Russian Royalty and blacksmiths at war

One of my father's workmates decided to weld an empty fuel tank. Not the brightest idea in the world because the gases inside ignited and baba-boom, instant bomb. A piece of shrapnel lodged in my father's eye and proceeded to rust over time. Yup, not much fun for Dad at all. My mother worked for her uncle in his butcher shop and hearing that my parents would be homeless when my father lost his job, he offered them a home. A wood and iron house amid a lovely flower filled garden on Maxwell street. Oh, the memories we made in that house. A water tank that became infected with typhoid, a gardener covered in rampaging bees looking for a new home, a huge Flamboyant tree and just a hop, skip and a jump to town. One day my father was dealing with his anxieties by painting the lounge wall with a beautiful mural. Did I mention that my father was very artistic? Anyhow, there was a knock at the back door and in strode Johnny Antonowitz. Under his arm was a rolled up velvet wall hanging that he wanted to sell.and with a smile on his face he hugged my father and proceeded to expound the beauty of the painted velvet. My parents entertained him, but realistically, there was not a cent to spare for velvet hangings or much luxury in our lives. And so, my parents did not buy the goods Johnny was selling. But it did spark up a discussion about the Antonowitz family that has stayed with me all my life.

We need to go to the beginning of the saga and leave my parents for the moment to get the full story. Frank Antonowitz was a Lithuanian man who lived in Boston, USA. His immigration from Ellis Island says he was married but she, the wife, definitely did not accompany him to Durban where he was offered a job with the Durban Railway company as a wagon maker in 1912. Sometime after immigrating he met up with Jan Smuts, who would later become a Prime Minister of South Africa. The Boer war had decimated Boer families, where 20,000 women and children died of starvation and disease in British concentration camps. Horrendous. Frank was tasked with going to Russia and collecting brides for the surviving Boers. Which he did, (although I cannot find any documentation to support this tale except for a shipping list from Cape Town to London in March 1913). This is where he met Alina, (born in Stalingrad in 1895) who would become known as the Russian princess of Empangeni. Her parents, Julian and Caroline had been killed in the First Russian Revolution of 1905 -1913. Yes folks, there was a two tiered revolution and the one that killed the Romanov Tzar and his family was later in history. The emancipated peasants took out their frustrations of low wages and starvation on the ruling classes and Alina witnessed her parents being slaughtered. So, when Frank arrived offering her a home in a new country, she grabbed at the chance. She really thought she too might die and throughout her life she suffered from PTSD and fear of being sent back to Russia to face a similar fate to her parents. When Frank seduced her, she was under the impression that they would be married. Not knowing about his American wife, she was forced to take him to court and a judge decreed that Frank should marry Alena in 1914. He is listed as a bachelor on that certificate, but who knows? They moved to Empangeni where Frank opened up a blacksmith shop behind the Imperial hotel. He worked hard, but he drank harder and money did not stay in his hands for long. Anthony Antonowitz, the eldest son, was born 4 months after his parent's wedding and John in 1917. Frank wore a scarf around his neck through the heat of the Zululand summers to hide a growth on his neck that he was not eager to display.

My Grandpa, Thomas Roberts was a Cockney upstart with a brain like a super-charged mouse trap. He saw opportunities where others saw hard work. He was the Elon Musk of Zululand. He purchased the Central Tea Room not far from the Antonowitz blacksmith shop and soon got to know the family. Gran did the baking and serving in the Tea Room, while Grandpa thought up plans on how to get rich by buying up half the commercial properties in town. Between him and my mother's uncles, Trigve Hillestad and the Bell and Maytham cousins, it left a few properties for the Bozas family to get their foot in the property door. He bought my grandmother a huge diamond ring, which she refused to wear because she said it was too ostentatious. Yeah, love my Gran. My Gran had a heart of gold and when she saw the Antonowitz family in need, she helped out with food and emotional support. Anthony and John Antonowitz were friends of my father and his older brother, Tommy, and no doubt they all got up to mischief in the frontier town that Empangeni was back in those days. Alina was another story entirely. She treated her PTSD with lashings of alcohol and violent outbursts. Often smashing glasses on the floor instead of washing them out. Empangeni was not very accepting of these shenanigans because most of the inhabitants of the town were Greek refugees or descendants of Norwegian missionaries. But this did not concern Alina. She, after all, was a product of the Russian landed gentry and had been in the presence of Romanov royalty. How dare these peasants prescribe how she should behave. She put her nose in the air and ignored the serfs. The so-called serfs were in reality the landed gentry of Zululand and her attitude did not gel with them at all. Alina would strut down Union street holding a parasol above her head and heaven help any person who got in her way. (Frank died in 1945 and is buried in the Empangeni cemetery.)

But now, what about Alina and her sons? Neither son was eager for their mother to live with them. Anthony had married Katarina Geldenhuis and John to Elaine Grant. And seriously, a mother-in-law like Alina was not conducive to a happy home. Alina found a provider in Harry the Greek. As her lover, he was happy to accommodate her quirks for a while. But that relationship soured and Alina found a new love and young husband in Jacob Breytenbach. Jacob was younger than her own sons. Yup. Let's just process that for a moment. The time in between lovers and husbands was fraught with financial worry for Alina and that is when my grandmother took her in. Alina lived in my grandparent's garage at Wynn Court. I can't imagine that Gran would have allowed heavy drinking, as Gran's idea of a party was a glass of whisky at the end of the day to help her sleep. Oh, and maybe a beer shandy at a social event, but heavy drinking, heaven forbid. The story spread that Alina was really one of the Romanov princesses. But we all know that this was a lie. Alina was already living in South Africa at the time of the executions. After WW11 the returned service men and women, (The Members of the Order Tin Hats or MOTHs) started up a Saturday movie theater in the old city hall. City? Maybe Town hall would be a better description? To book your seat, you would write your name in chalk on a piece of brick or stone and place it on the chair of your choice. Alina never missed a show. She seldom booked her seat, but expected the plebeians to move out of her way so that she could sit where she usually did. The show started with the Pathe newsreel, then a cartoon of the Bugs Bunny kind and finally a serial of some sort involving cowboys jumping horses off cliffs and rising from the river with perfectly coiffed hair and ironed clothes. Intermission was entertaining. Yoyo aficionados, singing cowboys on horseback, dancers and really, just anyone who wanted to show off their talents or sell their products. As a child I loved the drama and the spectacles of the Saturday matinees. And so did half the town. Some folks enjoyed the horror stories, others the romance and I remember Doris Day featuring heavily as well as Gene Kelly dancing across the screens. It was the time of beehive hairdos and we all knew not to sit behind Mrs Dreyer and her cartel of beehived friends. The back row was reserved for young couples and policed by Mr. Mills telling them to stop canoodling when they got too passionate. Mini skirts were prevalent, but never worn by Alina. She was short and mmmm..., dumpy? Or well rounded? She wore the same clothes she had done for decades along with a collection of hats featuring silk flowers and feathers.

And now, we return to my parents and Johnny's visit. He stayed for a while to chat and catch up on what the family were doing. He showed concern that my father was losing his eye to the errant fuel tank shrapnel and then said his farewells. He strode off down the street to visit others from his childhood and I do hope that he found a buyer for his velvet wall hanging. My father went back to painting the lounge wall and that was that. Johnny never returned, but we did hear from time to time of his antics. Anthony, his brother, died in 1971 and Johnny in 1975. Before Alina died in 1969, she was rumoured to have put a curse on the male Antonowitz line. We have no idea why she did this, did they offend her in some way? But it does make me wonder what her relationship with her sons was like. She didn't seem like the cuddly grandma type of person with a pocketful of sweeties and a heart full of love. On 5 October 1999, the last of the male Antonowitz line died when two trains collided at Ladbroke Grove Junction on the Paddington line in England. At 8.11 am 31 people died in the smash and Derek Antonowitz was one of them. Did the curse muttered by Alina cause this and the death of the other 30 victims? Whatever you wish to believe, it remains a sad tale of a family fractured by tragedy and a lost heritage. History is written with the pen of the survivors and yes, there are some of those too in the family. People have claimed that Alina was a lost Romanov princess, but in reality she was a lost and lonely young girl with few choices in life. She survived as best she could and sometimes not very well, but her legacy lives on in the stories we tell about life in Empangeni in the 1950's and 60's.