Maria Schimming at 94 during my visit

During my first visit she identified all the individuals on the Thiel family photo taken when she was christened in Pretoria after she was born in Nylstroom on 22 June 1896.

Thiel family photo

Maria Philomine Pauline Thiel is the small baby on the lap of her mother Cecilie sitting next to the patriarch Gustav Thiel. Her father, Karl Wilhelm Thiel, stands immediately behind her mother holding Maria’s sister Julia Wilhelmine in his arms. Maria’s sister, Cecilie Maria, stands right in front of their mother while their brother Karl Johannes Otto sits in front of his mother.

What made my second visit memorable is that shortly before I returned home, I got a message that Tante Maria wanted to see me again. I hurried to her bedside and was humbled when she presented me with a gold watch she inherited from her grandmother, Maria Thiel. She insisted that I accept it as she thought I would take good care of it.

Our great-grandmother Maria Thiel (Rausch) gave the watch to Maria Schimming (Thiel) because she was her first granddaughter in South Africa who was named after her. The golden watch with two delicate and wonderfully crafted golden chains were still in the small box it was bought from H. Bankowsky jewelers in Hofkamperstr., Elberfeld not far from the Thiel family property at Höltgestal. Bankowsky jewelers are still trading in Germany.

Maria Thiel probably bought the watch during the period the family stayed in Germany between their sojourn in Palestine before she moved in1882 with her children to join her husband in Kimberley.

Included in the box which Maria Schimming gave me were two small tools for winding and adjusting the watch as well as a brass penny of 1896, the year of birth and christening of Maria Schimming (Thiel). The penny bore the image of Queen Victoria. The inscription on the brass penny “Victoria – DEO GRA – BRITT REGINA-FID DEF-IND IMP confirms that it comes from the height of power of the British empire when she could be considered by the Grace of God as the Queen of Britain, the Defender of the Faith and the Emperor of India.

Maria Schimming also included a small handwritten note on a page from a notepad of the South African Airways. She confirms that the 1 Penny coin from 1896 is from her birth year. She states further that she inherited the watch from her grandmother Maria Thiel (She got the maiden name of her grandmother wrong). Maria mentions that the watch was about 100 years old and that her grandmother used the watch.

This precious Thiel family heirloom has been entrusted to me by Maria Schimming as she thought I will take good care of it. I will attempt to do that now and in the future.