Tes Rogers
Derdepoort Massacres
War was declared between the English and the Boere on October 8, 1899. Hannie and Wijtse Lampen and their four young kids were living in a house on Heystek Street in Rustenburg. (Another baby boy was to be born a year later.) Other family members lived on farms near Rustenburg, some a bit further away. The women immediately set to task baking rusks and cookies, drying wors and doing all they could to prepare for their men to go and fight in what they felt was going to a six-month long war only. Hannie’s father, Jan Heystek, was now the Magistrate of the District of Zoutpansberg, living in Pietersburg with his wife Anna Maria and the three youngest Heystek daughters, Jacoba & Josina (twins), and Maria. Hannie’s younger brother, Abraham Eliza, had died after an illness the previous year at only 17 years old.
