Her Life

Petticoat Pioneer

The Nellie du Plooy Trophy

Paintings

Her Life by Anna, her daughter

My mother Nellie was the middle daughter of  Neels and Annie du Plooy, born at Hopetown on 12 May 1902. She and Sue were just one year apart in age - Ann was five years younger. The three sisters were very close.Nellie lived with her parents in Kimberley and taught the kindergarten class at the Newton Primary School. Most of her class consisted of children from the Newton Orphanage.

Whether they were actual orphans or still had a parent somewhere, they were certainly starved of love and affection and my mother was frequently admonished for undermining the dignity of the profession, neglecting discipline and  "spoiling" the children. She saw nothing undignified in hugging parentless four- and five-year-olds and letting them sit on her lap. She had the best-behaved class in the school, so her critics didn't have much of a leg to stand on.

She had a lot of artistic talent but her parents could not afford to send her away to art school. Instead she went to the Teachers' Training College and once she was earning a salary, she paid for art classes with Miss Sarah Reid, an alumnus of the Slade School in London.

She became well-known as a painter, and held her first exhibition in Cape Town in 1933.

She did not marry young: she was a 32-year old schoolteacher when she married my father, Jaap Steenkamp, who was five years her junior, in 1934. I was born in 1939,  my sister Marie followed five years later and my brother Rudolph two years after her.

She was a gentle and loving person and she never shouted at us nor smacked us. I never knew her to use even the mildest form of bad language. We all teased her for years afterwards about an embarrassing experience she once had at the grocer's. Those were the days before supermarkets: you bought your requirements over the counter. The upmarket grocer in town was Andrew Kiddie's. Mum was in Kiddie's on a busy Saturday morning and she wanted to buy a bottle of "Mrs Ball's Chutney". The saleslady asked her what sort of chutney she wanted. She had to raise her voice above the hubbub, when one of those moments occurred when there is a momentary silence, with only Mum saying loudly: "Ball's!"  Everybody looked at her, a few people sniggered and Mum was mortified.

 It was always her dream to have a "real studio", but that never happened and our house always smelt of turpentine - Mum would set up her easel in the dining room or in the sitting room or wherever the light was best.

She may have been an artist but she was also a very practical person. She was a good cook and she made all my and my sister's clothes when we were children. She could turn her hand to anything. My father was not much of a handyman and Mum was the one to turn to if anything went awry. 

One day my brother, who was about sixteen at the time, was fooling around with one of Dad's guns, which he knew very well not to do, but he was showing off as boys his age will do. Next thing we knew, the thing went off and shot a dirty great hole in the wall. My mother saved him from a dreadful fate by patching that wall  before Dad came home. She made a sort of papier mache paste and stuffed the hole, smoothing it over and touching it up with her oil paints mixed to just the right shade. 

It was not until we were all in high school that she went back to teaching. She taught art at three of Kimberley's high schools. She also taught various crafts: pottery, pewter and batik, at the local Technical College.

Despite all her teaching commitments, her charity work and the many committees on which she served, she was always there for her family and held the reins of her household firmly. After she was widowed, she lived with her second daughter Marie until her death at age 92.

Petticoat Pioneer

In 2002 the Kimberley Africana Library published "Petticoat Pioneers", a book by Maureen Rall celebrating the women who pioneered life on the Diamond Fields.

In the chapter on artists, Nellie is featured and with the permission of Mrs Kokkie Duminy of the Kimberley Africana Library, I quote from the article:

Cornelia Carolina du Plooy

Cornelia Carolina du Plooy, known as Nellie, was born in Hopetown on 12 may 1902. Her artistic talents first came to the fore when, as a schoolgirl in the little riverside town of Douglas, she helped her father by drawing blueprints. A pretty village with the Vaal River lying at its feet, Douglas provided much for the artist to commit to paper and canvas and the young girl was able to sketch and paint to her heart's content.

Nellie attended the Douglas High School and subsequently the Kimberley Teachers' College which later became the Diamantveld High School. While teaching at the Newton Primary School, she studied fine arts with Sarah Reid, a graduate of the Slade School of Art in London and Paris.

After her marriage to Mr JR Steenkamp in May 1934, he was transferred to Cape Town and here Nellie's career as an artist blossomed. Four years after arriving in the Mother City, she held the first of eleven one-man exhibitions, followed by ten others held in Bloemfontein, Pretoria, Cradock, Douglas and Kimberley.

Kimberley was fortunate that the couple returned to the city in 1944, for her contribution to arts and culture was enormous. Here she staged one-man exhibitions and exhibited sketches, watercolours, pastels, oils and Batik at numerous group exhibitions. Public buildings also benefited from her talents: she was responsible for the windows in the Diamantveld Dutch Reformed Church (see left) , painted the backdrops at the McGregor Museum in Beaconsfield and the ten panels in the Kimberley City Hall.

She was commissioned to paint the portraits of many prominent figures, including Mrs Maria Malan, the wife of  Prime Minister D.F. Malan, in 1949; Dr J.B. Hertzog, Judge Bok, Judge Hugo, Mayor Jacobus Smit of Kimberley, and various others. She also painted portraits of various family members, and that of President P.W. Botha and one of her grandfather, Genl. PJ de Villiers, which is now in the Military Museum in Bloemfontein.

For the schools this teacher/artist had a special affection and she designed many school badges, including those of Newton Primary School, Diamantveld High School, President Swart Primary School and Adamantia High School.

Mrs Steenkamp, who worked under her maiden name, was one of the founder members of the Kimberley Arts Foundation and was a member of the Board of the William Humphries Art gallery for 23 years until her resignation in 1984.

On the occasion of her 90th birthday in 1992 she reminisced: "I have been drawing and painting ever since I can remember, but I had to give it up in 1980, when I started having problems with my eyes."

Nellie du Plooy died in Kimberley at the home of her daughter, Marie Liebenberg, on 13th July 1993, two months after her 91st birthday. She was survived by two daughters, a son and three grandchildren.

At Douglas High School, c.1916 (below)

Nellie 3rd from the left in the front row next to the teacher, Sue in the second row, next to the teacher, in the dark collar.