Edward Gustav Theodor Thiel & Valdemar Otto Thiel

Both Edward and  Valdemar (Vollie) studied agriculture after they left school in 1918 and 1922 respectively. Edward trained as a learner farmer on the Nelmapius Farm and then followed a 2 year course at Elsenburg Agricultural College outside Stellenbosch. Valdemar (Vollie) trained as a learner farmer on farms in the Karoo near Richmond and Middelburg in the Cape Province. He then studied and qualified at Grootfontein Agricultural College in Middelburg. In about 1923 Norsk Villa, the home of the Egenes and Thiel families in Rosebank, Cape Town was exchanged by the family for the sheep farm, Sunnyside, near Norvalls Pont on the Orange River in the northern Cape. Edward went farming on the Sunnyside farm and was later joined by his brother, Vollie and they managed the farm together as The Thiel Brothers.

The depression and the concomitant drought made it difficult for them to continue and Edward went off to the Transvaal to earn money where he joined a match manufacturing firm. He later went back to the Sunnyside farm on the Orange River where he died in 1942 and was buried on the farm.

Around 1932 Vollie also left the farm at Norvalls Pont. He moved to a farm near Welverdiend in the Western Transvaal adjoining the farm, Preston Pans, of his father Otto and his second wife. Vollie later moved to the East Rand where his wife died in 1976. He then went to live with his daughter, Jenny, in Durban where he died in 1985.