Generation 6 - Eileen Rita SCHAEFER and Thomas William HARVEY

Eileen Rita Schaefer (known always as Rita or 'Doodles') married Thomas George HARVEY on 19th December 1936 in Saints Peter and Paul's Church, Springs, Transvaal (pic).

Thomas George, like his father before him, was a Schoolmaster. He came out from Portsmouth, England presumably in the late 1920s and at the time of his wedding was living and teaching in Nkana, Northern Rhodesia. Rita was living with her parents in the married quarters of Daggafontein Gold Mine, Springs.

Thomas was 31 and Rita was 21 when they married. My husband - their son - remembers the family story of how they met being that, Rita was visiting friends in Zambia (Northern Rhodesia) and she met Thomas (Tom) at a party; she found him extremely arrogant! But got over it, clearly, as they married not long afterwards.

The Harvey family lived in Northern and Southern Rhodesia, with a spell in the 1960s in Guernsey.

Rita died in July 1990 in Pietermaritzburg, having outlived Tom by some 13 years after his death in July 1977 in Marondera, Zimbabwe.

Rita and Tom had four sons; all four still alive and well with spouses, children, and grandchildren of their own - spread over three continents and four countries!!
Their children are:

Child 1:
Anthony John Harvey b: 1938

Child 2:
Timothy Ian Harvey b: 1945

Child 3:
Jonathon Peter Harvey b: 1950

Child 4:
Thomas William Harvey b: 1957

And that really is the story of the decsendents of the 1820s Settler James Cowie, to the present day.

More posts will explore other characters in the extended family...