MUNIAMMA SOCIAL CLUB EXTENDED FAMILY GATHERING AT THE MERCURY CHILDRENS’ HOME IN HIBBERDENE ON THE SOUTH COAST IN THE EARLY 1990s.

 

 

The Muniamma and Coopoosamy Govender extended family, who have their South African roots in the Dayal Road area of Clairwood in Durban, used to organise regular family getaways in the late 1980s, 1990s and right up to 2018 when we launched our family history book.

The younger generation have once again started a move to revive the spirit and passion of the extended family and to re-organise family gatherings and getaways.

In order to re-kindle the unity of the Muniamma extended family and the importance for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth generation descendants to keep in constant contact with one another, we are re-publishing photos of one of the first family gatherings we held at the Mercury Childrens’ Home in Hibberdene on the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal in the early 1990s.

We sincerely hope that these photos will re-kindle the passion of the younger generation to keep alive the values, traditions, and unity of the extended Muniamma family.  

The more than 600 second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth generation desendants owe their lives in South Africa to Muniamma and Yellamma Coopoosamy Govender. They were the daughters of their indentured labourer parents who arrived from the village of Navalpore in Tamil Nadu to start a new life in the former Natal Colony in the early 1880s. Our indentured ancestors worked at the Blackburn Sugar estate, near Mount Edgecombe, for 10 years before settling down in Dayal Road, Clairwood, Durban.

Muniamma and Yellamma, who were born at the Blackburn Sugar Estate, also settled in Dayal Road after they married. Muniamma had 14 children but only 11 survived to give birth to the more than 600 extended family members.

All of the eleven children also grew up and married while staying in Dayal Road. All the 11 children moved to different parts of the former Natal such as Dundee, Pietermaritzburg, Ottawa, Chatsworth, Merebank, and Port Shepstone.

Now in 2021 only Mrs Amoy Moodley, the last born of Muniamma and Coopoosamy, of Chatsworth is still around. She is 86-years-old. Over the past two years we lost two of the last three seniors. They were Mrs Savundalay Padaychee of Dundee and Mrs Soundler Govender, who was the wife of one of the sons, Subbiah Percy Govender, also of Chatsworth.