Page 237 - The Diary of A. H. W. Behrens

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1916
Mission Director Egmond Harms died in the year 1916. He was found dead in his bed in the morning. He must have suffered a stroke. We had been on familiar terms and he had called me Wilhelm and I had called him Egmond until the above happened in 1907-09 and I ended up in his bad books instead of him calling me for a discussion to Natal. I only had the best interests of the Hermannsburg Mission in mind. Kroondal recovered after the Boer War and did not suffer under the World War. It is a beautiful German village with a church, school and church hall. Everything is moving forward. Under the Dam Plan, the government also bought my 666 acres of Klipkop at ₤ 3 per acre in 1916 and with this money I could pay the debt of the construction of my house and others. This farm had been of great benefit to me from 1882 to 1916. Bought cheaply and sold at a great advantage and in the 34 years it had supplied me with good harvests of wheat, maize, oats and vegetables for my household, I never had a failed harvest or damages under the blessings of the Lord!! So, I was left with only my share of Waaikraal and lived there. And there it was wonderfully quiet and in the mornings I could reach my work in Bethanie within one hour because it was hardly 4 to 5 miles away.