle Dick nee Passmore. ‘At age
two I was so severely ill that Dr Doran was prepared to sign the death warrant.
Mom had a convincing vision that I would live. I did. In my formative years Dad was a prisoner of
war in Italy and Germany. He was forced to do the six hundred-mile walk across
Germany, and eventually to freedom, so Mom had to raise me over those four
years.’ Quinton continued, ‘I was the
younger son by five years, so was subject to some bullying but I survived. I
went to St Andrew’s Preparatory School and St Andrew’s College for my
education.
At Stellenbosch I completed a BSc with
Agricultural Economics as a major. I
played hockey uninterruptedly for Stellenbosch 1st team and Western Province
Country Districts and was twice selected as the SA Country District goalkeeper.
Coming back to the Eastern Cape, I represented Border and Border Country
Districts at Interprovincial hockey festivals.’
‘I farmed with Dad until the war damage
caught up with him. In 1963 I had the luck of my life. I found a wonderful
woman who agreed to marry me. One doesn’t get luckier than that? We have four
sons in our married life, who have all done especially well in life – far
better than their father.
Financial problems forced me to further my
education and I took eight years to qualify as a Chartered Accountant while
farming. The hours were never long enough to do all that was required. I
qualified with a B Compt (Hons) degree and a CA, SA.
‘While doing my articles as an accountant,
Jeannette ran the farm better than I ever would have and we managed to keep the
“magistraat” from the door. Although our sons had an amazing life style on the
farm, none wanted to farm, and preferred to follow their chosen careers, so we
sold our Quit Rent Grantee farm, and moved to Tilty Hill, a farm in the Nahoon
Valley of East London, where we grew 30,000 banana palms on drip-irrigation,
had a Touch farm and Tea garden, and a Bed and Breakfast (16 beds) and
Conference Centre. We sold Tilty Hill in 2006 and came to a jungle at Hidden
Away in Hogsback.
‘A lot of hard work and inspiration went
into developing an exciting garden which we trust will really glorify God. We
just love to show visitors our garden and the many ways that God can cause
stunning pleasure to all that come to see His creations.
St Patrick’s has been a very important part of our lives and we feel completely at home in the positive atmosphere of our congregation. We feel really proud to be part of it too.
Jeannette Dick was born on 18 July in Bedford as the
4th of 6 children (3 girls and 3 boys). Her father was Pieter van
Aardt of Patryshoogte, Cookhouse and her mother was Cynthia Hundermark originally
of Jagersfontein. Jeannette had a carefree childhood on the farm, Eastpoort.
She still remembers ‘the smell of pepper
trees on a hot day, rain falling on the hot earth, coffee beans roasting in a
wood-fired oven and newly-baked bread’. Her ‘best friend and nanny was Annie Pungulwa, who told Xhosa stories, read
from her Xhosa bible’ and the whole family went to her funeral in
Cookhouse. The family lived through droughts, floods, hard times and fun times,
‘and then there was school’.
Jeannette was sent to school at North End Grey in Port
Elizabeth with her sister. Like so many others, her bad memory was being sent
to the dentist. Months later a farm school was started called Nil Desperandum to which she was sent. At
this school, a male teacher taught four levels – Sub A to Std 3 - and used a
quince stick on those who did not do their homework. Nevertheless, he was not
liked ‘hated’ and the children hoped
the tokoloshe would get him. What was great fun was going to school in a donkey
cart driven by Blokkie and racing the other donkey cart with the three Moolman
kids. Being closer to school, she normally won until the Moolmans upgraded to a
mule cart. So, her Dad also upgraded to a mule cart and they were back in the
race, ‘but just seeing the dust bowl
coming towards us along the road turned us frantic and we had to hold onto our
starched kappies so as not to lose them, we sped to school.’
Her 3rd
school was Belvieu in Somerset East while her two older brothers went to Gill
College. She remembers ‘wurgpatats’
(sweet potatoes) whose fibres choked the children so that when they were given
envelopes to write home on Sundays they would put the sweet potato scrapings
into the envelopes and post them into the rubbish bin! In Std 2 she went to the
Bedford Convent, (imagine an Afrikaner among the Roman Catholic Rooinecks!).
She struggled with doing embroidery which was compulsory. She remembers being
rationed sugar which had to be shared between the porridge with worms, a slice
of bread with fat and weak tea which is what the meal consisted of (no wonder
she still has a sweet tooth!). Then the family moved to King William’s Town and
Jeannette was able to repeat Std 3, come in the top three and enjoy school,
especially gymnastics and swimming. She remembers racing a handicap race
against Joan Harrison when she started on the count of 1 and Joan on the count
of 20. They were both disqualified!
Jeannette trained as a General Nurse in the Provincial
hospital in Port Elizabeth and attended Sharley Cribb Nurses College where she
won a gold medal and passed cum laude. Then she studied midwifery at Mater Dei
in East London (now St Dominics) and passed cum laude. She became Sister on
night duty at Grey Hospital, King William’s Town and then moved to Cape Town
where she studied Mother Craft at Lady Buxton Home and loved the babies who
were to be adopted. Then, ‘Quinton
decided to ask me to marry him. He proposed on de Waal Drive. How could I not
agree? We could have had an accident!’ They married a year later: Quinton
studied accounting; Jeannette ran the farm. They had four sons who all had a
wonderful childhood and matriculated from Selborne College. The family grew up
at Tilty Hill farm outside East London.
