When she was 15, East London senior citizen Jelta Fredericks was faced with a massive identity crisis which she explores in her recently penned memoir My Life on the Kitchen Floor.
It was also the age she managed to buy her first pair of shoes after living barefoot in the small village of Shiloh near Whittlesea where she was brought up by a one-eyed, semi-paralysed old lady she called Umaa, whom she believed to be her grandmother.
In the book, Fredericks, 65, writes about a life battling to lock in an identity as well as her return to her impoverished Shiloh roots a few years ago in a vain attempt to find answers.
Light-skinned, she grew up speaking Xhosa in the company of her three black older brothers and a black granny, but only became aware of these differences when she moved to East London.
“I was told by Umaa that I was her daughter’s child and that my three older brothers were also her children. We lived in a three-roomed house with mud walls and I slept on the kitchen floor and that is why my book is called My Life on the Kitchen Floor.
“I don’t remember feeling I looked different – I was too hungry to think about that.”
At some point in her childhood, Fredericks lived with a family in Shiloh’s coloured section.
“They took me on as a slave and once again I slept on their kitchen floor. They only gave me food if I did my chores.”
There was one brief meeting with her mother after her grandmother died when Fredericks was 13, but not many words were exchanged and she never saw her again.
Armed with her Standard 6 Bantu education certificate, Fredericks arrived in East London in 1976 and found a job at a dry-cleaner before working for a national clothing chain and a factory.
“I remember buying my first pair of leather shoes for R1.99 and falling off my bed because I was used to sleeping on the floor.”
With Xhosa as her first language, Dongeni as her surname and her Afrikaans not up to scratch, she was called ‘Boeremeid’ by coloured people and, because she had fair skin, her nickname in the Xhosa-speaking community was ‘Malawu’ .
At 20, Fredericks got married and settled into Buffalo Flats, where she felt accepted, but the questions of her origin continued to unsettle her.
As a young factory worker, she would buy dresses on sale at Milady’s and sell them on at full price to her colleagues.
In 1986, she took over the running of a city centre takeaway and over the years added a successful butchery. “I was the first tshisanyama in East London!”
Another successful takeaway business followed in North End in 2000 and Fredericks now owns a bustling tuckshop at AW Barnes.
“I decided to write the book after my daughter asked me who I was. I went back to Shiloh. One of my brothers said I had been brought to my granny by three men when I was three. I still don’t know who I am. Was I a bastard child? Was I kidnapped? Was my mother raped? Not knowing who you are is a void that can never be filled.”
l My Life on the Kitchen Floor costs R250 and is available by calling Jelta Fredericks on 0829234019. —
barbarah@dispatch.co.za
Quest fails in bid to find roots
It was also the age she managed to buy her first pair of shoes after living barefoot in the small village of Shiloh near Whittlesea where she was brought up by a one-eyed, semi-paralysed old lady she called Umaa, whom she believed to be her grandmother.
In the book, Fredericks, 65, writes about a life battling to lock in an identity as well as her return to her impoverished Shiloh roots a few years ago in a vain attempt to find answers.
Light-skinned, she grew up speaking Xhosa in the company of her three black older brothers and a black granny, but only became aware of these differences when she moved to East London.
“I was told by Umaa that I was her daughter’s child and that my three older brothers were also her children. We lived in a three-roomed house with mud walls and I slept on the kitchen floor and that is why my book is called My Life on the Kitchen Floor.
“I don’t remember feeling I looked different – I was too hungry to think about that.”
At some point in her childhood, Fredericks lived with a family in Shiloh’s coloured section.
“They took me on as a slave and once again I slept on their kitchen floor. They only gave me food if I did my chores.”
There was one brief meeting with her mother after her grandmother died when Fredericks was 13, but not many words were exchanged and she never saw her again.
Armed with her Standard 6 Bantu education certificate, Fredericks arrived in East London in 1976 and found a job at a dry-cleaner before working for a national clothing chain and a factory.
“I remember buying my first pair of leather shoes for R1.99 and falling off my bed because I was used to sleeping on the floor.”
With Xhosa as her first language, Dongeni as her surname and her Afrikaans not up to scratch, she was called ‘Boeremeid’ by coloured people and, because she had fair skin, her nickname in the Xhosa-speaking community was ‘Malawu’ .
At 20, Fredericks got married and settled into Buffalo Flats, where she felt accepted, but the questions of her origin continued to unsettle her.
As a young factory worker, she would buy dresses on sale at Milady’s and sell them on at full price to her colleagues.
In 1986, she took over the running of a city centre takeaway and over the years added a successful butchery. “I was the first tshisanyama in East London!”
Another successful takeaway business followed in North End in 2000 and Fredericks now owns a bustling tuckshop at AW Barnes.
“I decided to write the book after my daughter asked me who I was. I went back to Shiloh. One of my brothers said I had been brought to my granny by three men when I was three. I still don’t know who I am. Was I a bastard child? Was I kidnapped? Was my mother raped? Not knowing who you are is a void that can never be filled.”
l My Life on the Kitchen Floor costs R250 and is available by calling Jelta Fredericks on 0829234019. —
barbarah@dispatch.co.za
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