Mill River Farm, built around 1830 by the Taute family. It's located near George in the Eastern Cape. This water colour was painted by one of the Taute family, but it does not have a date.
When Oliver Percival Porter Hoole (OPP) married Lydia Taute in 1872 they almost certainly lived here for the first few years of their married life. Their first son, named James, was born here in 1874 and died in 1878 -- and he was buried on the farm. Our Grandmother Johanna (nicknamed Hoolie) was born a year after the wedding, in 1873 -- a year before her brother -- and so it is highly likely that this was her place of birth as well.
There is some confusion about who this is -- it's a photo with no date and "Hoolie" written on the back. But is it Hoolie / Johanna? There is another photo in existence with a lady who looks just like this, with her husband Joseph Henry Harvey. So that lady must be Verena, Hoolie's younger sister. So it's most likely that this is a picture of Verena, sent to Hoolie after she moved to Wales at the beginning of the First World War. All very confusing......
As the oldest daughter, she may have taken some responsibility within the family, but she maintained close relations throughout her life with her three younger sisters Lilian (b 1878), Verena (b 1881) and Mabel (b 1884). Hoolie was given some private education together with her cousin Johanna Barry -- they attended lessons with a Mrs Crockett. When they were 12 years old the two girls attended the new Girl's High School in Oudtshoorn, but after a term Johanna was sent to a convent school instead, and it seems that Hoolie went to the Good Hope Seminary in Cape Town for a while. Probably most of her education was in the company of private tutors.
We don't know how and when Hoolie met Edgar Stephens, who was to become her husband on 13 June 1900. By that time the family was living at Fir Glen, in Atherstone near Grahamstown. Over the next eleven years seven children were born -- Owen in Dordrecht, Harold, Ivor, Stanley, Gwladys, and Llewelyn in Queenstown, and Alwyn in Bloemhof. Harold was drowned when he was eight years old, but the other children survived. The family seems to have moved about within the Eastern Cape -- no doubt as Edgar tried to make his fortune in one business enterprise after another. According to family tradition, he tried his hand at ostrich farming, gold digging, diamond mining etc -- and made a fortune in none of these. But he started as a soldier -- and he is referred to in some documents as "Col Edgar Harries Stephens." Which campaigns he fought in, we do not know....... but maybe he was still a military man when he met Hoolie.
http://1820settlers.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=Genealogy&file=getperson&personID=I25499&tree=1
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