Karl went to school in Germany and when his father arranged for the family to join him in Kimberley in 1883 it was at first thought that both Peter Johannes and Karl would stay behind to further their studies. Their brother Paul, who was older than Karl, and their half-brother Samuel had by this time already joined their father in Kimberley. Karl did eventually accompany his mother and was with her when Maria, her younger children and the wife of Samuel Thiel, with her three children, arrived at Modder River on 14 April 1883. Even at this early age Karl’s musical talent was evident: after greeting their father, Karl played the piano for him while his younger brother Ernst played the violin.

In Kimberley, Karl initially helped his father to sell vegetables to the cosmopolitan community. His grandson, Karl Hermann Emil Thiel, tells a delightful story which he heard from his father. Having just arrived from Germany, this sixteen year old boy had to push a wheelbarrow around town and was advised to shout loudly Beautiful cauliflowers – Beautiful cauliflowers. The next morning he unfortunately forgot the exact words and asked somebody for help. This individual told him to shout Bloody fool cauliflowers – Bloody fool cauliflowers which he promptly did, to the amusement of his potential customers.

In the late 1880’s both Karl and his younger brother Ernst went to work on the gold mines on the Witwatersrand where Karl worked for City Deep Gold Mining.

Around 1890 Karl moved to Pretoria where he met and married Cecilie Magdalena Siemssen. She had been born in Australia from German parents who after a short stay in Melbourne moved to the Cape Province in South Africa where her father owned a mill in Paarl before they moved to Pretoria. Karl was very musical and conducted the church choir in Kimberley and also played the organ in the Lutheran Church. He met his future wife when they both sang in the choir of the German Lutheran Church. Their two eldest children, Karl Johannes Otto Thiel and Cecilie Maria Wilhelmine Thiel were born in Pretoria in 1891 and 1892 respectively. In 1894 Karl Thiel bought the Nylstroom Hotel and they moved to this small town about 150 kilometres north of Pretoria. Three daughters were born in Nylstroom – Julia Wilhelmine in 1894, Maria Philomine Pauline in 1896 and Erna Cornelia in 1898. Their youngest child, Wilhelm Gustav was born 7 years later in 1905 after the family had moved back to Pretoria.
The horsedrawn coach from Pretoria to the north stopped regularly in front of the Nylstroom Hotel as shown in the photo below.

The State President of the Transvaal, Paul Kruger, stopped for lunch at the hotel on several occasions. The following photo of the Nylstroom Hotel shows Karl Thiel standing on the veranda with his foot on a chair and his wife sitting to the left with their daughter Julia on her lap and their eldest child Karl standing next to her. To the left are three visitors.

 During the Anglo Boer War (1899-1902) Australian soldiers visited the Bar on the right of the photo and on one occasion caused considerable damage. Karl Thiel told his grandson that they did target shooting with pistols at bottles on the shelves and then signed IOU’s which were still in his possession many years later.

 After the Anglo Boer War Karl sold the hotel in Nylstroom and they moved back to Pretoria where he built a house for the family in Pretorius Street opposite the Caledonian Sports Grounds. He built an apartment in the garden for his elderly parents where his widowed sister, Johanna Weichardt, also stayed for some time with her two children Karl and Louis.

After his mother died in 1906 Karl decided that his family should return to Germany. In 1907 he travelled to his brother Peter Johannes in Germany where he intended to make arrangements for his wife and children to join him. They stayed with her sister, Maria, in Johannesburg on their way to Cape Town. While they were there she had to travel back to Pretoria for the funeral of her father in law, Gustav Thiel, before they proceeded to Cape Town where the family stayed with Otto Thiel, Karl’s brother. On board the German vessel Krohn Prinzessin , on their way to Germany, the family received a message from Karl saying that he had found it too cold in Germany and asking them to disembark at Swakopmund and travel from there to Windhoek. As no docking facilities were available at Swakopmund, the family was taken off the ship by means of a crane. They travelled by train to Windhoek with German replacement troops on open goods trucks covered with tarpaulins stretched over poles using beer boxes for seats. The journey lasted three days and the train stopped overnight at Karibib. The family arrived in Windhoek on 24 November 1907. After Karl had joined his family they moved to the farm Omataku, near Grootfontein, about 400 kilometres north of Windhoek.  They bought the farm from Karl’s wife’s sister, Minnie and her husband Joe who had bought the farm from the Hereros. Living conditions were very difficult and Cecilie Thiel and all her children developed malaria on the farm. Maria Schimming recollected in 1990 that she herself was ill from malaria for a period of six months. Karl’s wife, Cecilie, became so ill from malaria that it became clear that she would die if she did not get proper attention. Cecilie was then taken to a doctor in Windhoek where members of the New Apostolic Church looked after her. The younger children joined their mother in Windhoek. After Karl had sold the farm, Omataku, to a Hollander he and his eldest son, Karl, also returned to Windhoek.

In Windhoek Karl managed the Collisons Liquor Store for several years while the family stayed in Klein Windhoek.

After more than a decade in Windhoek Karl decided to take up farming on the farm Arcadia which was about half way between Windhoek and Gobabis  adjacent to the farm Waldhöhe on which his daughter Maria Schimming and her husband had been farming since shortly after their marriage.

This photo of Karl Wilhelm Thiel on his horse, with the assembled family members, next to the wagon carrying their belongings was taken in Windhoek in 1922 immediately before their departure for the farm Arcadia.

Karl turned Arcadia from a barren farm into an oasis. He had a large vineyard, he was a cattle farmer, produced maize and beans and sold dairy products including cream. Karl stayed at Arcadia until shortly before his death in 1947. He stayed for a short while with his older son Karl in Windhoek and passed away in Windhoek at the age of 80.