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Name: CROUS family
General Information:
Willie Joubert Willem Hendrik Crous aka Tol Crous went to the Lupa goldfields and there married Anna Sophia van Wyk – daughter of Daniel George van Wyk and Christina Susanna Visser (my grandmother Hester Joubert née Visser’s sister). they returned to Kenya and farmed in Thomson’s Falls. they later moved to the Pullman farm in Nanyuki area. their firstborn died at the Lupa. they had a daughter Christina Susanna (named after her maternal van Wyk grandma). they later had other boys. Anna van Wyk’s brother, Barend Jacobus van Wyk (born March 9, 1908), known as ben, corresponded from the Lupa with Anna Crous and married her in Kenya. They returned to the Lupa and after successful gold finds, they moved to Kenya. They had a wheat farm on the Malewa river at Ol Kalau. they later sold it and bought a cattle spread from the Chater family near Nanyuki.
The older Crous couple had a son, Jacobus Johannes Lombard Crous. I assume the ‘Lombard’ is wrong as there is no such connection to the family and the father’s names were Jacobus Johannes Eduard (Afrikaans) and bad handwriting could have caused Eduard to be read as Lombard. the other reason for this, is that in my Visser family research, the younger brother of Ben and Anna van Wyk, Daniel George van Wyk, after serving in Europe during ww2 returned to East Africa and joined his siblings. In his fascinating books he mentioned a Johan Crous who was a widow of a brother of Tol Crous and managed a farm in the Aberdares. Ben van Wyk and Anna Crous moved to Kenya c. 1937-9.
Daniel George van Wyk: Danie was the youngest of the van Wyk family. he was born on July 11, 1924 at Ngare Nanyuki and the family moved to Iringa to a farm. from there they moved to the Lupa. When ww2 started, the van Wyk family members in Tanganyika were all arrested (due to the fact that Daniel senior had fought with the German forces in East Africa during ww1). Daniel senior had a major medical emergency and was sent to Italy and when the latter joined the Germans. He was moved to a hospital in Germany and in 1947 returned to join his wife in South Africa. The younger boys, Nicolaas Hendrik van Wyk and Daniel George (junior) were also arrested. Nicolaas was imprisoned in Tanganyika and later sent to internment camps in South Africa. his mother was in a camp in Rhodesia. Young Danie who was born under British rule and had suffered under Nazis at the German school in Mbeya, was treated as an enemy alien, but due to his age, allowed to work as parolee in Iringa. During this time, he met a Polish refugee girl in a refugee camp. He fought to be treated better and managed to sign up for service in 1942. He was sent to Kenya and from there to Egypt and then to the battlefield in Italy where he eventually became a commando. He returned to Kenya where he helped his brother Ben on the farm for a couple of years. Irena stayed in the u. k. and after a few years traveled to Kenya to join him.
See “Our Amazing Family Visser – Part 1” and “our Amazing Family Visser – Part 2,” www.amazon.com. Also books by Daniel G. van Wyk published by Lulu – www.lulu.com.