Mystery of graves in Vosloorus unravelled
All the names scripted on the tombstones are those of different Afrikaner families who are believed to have lived on a farm known as Tambokiesfontein, south of Kathorus.
The mystery behind the 25 graves on a small piece of unsecured land inside the Vosloorus waste reticulation centre is gradually unravelling after Kathorus MAIL succeeded in tracing a few living relatives and descendants of some of the people buried there.
All the names scripted on the tombstones are those of different Afrikaner families who are believed to have lived on a farm known as Tambokiesfontein, south of Kathorus.
It is also believed that others who were intermarried members of the same family living on nearby farming homesteads (including Mapleton, north of Vosloorus) used the plot as a family graveyard during the early 1800s.
This was approximately 100 years before the townships of Kathorus were established in the early 1960s.
Prominent among the list of surnames on the 25 graves is that of the Bierman family. Unconfirmed reports reveal male family members were leading role players in the local civic politics in the area at the time. This, Kathorus MAIL believes, would have then or later linked a male member of the family to the nearby city of Boksburg; hence the main road linking the township of Vosloorus in 1964 to the town of Boksburg could have been named after him.
Bierman Road is the main thoroughfare that begins not far from the private graveyard and runs through several sections of the township, from the south to the north. The road starts less than a kilometre parallel with the graveyard and runs past the Chris Hani Mall as it snakes past the township’s business centre, proceeding past the Vosloorus SAPS building and continuing straight underneath the N3 bridge towards Boksburg town in the north.
Research further reveals Izak B. Bierman – whose date of birth is listed as April 23, 1859, and who died on September 22, 1942, at the age ripe old age of 83 – might have been the patriarch of the family who is referred to as “Ons Oupa en Groot Vader”.
Izak Bierman’s grave is surrounded by several other graves also bearing the Bierman family name, including that of Susanna Josina Bierman (born Marais) who was born on November 30, 1859, and died on June 10, 1945. She and Martha Sophia Bierman (born Kruger), who was born on February 18, 1876, and died on March 11, 1944, at the age of 68, appear to be the oldest female members of the family.
The rest of the Bierman family graves bear the names of what appears to be much younger members of the family. The youngest is Hermina Maria Isabella Bierman (born Marais). She was only 20 years old when she died in 1836.
Adolf Siegfried Bierman, whose date of birth is listed as August 13, 1890, is another possible Bierman after whom Bierman Road in Vosloorus might have been named. According to the time frame of his adult active life, he may have been involved in civic politics and the old Native Affairs branch.
He died aged 65 on September 8, 1955,
nine years before black residents of the old “mixed” Stirtonville townships west of Boksburg were relocated to Vosloorus, 25km away, south of Boksburg. The move coincided with the forced removal which saw other “mixed” communities like Sophiatown in Johannesburg being dismantled and black families relocated as part of the Group Areas Act.
Apart from old man Izak, Adolf Siegfried Bierman remains the most like candidate to have lent his name to the main road from Vosloorus to Boksburg.
A living possible descendant of the family, Ineke Prinsloo, from Ekurhuleni, wrote: “In reference to your post on the Bierman graves in the Vosloorus cemetery, I am fairly certain that this Susanna Josina Bierman, who was born Marais, is my maternal grandmother’s family.”
Charmaine O’Neale, an expert in genealogy who runs a family-tracing agency, has undertaken to use her expertise to further explore the origins of the Vosloorus burial ground.
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