Our Years at SABS

It has been some time since my last post, so here goes for the "SABS experience," which will likely take up several new posts. While we were still going to the Hillside Church of Christ Al Horne came to hold a gospel meeting there. We were planning a vacation to Durban and the Hornes invited us to call by their home in Benoni on our way back to spend a few days with them before returning to Bulawayo. This we did and while we were visiting them Al asked Mel to consider coming to SABS as a student. We decided that we would like to do that and as soon as we returned we started to make plans to do so. Deb had already left to attend college in the States. War with the black Africans was on the go and Tim was of the age that he was called up for compulsory army service. Mel tried his best to get him exempt so he could also attend, but the Rhodesian authorities were adamant and we had to leave without him. It almost broke my heart, but we went ahead and arrived in Benoni and were invited to live in the Hardin's house as they were on a visit to USA. This was just to be until one of the houses on the SABS property was vacant.

When we moved to the SABS property we moved into the smaller of the two available houses. The other house was used to house the six teenaged boys who were placed in the care of another couple.

About two weeks later, after classes were over, I looked out the kitchen window and was startled to see the faculty wives stopping in our yard.  This indicated a serious problem and I was, to put it  mildly, alarmed. When they were all seated I set about getting tea ready for them, and while they were drinking it they told us why they were there. They were worried because the boys were very unhappy with the care they were receiving from the family who were put in charge of them. It had reached the pitch that the faculty felt it necessary to make a change and asked if we would consider taking on the job. We agreed and subsequently we moved , lock, stock and barrel, into the large house.

When I first walked into the house I saw the stove  I thought, "Oh, good, a black enameled stove!" But, on closer inspection I saw, to my horror, that it was a white stove which had not been cleaned in ages!! So, job number one – get that stove back to its original beauty, which literally took hours of hard labor – but, at last we had a nice clean white stove!  Now, I had  a house full of hungry mouths to feed. Thus started my period of being a surrogate Mom to these boys, and  our own two sons. Unfortunately, they seemed to think I was going to be doing ALL their washing and ironing – an impossible task for one woman, so we had a little talk and the boys all agreed to see to their own ironing.

While we lived there we acquired a kitten from one of the married couples. It decided that the place to do its business was behind the radio, and I found a perfect cure for that.  She was bothered with fleas and I often had to apply flea powder, which she HATED, and she protested bitterly – so I stood the container in the the cat's chosen corner – end of problem.