ARCHIVES: When (white) women were given the vote in 1930, Mevrou ACS Steenkamp took the opportunity to run against DF Malan for the Calvinia seat. She didn’t win – but when she died in 1959, Die Burger ran an obituary headlined, ‘Vir haar was Dr Malan ...
Spoilt Ballots: The Elections that Shaped South Africa
WP Steenkamp, Erica’s oupa, was a Dutch Reformed Church dominee turned medical doctor who’d written a book in support of the theory of evolution. Malan’s biographer, Lindie Korf, describes WP as “a local politician who… regarded it as his highest calling to be a thorn in Malan’s side”. Erica says her oupa fundamentally disagreed with Malan’s stance on both evolution and race.
As Korf puts it, “The Steenkamps certainly did not endear themselves to the Nationalists… Malan dismissed [Mrs Steenkamp] as her husband’s pawn, while he, his supporters in Calvinia andThe campaign in the Northern Cape soon became toxic when, at one campaign meeting, Nettie’s own brother – AE Erlank, who was part of Malan’s campaign – started spreading false rumours about WP’s involvement in illicit diamond buying.
After graduating in 1903, WP became assistant dominee at Beaconsfield, where Antonetta was resident organist. “Their eyes met in this little mirror that allowed the organist to see what was happening on the pulpit,” says Erica. “My oupa said it was love at first sight.” The two married and the church soon gave WP – renowned for “spellbinding” sermons – his own parish at Ermelo.
The Steenkamps arranged a series of community bazaars and, in three years, the debt was repaid. At the first bazaar, more than 4,000 sheep and 200 donkeys and cattle were donated and even the poorest gave what they could – even a handmade broom of twigs.The outbreak of World War 1 in 1914 brought personal tragedy to the Steenkamps.
In 1916 Erica’s mother, Vivia Perpetua , was born. Three years later WP was called to be the dominee at Springbok. There, the Steenkamps again pulled off a fundraising miracle. WP travelled as far as Graaff-Reinet selling springbok karosse made by his parishioners. The proceeds built the charming stone church that remains in use to this day.
When Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, South Africa’s first coloured city councillor and founder of the African Political Organisation, died in 1940, WP took over many of his patients.
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