Hi Donovan,
To introduce myself, may I suggest you take a quick look at my website www.erroluys.com where you'll find my bio. (I was adopted by Joey in 1943; at the site, you will see that a few years back I found my birth family in SA.)
Joey was a remarkable human being who lived a very full life. I had the prescience to "interview" her at length years ago when I was a reporter on The Star, and also to get her to sit down and write a short but very detailed autobiography.
I've previously done work on a memoir about Joey, which I've recently picked up again. Now, though, I plan to tell her story in novel form "as inspired by true events." This gives me greater leeway to fill in the gaps in Joey's notes and also to tell the saga of Johannesburg spanning the years 1895-1953.
Joey had a great memory: Her recollections gel perfectly with actual dates, even back to her mother Elsie's death, when Joey was just three! (and her sister newly-born.) Though Elsie died at Vereeniging in 1895, this was a consequence of a rail accident shortly before traveling back from Bethulie.
I could go on and on but for now, a question about sources listed on the Geni site: There are three notations about Joey's divorces from George Frederick le Grange, Mervyn Gerrard Hirsch, and Eric Uys (my adoptive father) with respective dates of 1915 - 1924 -1955.
Is there any further information available from these records, especially the 1915 and 1924 cases? Marriage dates? In both these cases, the husbands are listed as the plaintiffs. I suspect that in those times given the absence of women's rights or power, men mostly called the shots. The facts I have from Joey, and which I've no reason to doubt, would certainly see her as plaintiff today! -- Are these records simply court ledger entries or do they list grounds etc.?
Not sure how often I will be checking in to Geni having only taken a trial membership, but I'm also contactable through my site.
Thanking you in advance,
Sincerely,
Errol
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