Ingrid Antonsen

The little elves were actually made by her father, who also made the house

The first memory I have of visiting Aunty Ingrid is of a Christmas event at her house, with the little red elves from Norway displayed on white cotton wool and all the sparkling drinks in red and green. We, who were not allowed such glamorous drinks at home were further instructed by no less an authority than my mother, “the lady with the clean house” as Kelly-Anne spoke of her when a young child, to take ourselves out onto the balcony and drink there lest we spill on Ingrid’s carpet or knock over any of her knick-knacks or in general, disturb the peace at all. However, Ingrid was not fussed as my mother was, and was in fact frustrated by our exile from polite company and sailed out to bring us back into the long big room to be part of the company where her mum sat quietly like a queen to whom we all were to pay homage, and her aunt Tante Bear chortled away on the edge of her chair, telling stories to both those who would listen – and those who did not, her conversational flow undeterred by any lack of response.

From her then I learnt that precious things are to be used, and that children are to be included in company; it was either her mum or Faster, my great-aunt who said, “I never put away things for my children and I don’t believe in putting them away for other people’s children”. However, it then visits upon you a great responsibility not to harm any of the pretty plates or knives or forks she would roll out whenever company was invited to her mum’s birthday tea. 

Xmas faery mouse with Ingrid's mum's glass ornaments

One of the first memories of Ingrid’s own mother was that of the Ålesund fire of the 23^rd January 1904, in which most of the village burned to the ground. Thereafter, whenever her father, Ingrid’s grandfather, had any little bit of money, he’d go and purchase another of the Rose silver cutlery set and bring it to her grandmother, saying, as he presented it to her: “Here wife – now USE it!”

Not only did Ingrid cherish people by bringing out all her dainty china and silverware, but also through baking up a storm on special days. Spread out on the table would be an enormous array of baked Norwegian goodies, from waffles to Blotekake, a delicacy that the New York Times speaks of as “layered sponge-cake covered with drifts of whipped cream and fruit, is a dessert that Norwegians are passionate and possessive about”. It was in Ingrid and her mum’s home in Cullingworth Mansions on Vause Road in Durban that I was to discover the delight of sugar cubes picked up in long silver tongs, and that Norwegians should take one of everything on offer, and pop it onto a plate and then munch away, which seemed to be both eminently sensible and practical. For once, my mum was in agreement, culture trumped usual house rules I was delighted to learn and clearly a Norwegian inheritance was therefore a thing of which to be immensely proud.  

When it came to Norwegian pride, Aunty Ingrid Antonsen was always first in line, flying the Norwegian flag – or rather flags – high, and it is fitting that the funeral today is in the Norwegian Settlers Church in a community in which she was both so busy and so happy. There were not many Norwegians who left Norway for South Africa, and in fact only 651 Norwegians had settled here by 1930, almost all of them in the then Natal (to give you a sense of perspective, there were only just over 1000 in the whole of Africa at that time). The initial group settled mostly in the Port Shepstone area, specifically in Marburg, and most of them were derived from the the Sunnmøre district, and from Ålesund in particular. There was no coincidence in this, in that the ship-makers and carpenters from this district were promised a harbour at Port Shepstone, for which Aunty Ingrid wryly noted, with a twist to her lip, they are still waiting - some 130 years later. Ingrid was descended on her father's side from the first party of 246 people who came out in 1882, but her mother's family arrived in 1922; one of the last families who joined the original settlers. By this time, they had long realised a harbour would not be forthcoming, but other opportunities arose. A number of settlers went back to Norway, or on to Australia, but many stayed. Norway was at the time, a desperately poor and new country, long before the discovery of North Sea oil.

Amongst those who chose life in Natal was her family, and growing up, her father worked on the North Coast as a transport manager. All her grandmothers didn't speak English very well and that is why, although she was born here, she is of that generation that spoke Norwegian fluently as a second language. How she came into our lives is that my granny, Anna Sivertsen, was matron at the Norwegian Mission Hostel in Durban, and when Ingrid came to stay at the hostel a friendship was started between the families. My granny and Ingrid's mother became best friends, to the extent that Ingrid and her mum became part of our extended family. Not the family you are born with, but the family you chose – and for good reason too. When my granny moved into Essenwood Home, she asked Ingrid if she could leave her sewing machine in Ingrid’s flat and on a few, designated days of the week she would trot along with her own key in hand to the flat to do do a little bit of sewing, taking over a table in a room so to do. Granny was always so grateful for this as it would afforded her a bit of quiet and privacy away from the bustle of a large and busy retirement home. Norwegians – well the ones I know from my youth anyway – are a bit like Kipling’s “The Cat that Walked by Himself” wanting to be away by themselves in the wild lone. When I mentioned this great kindness to Aunty Ingrid, she noted, “Yes, but your granny also sewed things for me too”. That’s just so typically Norwegian, brush aside the compliments, the quicker the better, always look for the alternative view point, take it with a pinch of salt.

Ingrid was known for her enormous and enduring sympathy for young children and her patient care of the very old and especially for her long and loving care of her mother.  Ingrid and her mum between them had lost her dad, her brother, and Ingrid’s husband when I first knew them, the two women led a frugal life living off Ingrid’s salary from working in administration for Robertson’s spices. Yet when her mum fell ill she did not hesitate to find her a room in a place of care in Hillcrest and every week she made the journey up from Durban to spend the Sunday with her mum. She talked to the nurses and made friends with them and talked about her mother, since she felt that if they knew what her mum had been to her she became a person and treat her better despite the fact she could hardly talk by then at all. When I was talking about it to Ingrid recently, her eyes lit up and she remarked, “Yes, and I always had a proper Sunday dinner at your house on the way home aand your mum always put up a real feast so I always looked forward to it as I got to eat very well on those days”.

I am so pleased that in her own time of need she was looked after so well by the Mbango nurses, community and her church, and a very special thanks to Aunt Ingrid Butterfield who was an absolute stalwart and tower of strength during this time.

Of course, many of you would only know her as the globe-trotting woman she became upon the deaths of her spinster aunts and bachelor uncles in Norway. Those of her mother’s generation in particular were too poor to marry and she was the sole niece or I think great-niece of a large family and therefore came into a series of inheritances from a number of sources. Childless, though she would have loved children that blessing she never had, and she chose instead to love the children of those of her extended family, or families, and secure enough in her well-planned retirement at Mbango, down the South Coast she loved so well, she used the extra funds in travelling the world, usually also blessing a travelling companion with this gift. She who had lived so humbly for so long so enjoyed and richly deserved the happiness that came with her ability to travel and in the same way that she never bemoaned her lot when times were tough and she had many burdens, so she remain steady and steadfast in her Christianity whether times were good or bad.

My favourite story from her travels illustrates so well so many of Ingrid’s admirable characteristics, from enormous sympathy with all those she encountered, an ear always ready to listen to others, the ability to befriend those from all walks of life, thereby eliciting confidences from all and sundry, combined with a great and enduring sense of humour, usually not a laugh-out loud kind of humour but denoted by the twinkle in her eye. She especially enjoyed the small foibles and follies of humanity.

During her youth, Ingrid travelled to Norway to visit her family there and during one trip before she was 17, she made a pledge and joined a Teetotal society. Ingrid kept her pledge and never touched a drop of alcohol in her life and retained her membership in the organisation. One year, she joined a bus tour that this Teetotal Society had organised, I think possibly to Oberammergau to see the Passion Play. The society sang songs in the bus and in-between singing remarked on how well and carefully and safely their driver drove, it was really most remarkable. Of all those on the tour though, it was Aunty Ingrid who befriended the bus driver and talked to him. It was she who particularly noted that he always stayed with the bus, never joining the party at stops, and was most careful of it and sometimes she joined him there to talk, and if I know Aunty Ingrid, checking on him if he needed something to eat or drink. One day he confided in her that in fact, cradled within its depths in a hidden cavity, on some kind of suspension system, were some bottles of hard tack he was smuggling back into Norway so as to avoid the onerous import duties. My mother loved the image of the singing teetotallers above and the hidden alcohol below, all driving back to Norway, very, very carefully indeed.

Her place in Mbango, with the second storey flat, complete with a small balcony from which she could view and converse with the humanity that was passing beneath her was where she spent many happy years of her retirement and on the occasion of her 80th birthday she spent a week before-hand baking and preparing for a big event in its hall to which her many friends were invited.

Norway's National Day marks the signing of its Constitution on May 17, 1814. As my mother notes, both wryly and drily, it is celebrated with a "superfluity of bunting". By which of course she means the flags, which are proudly placed on everything, and particularly the kransekake.

 I have only once seen this kind of patriotic outpouring in South Africa, during the World Cup 2010, when it was transforming (literally) to see South Africans brazenly bedecking all and sundry with flags both necessary and unnecessary.

When I was growing up, May 17 was still a noteworthy event on our calendar. We always made our way down to the Norwegian Hall in Durban, lined with a series of large murals commissioned from Nils Anderson, an artist who grew up in Norway, or more accurately, on the sea with his father, a Master Mariner, and who was a dear friend of my great-aunt, Faster. The murals, 14 in all, depict various aspects of Norwegian life, and down below was a great bustling of women coming and going, the tombolas, the talk, a great coming and going of children and activities.

However, the centre-piece and main fund-raiser of the evening was a raffle, for which first prize was the kransekake. Although we always over-subscribed to the raffle, year after year, depressingly, we never won it. However, this sad event proved to have a happy sequelae.

I was supposed to be a May 17 baby, though I most distressingly and annoyingly decided to make my appearance very late into the world (a good theatrical start is always to be advocated), I nonetheless consider May 17 very much part of my heritage (of course, my daughter missed it by only a day- the other way). So, when Ingrid, my godmother, asked me what I wanted for my confirmation when I was 13, I, with the impetuousity and thoughtlessness of youth asked her if she could bake me a kransekake, which request rather rocked her back on her heels initially. However, undeterred, she spent much time in Norwegian cook-books working out its secrets (the official kransekake baker in the Durban community proving remarkably taciturn and in fact, downright hostile in this regard giving her ) in order to fulfil my wish. After many false starts and multiple bakings she had success and after that, it became a mainstay of all of major family celebrations to which Ingrid came, making its appearance at weddings from Harry and Wendy through to myself and Fem and also at my son Faran’s christening and confirmation.

But I know ours is not the only family and community she blessed with her love and presence, and I particularly want to thank her church community for the many visits and presents I heard about and saw in the final years of her life and also the Mbango community and her care-givers who took such great care of her in her final days and especially aunty Ingrid Butterfield who was an absolute stalwart in this regard – thank you. What I remember most is that she had great joy in her final days, despite her pain and travails and was well-looked after as she deserved.

In celebrating her life today, the words of Hebrews 12: 1 spring to mind:  "Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that lies before us." At the end of Ingrid’s race well run, we know that the words of Matthew 25:21 apply: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”. She can now rest in peace, having enriched our lives forever.