Their love, fiercely resisted since 1971, is still under siege 50 years
later! They've Escaped together often, Living, Loving & Married, 3
times, on 3 continents, hiding in forests of N. America and the Jungles
of S. America
Based on a Real-life Love Story
With photos & artwork
But Just maybe this love Story really had it's roots in 1700's
France?
This original, old oil painting belongs to Nicholas, of these
novels, kept in the master bedroom, where it's a constant reminder
of the tenuous (and also enduring) nature of true-love, which though
it is embodied in 2 persons, if unrequited, lives on after they're
gone, patiently waiting, trying to find that happy ending that's
long been eluding it, but now needing surrogates to do so!
The Legend, France, 1700's. Childhood sweethearts, Genevieve
and Charles, are forced apart as their families flee from persecution
in France, to safety in England (via Holland for Genevieve) and
Southern Africa, for
Charles. Just before his family's ship
sailed for Africa, on the dock, he gave Genevieve a silver ring, and a letter. As he stood on the deck of the
departing sailing ship, Genevieve read his letter. He'd finally
declared his love for her, and told her that if somehow she could
come and join him in Southern Africa, he'd propose
to her and make sure they got married right away!
But by now his ship was already far out at sea, so
she had no way of reciprocating. Being 15 (almost
16) she dutifully fled France along with her
parents, to a new life in England. Once there, her
parents (especially her mother) were intent on her staying with them in England, and took
all possible measures to keep her there. Thus it was that they were cruelly
separated, lost contact, but never, ever forgot each other or their
young love! Their love-story remained unrequited for 2 and 1/2
centuries. In England Genevieve married an Englishman and they
had several children. Her descendants, as would be
expected of all Huguenot families, remained
protestants, and the ring passed between
generations, its significance ever more shrouded in
mystery over time, more so out of necessity than
neglect, since at first everyone wanted it (and
fought each other for it) until eventually, to keep
the peace, the story was downplayed and later, kept
secret, known only by the future designated
ring-bearer (a granddaughter) and its previous custodian,
not even by daughters or others. As a result,
nobody wanted it anymore. It's value was now reduced
to just a little bit of silver with a modest, round,
lilac colored stone, an Amethyst. Most often it was
just worn as jewelry, an heirloom from a granny, but
soon it would be used as an engagement ring ... then
next as a wedding ring! Around the mid 1800's, a
protestant Reverend and his wife (with French
protestant roots) left England for a new life in
South Africa, by then a thriving British colony.
They started out in the tropical port-city of
Durban, at the opposite end of the country to where
the original French Huguenots settled in the
wine-growing region near Cape Town. At last
descendents of Genevieve and Charles were together
in the same country again! Finally there was a
chance for long overdue reunions of their direct
descendents ... but who? How? Where? When?
After 50y, this all became apparent with the benefit of hindsight
+ research (DNA profile ongoing)
Christmas Romance #1, Christmas (Summer) Holidays,
1971, South Africa.
Elizabeth (almost 15) about to enter grade-10, and
Nicholas (almost 16) entering grade-11, both
have just broken-up with their teen summer romance partners,
from this and the previous summers. It's the Summer
Solstice, and a most unusual brief "chance meeting" occurs,
initiated by her mother, who gets her husband to
stop their Mercedes to give a young man walking back
from the beach to the large, busy caravan park
they're holidaying in, a ride. As he get's into the
back seat, he briefly makes eye contact with a
petite young girl with long brown hair, still in her
powder-blue bikini, returning from the beach,
without any words being exchanged, yet both feel a
momentary flash of recognition! So, on
21-Dec-1971 Elizabeth
briefly met Nicholas, before they once again are
parted and disappear from each others view. Maybe
it's just a strange coincidence, but an antique silver & amethyst
ring Lizzie inherits from her paternal granny, would
indicate
otherwise!. Unbeknownst to each other,
they both spend the next few hours frantically searching for each
other in that busy Caravan park, out of necessity using the same paths, both
feeling strongly compelled to do so, not knowing
exactly why? But they do not find each other,
and so they return to their families, having failed.
"Mom, I'm bored" says Lizzie "What can I do?" she
asks. "Go to the Duka and get yourself a paperback
book to read" is the mother's suggestion, and so
Lizzie heads off to the Duka. Meanwhile Nicholas
sighs as he encounters his mom, who looks at him and
says "Cheer up Son! We're out of milk, here's some
money. Please go to the Duka and buy us milk". Lizzie
gets there first, and is browsing through the books
on the shelf. Nicholas is far away in thought, the
milk-money in his hand, as he walks into the Duka.
He freezes, not believing his eyes! There, in the Duka
(Swahili - "little store") in a welcome moment of
Serendipity, their lives converge again. She turns
around, he's still frozen in place ... then with a
beguiling smile beckoning him, she walks out of the Duka. Almost in a
trance, he quickly follows her outside, catching up
to her, walking with her. As they start talking
excitedly, both clearly happy to have met again,
they discover each other's names, surnames,
hometowns - but both are still intellectually quite
unaware of any shared French heritage. Deep-down in
their souls they feel an unusual familiarity, a
level of comfort commensurate with already having
known each other. Walking together, down to the
river, chatting away happily, quite unforced, not far from the Duka,
he instinctively reaches down for her hand. She does
not pull away, instead turning to look at
him, with a warm smile, she gives his hand a welcome
squeeze. Back then, it felt as if somehow they were just
continuing on from where they'd left off in the past, without
even knowing much about their shared history ... yet.
Three days later, on Christmas-eve, they leave in a
boat, called "Jabula" (Zulu for "Happiness") -
but this time, together (not saying farewell) off to
their first dance. That's the first of many special
Christmas-eves they've spent together. Then with the dance-band playing "I can
see clearly now" (still their song) over the distant
sounds of the tenor Sax ... their first kiss, at
Fairy-Knowe, on the banks of the river, in Africa's
moonlight, under tall palms. It's difficult to
explain the panic they felt at only briefly making
eye-contact, then losing sight of each other within
minutes, and the strong need they both felt to
find each other again, as well as the instant,
comfortable familiarity they felt, from the moment
they'd met again. Maybe they're somehow connected by
a shared distant past? For some this may sound like
fiction or fanciful day-dreaming - but, as you'll read, the unfolding
evidence indicates that it may well not be! For
them that's the only way they've been able to
rationalize what they've
instinctively always felt. But be prepared for a
long, wild-ride as their young love is found, then
lost. That heart-wrenching cycle keeps repeating for
the first 7 years, and the first 7 novels, as in real
life, all start with love found (or found again) -
but sadly all end with "love-lost" - yet again, for different
reasons each time, but all traceable back to "the
Queen" (her mother) in this real-life fairytale.
Despite "the Queen's" repeated attempts to keep
Lizzie and Nicholas apart forever, there's some reason to
hope that the designated ring-bearer and her
soul-mate have a date with destiny that is stronger
then "the queen's" malice. As this real-life
story unfolds, with so much stacked against their
young love, a happy ending seems
very unlikely, as time, wars, distance, competing
suitors, continents and worse - her mother,
all conspire to keep them apart! But even
after 7 reunions and 7 subsequent forced separations
in 7y, the big question is: "Will their love
overcome all malice pitted against them, as well as
all those challenges?"
Christmas Romance #2 - It's Summer vacation in South
Africa again, and Elizabeth's getting ready for
Grade-11, at Huguenot High school, Nicholas Grade 12
at St. Andrews. Exactly one year later, against the
odds, they're back together again for a 2nd. Summer
Romance, in the same place they met and enjoyed
Summer last year. However, her mother, "The queen"
of this story
(though Lady Macbeth would be a more accurate
description) has successfully plotted a coup on her
husbands behalf, and now he's the Managing director
(President) of the company, which was his best
friend's position. Her family now has the best home
in Wellington, and her dad's best friend is dead,
and it appears that his 2 little girls are destined to be
orphans. But all this comes at a price! Just as it
did for Lady Macbeth, Constance is now having to
deal with her conscience! Meanwhile Elizabeth and
Nicholas, teenage sweethearts experiencing
young-love, are blissfully
unaware how that's setting the stage for a
series of very sad farewells - for the two of them.
Christmas Romance #3 - It's Summer in South Africa,
then later Elizabeth's ready for grade-12, Nicholas
has just graduated. They enjoy a last summer
vacation before he's drafted into the war effort.
Meanwhile, Constance has ambitious plans for
Elizabeth's future! She's worked stealthily to
introduce Charles, an English school-chum of Prince Andrew,
to Elizabeth. She's plotting to edge
Nicholas out of Lizzie's life. For now, back on
their favorite old wooden bench on the banks of the
river, happy teenagers in love, comfortable with each other, neither of them know
- yet!
1974, CUBA invades Africa and Nicholas is drafted
into the war effort, so he's not going to be seeing
Elizabeth for a very long time.
Elizabeth is 17, in Grade-12, Nicholas 18, and to
try and keep their romance going, he plans a short
trip to see her, in her home town of Wellington,
Cape. However things just don't go quite as he'd
planned and way too soon they say
farewell at the train station. Just before his train
leaves, taking him to the air force academy, about
as far away from Lizzie as one can get in South
Africa, she hands him a letter, whilst he holds onto
the letter he'd written her the night before. Then
as the train starts to move, he opens her letter,
and realizes that he really should have given her
his letter too! So he holds the letter out of the
window, and Lizzie starts to run to grab it, but the
train is picking up speed and she's almost at the
end of the platform already! As you can surmise from
the cover, he drops the letter, she retrieves
it, then returns to sit down on a bench and read
it. It's everything she always wanted to hear
from him! But the problem is, she has no way of
reciprocating, no address or phone number. Nicholas
is once again beyond her reach! She
realizes that's exactly what happened to young
Genevieve, 1749, in France, dockside, with
one important difference! Unlike for Charles and
Genevieve, Nicholas at least knows
her home address! She'll patiently await his letter,
giving her his new address. But the queen's
determined that no letters of his ever get to
Elizabeth ... and they don't! Going back to the
1700's, little is known about attempts by Charles to
contact Genevieve, now in England, from S. Africa,
but even if there were any, or if Genevieve tried to
make inquiries of mutual family friends, somehow,
her mother, out of self-interest and supposed
concern for her daughter's future, successfully
blocked them all. Now history is repeating for
Elizabeth who'd once tearfully implored Nicholas to
never just simply vanish out of her life.
Charles proposes whilst Nicholas is gone at war,
with the
blessing of "the Queen", her mother,
Elizabeth's 19, in her 1st year at UCT (the
University of Cape Town), Charles is 20, and
Nicholas is now gone and has never been heard from
again - at least that's what Lizzie thinks. From
these photos, it's clear to see Elizabeth's French
Huguenot heritage, but now she's set to marry
Charles, a very English man, whilst the descendent
of
Genevieve's
French Huguenot soul-mate, Nicholas, is stuck far away
at war, and all his attempts at contacting Elizabeth
are stymied by her mother. But then, let's not
forget that Elizabeth is the designated ring-bearer, and there's still a
unrequited love-story from the 1700's that needs to end
happily ever after. Will Elizabeth's choices
further diminish her dwindling French heritage, or
will she team up with Nicholas to solidify her
French heritage? Now she feels that choice is gone, forever.
Nicholas just vanished out of her life, even though
she made him promise to never do that to her! Both
are unaware of how or
why that happened. Both, understandably, feel rejected and
very sad.
Christmas Romance #4 - Summer in South Africa Serendipity Elizabeth's 19, Nicholas 20, Charles
21. The queen's plot to estrange Elizabeth and
Nicholas, and get the very English Charles (no
relation to Genevieve's sweetheart, Charles du
Plessis) to marry her daughter, unravels in a very
spectacular manner! After almost 2yrs, during which
time all his letters to her were thrown away, and
his phone-calls intercepted, Lizzie believed that
Nicholas had forgotten about her, never even
bothering to write her once, even if just to break
up with her. Nicholas believed much the same,
thinking Lizzie never responded to any of his
letters, because she'd moved on with Charles, as
he was told by her mother who'd intercepted his
desperate phone call to Lizzie. Now it's Christmas time,
1975: After almost being resigned to having lost her
forever, Nicholas decided to gamble everything on a
long-shot, trip to the Wilderness, to meet Lizzie
again and get closure. So it was that Lizzie was
walking along the beach, and Nicholas, riding in his
dad's truck, having been met at the local airport by
him, told Dr. Strauss "Dad! Please stop the truck! I
need to get out now!" Then he ran up behind
Elizabeth - a total unscripted surprise, and from
behind, hugged her ... What unfolded next was
downright dramatic! For the next 3 years, together in
Cape Town, their love flourished and they got
engaged. All that time Constance was plotting &
scheming. Alas, Nicholas and Lizzie were forced to
say goodbye, yet again! On Oct 6th, 1978: Nicholas
watched from the outside balcony of Cape Town's
International airport, forlorn, as below him, his fiancee,
the ring bearer in this story, and the last hope for
marrying Genevieve's long lost (finally found?)
soul-mate, Elizabeth, is leaving Cape town and him,
on flight SA866, a Boeing 747, bound for London. But
there's a cruel, unexpected twist! Walking across
the tarmac to the 747, she's with someone he
suddenly starts to recognize - Charles, her mother's
chosen husband for her! The final destination?
Canada! It seems that "the queen" had won, and soon
an all too familiar sadness and heart-wrenching
despair returns to this long-running, hard-fought
for, love-story.
That's how this 6th novel "Oh ....Canada", ends,
though to fully understand you'd need to read the
final chapters for context, of what was unfolding,
and why. All is not quite as it seems - there's
always hope!
Christmas Romance #7, 1978, Romance #7, Canada.
Nicholas travels to Canada on a secret mission - the
carefully planned
rescue of Elizabeth. They're betrayed by her sister,
and so their plan to
elope back to Africa is uncovered by her mother. In a pre-emptive strike,
they're literally thrown out into the cold, by her
parents - taken to downtown Kitchener, Ontario by
Lizzie's dad, on direct orders of her very cruel
mother, and left there in the cold, to fend for
themselves, completely out of their element. And so
they celebrate their first ever cold, snowy,
Canadian Christmas!
Knowing no one that could help them survive there,
and their finances now dwindling fast, Elizabeth, 21
and Nicholas,
22, long since engaged, are forced to concede
defeat. They have to say goodbye to each other,
maybe forever. They spend their last day together, at
Niagara Falls (actual photo below, Dec '78) which is
normally a place for honeymoons, not sad farewells, before Nicholas returns to Africa,
alone. So they were "Reunited" - for a
very brief moment in time. In this novel we finally understand why these novels are titled "Africa's Snow-White". It's
the most difficult novel to relive, for reasons that
become obvious as the story unfolds. Lizzie
has to face facts now ... it's all up to her now to save
their love-story! But her
mother, with the slavishly loyal help of her dad and
sister, was plotting to ensure that she'd fail!
Imagine after 7y, having finally come so close,
separated again.
Here's exactly how she felt back then:
This song (All over the world) by Francois Hardy, a
beautiful French singer from our era, who
looks similar to what Jennifer looked like in 1978/1979, was a hit single then. Jennifer
literally lived it's words: All
over the world,
People must meet
and part
There's someone like me,
Feeling a
pain in their heart
Some may meet again,
Under that
same bright star
If maybe some night,
You come back
from afar
Who cares if tonight,
I don't know
where you are
Are you thinking of me now?
Missing having me around?
If you have forgotten me,
My world
will come tumbling down
All over the world,
Others are sad
tonight
There's someone like me,
Watching
the sun's fading light
All over the sky,
There is the
same warm glow
Here under that star, I'm wanting
you to know
Wherever you are, That I still
love you so ... Francois Hardy After
this sad chapter in our lives, in 1981 also got
married, 2yrs after Jennifer. Though they never got
divorced, it was not a happy marriage, which is
truly sad, but not uncommon in the
music/entertainment industry. This soulful, popular
ballad dates back to our youth. Both Jen and I (and
so many others) knew it well. Little did we know
that we were destined to experience all of the
emotions of this song, again and again, for the
7y+7m, starting from Christmas '71 till July '79.
It's words haunted us, but also gave us hope! One
romantic Christmas-eve, under the stars in the
Wilderness national park, we'd found a bright star,
made wishes together "on that star" agreeing to
always find our bright star if we were apart,
wherever we are, then while looking up at it, think
loving thoughts of each other, even when she was in
Canada with me in faraway Africa. Fantasy
played a pivotal role in keeping love & hope alive.
After almost a year at the opposite end of the world
from her choice of a husband, soul-mate,
true-love and possibly even pre-destined husband,
as a captive of "the
Queen", it's time for WEDDING#1 for Elizabeth 22,
who secretly plans her escape from captivity in Canada.
Lizzie succeeded in her secret bid for freedom, and the Queen's furious!
She refuses to assist her in any way, vowing she'll
not have a wedding dress, family wedding or her dad
and any of her family present, that she's on her own
now - "persona non grata". Ultimately Elizabeth is disowned, but
she bravely resists all that cruel pressure, and
leaves back for Cape Town to marry her soul-mate, so we finally do have logical conclusion to this
real-life Fairytale, a wedding, at which her
Granny's old heirloom silver & amethyst ring is
used as her
wedding ring, 7years+7months later.
Just maybe it's 2 1/2 centuries later? Read
on. In "The Wedding" that mystery is explored
further. As we've done through the years, let your
imagination run wild, then let your heart decide if this ending remedies an unrequited 2 1/2 century old
love-story originating in France in the 1700's.
Several secrets and surprise findings are revealed that tie the loose ends
together, plus a sneak-peek of penultimate novel
"Redemption" and final novel "Deliverance", also
some post-wedding updates - here's one: This (2021)
Christmas marks 50y since they first met, and
besides their ongoing romance, they're still the
very closest, warmest best friends ever, chatting
away about anything and everything, spending each
and every day together in their cottage in the
jungle, next to the river with crystal-clear natural
pools and beautiful waterfalls, high up in a
mountainous National park in Panama, rather than participating in activities that
separate them, such as golf, sports-games, going out
with girl-friends, buddies etc. For them it's a happy,
comfortable existence, isolated from the world,
arguably not everyone's "cup of tea", but finally
they're safe, free to just love each other ... and be
best friends for life.
By age 13, Jon became fascinated
by space-themed computer games. Jonathan didn't just want to
play them, he wanted to create them! That
soon became his passion, and music was all but forgotten. He
threw himself into designing complex Star-Wars type games,
and all on his own developed an action game that became very
popular with PC gamers. He'd spent years obsessively
creating a complex game, all on his own (normally that takes
teams of many people) and he never once told us that his
forearms and hands were progressively becoming crippled and
useless ... until it was too late! He progressively lost the
use of both his forearms and hands, from the elbow down.
Canadian medical experts couldn't help him. Soon after we decided to leave Canada and head south to warmer,
friendlier climes. Africa's Snow-white (Lizzie in the
novels) is shown there, sitting between Jon (LHS) - both his
hands at that point, useless, and Dan (RHS) our eldest son.
What a truly helpless feeling! In that time, we didn't lose
faith. We all trusted that somehow (and there were very low
days along the way) things would work out and Jon would
regain the use of his arms and hands - but honestly, we
didn't know how? Without any practical use of his hands, Jon
asked me: "Dad, what can I do now?" and I said "Son,
remember what Ouma taught us? You can do anything if
you simply put your mind to it and believe!"
You can
use your feet, you can move your head and you can speak!" So
using my Computer training, I built a specialized PC
to track his head movements with a
laser-beam (mouse pointer) + R&L foot
switches to press (Mouse buttons) and a microphone-headset
to speak into. His computer translated his speech into a
word document. Thinking about what story to use for
his first novels, Jon asked "Mom, can I
write your life-story, since I know part of it already and
the rest I can easily interview you and dad about?"
Jennifer replied "Yes son, as long as there's redeeming
value to telling the story - so even though they're novels,
try to weave them around the real-life story". So Jon
started writing the novels, painfully
slowly!Novel #1,
then 2,3,4,5 until 6 were done in the "Africa's
Snow-White" series of romance novels ...
all without the use of his hands! He will never forget that!Neither will we.
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That's how he became a novelist. There was one word that
was frowned upon in our family ... "Can't". My standard
reply was: "Wanna bet?" I can
thank mom for that (Kathleen Strauss, in these novels). She
raised us
to believe we can do anything .... if only we kept
believing that we
can! So we never gave up hope. It took 7yrs for that
curse to lift. It turns out that during a crucial
growth-spurt, with so much overuse, for so long, plus
incorrect muscle-building exercises, his nerves
became trapped/squeezed at the elbow (funny-bone) which
rendered his forearms and hands, almost useless. After 7yrs,
Jon Hopkins medical center operated,and
restored the use of his arms and
hands. Today Jonathan is famous SciFi
author, Jasper Scott (AMAZON). His whole futurewas changed by that epic, painful 7y long challenge.Now we all look back at those years and see it's what
God wanted (also didn't want!) for young Jonathan's life. No
pain...no gain. That "curse" has been turned
around into a
wonderful blessing instead!
In the 1800's Genevieve's descendents moved to Africa
too, but not yet to the wine-growing region where French Huguenots who'd fled France, lived.
Rather to the sub-tropical city of Durban. Lizzie's grandma, Louise,
was born there, the youngest of 4 daughters and 1 brother.
Their mother Rose (Rosamund Pike - born French)
ensured that all her daughters had French names. Their
names, in order of age, were Emmeline, Maude, Rosamund and Louise.
Their dad was Reverend John
Harvey Gathercole, a Protestant and very British! Later
they moved
to East London from Durban. Louise married a
British man, Walter James Pike from Port
Elizabeth (the city's chief civil engineer) and
moved there, where ultimately Lizzie's uncle, dad and
aunt were born, as well as all 3 grand-daughters,
Lizzie being the eldest. Then in 1961, almost 5
years after her birth, Lizzie's family moved to
the wine-growing region of South Africa, to Wellington, near
Franschhoek (French-corner), Paarl, Stellenbosch and Cape Town where
all the original Huguenots had settled. She
attended the large, unique, prestigious Huguenot school, for her
entire
schooling! Quite a coincidence - or was it? A strong bond had
developed between Granny Louise and Elizabeth, her first-born
grand-daughter. Around 1967 Granny Louise &
Grandpa Walter went to visit Lizzie's family, please to see her school
and to also see the renowned Huguenot monument nearby, along with
Lizzie. She smiled a happy smile as she realized that of all the
places to be in the world, her granddaughter, young Elizabeth was now perfectly placed
to meet her French Huguenot soul mate! Now the fast-waning French
part of her heritage would likely be saved - even strengthened!
Lizzie's school was literally
teaming with the descendents of the original French Huguenots - much
more so than in any other place on earth! In real-life, the Elizabeth
of these novels, is
Jennifer, which is the English form of Genevieve. Perhaps that's
simply another coincidence, or maybe in some mysterious way, this
is a happy ending of the
unrequited love-story of Genevieve & Charles? But a big surprise awaited them!
By the 1970's, descendents of French Huguenots had spread all over
southern Africa, though most were still present near/in her school
and the surrounding wine-lands, where in the 1700's his ancestors
started wine farms after arrival from France. Far away in the
interior, totally unaware of his French Huguenot ancestry,
Nicholas attended a prestigious, private, Anglican, English boarding
school, St. Andrews, in Bloemfontein, birthplace of Tolkien, Lord of
the rings author.
At
about this time the University of Pretoria was
documenting his family tree, as a founding family of
the old Boer Republics. What they found
complicated matters! After arriving in South Africa
from France, Charl du Plessis married
a Dutch lady, Maria van Ellewee. They had several children. Charl's daughter, Maria
Sophia du Plessis, married Nicholas's forefather in 1773 - from whom all of
his family (in Africa) originate. There was a "Charl du Plessis"
in Nicholas's family
tree from the correct era, from the wine-lands near
Elizabeth. Maybe he was "Charles
du Plessis" from 1700's France? It stands to
reason "Charl" was anglicized to
"Charles" by successive generations retelling the
story, in England, over 2 1/2 centuries? Since there's no
record of a French Huguenot "Charles du Plessis"
arriving in South Africa, the logical
conclusion is that "Charles" is really "Charl".
That would certainly make this story very intriguing! As
you've read, on
21-Dec-1971 (Southern Summer Solstice) the stage was set
for a long overdue reunion between descendents of
childhood sweethearts,
Genevieve and Charles, in 1700's France, so cruelly
separated by Cardinal Richelieu's attempts too kill all protestants
or drive them out of France. Is this all
just a whimsical flight of fantasy? Perhaps ... but not for those
with romantic hearts!
For skeptical people or curious minds, consider the scientific
phenomenon of Synchronization: Two Firefly's in France, in close
proximity, will in a short time, synchronize their flashes. Now
separate them - one to England, the other to Cape town, and they
will flash seemingly randomly - not in sync. Now move both to Fairy-knowe
in the Wilderness, under the same palm tree on the banks of the
river, and once again they'll flash at exactly the same time!
Skeptics will say, yeah, but fireflies have eyes and that's what
causes their synchronization. Metronomes are inanimate objects, and
simply replacing the two fireflies in this thought experiment with
metronomes, results in exactly the same outcome! The once perfectly
synchronized metronomes of France, beat out of synch when they're
separated to England and Cape Town, but later, when they're placed
next to each other on the river-bank at Fairy-knowe, they will
quickly return to beating in synch, you know, like "two hearts
beating as one". Strange but true! There are many
similar examples of this phenomenon in science: At the atomic level
(Quantum entanglement) in the solar system, and even in the
universe. When talking about love,
romance, relationships or life experiences, people often speak of
"unseen mystical connections and phenomenon" such as Serendipity,
Soul-mates, Fate, Intuition, Telepathy, Premonitions and etc. Since
we're all just complex assemblies of atoms, it's intriguing to
realize that these "mystical Connections"
exist and thrive in the subatomic
world (all of our basic building blocks) thanks to a bizarre
counterintuitive phenomenon called quantum entanglement.
The basic idea of quantum entanglement is that 2 or
more particles
can be intimately linked to each other even if separated by billions
of light-years in space; and they remain in instant communication,
so that any change induced in one will affect
the other - instantly! What if a pregnant mother shares some of
these entangled atoms with her unborn baby, growing within her -
which is highly likely! When that baby is born, grows-up and later
moves away from home, do they stay linked in some way? Instinctively
most people feel that's true. Here's a real-life example (1 of
countless many) that's truly amazing! [Watch this video from
1:54 to
10:50] <==
There's no "natural" explanation for what unfolded.
We now know that
if we put 2 or more atoms close together and
cause them to become entangled, even if they're then separated for millions of years,
over time and space - even galaxies away from each other,
they'll stay being "soul-mates", instantly communicating with each other! Perhaps
it's a group of entangled atoms within us - part of our DNA, passed on to
successive
generations via
our familial DNA, that perpetuate this "special bond", even over centuries and great distances.
That would explain how two lovers instinctively feel that they're
soul-mates, as instinct is thought (scientifically) to be
perpetuated through inherited DNA. There's countless examples of
this phenomenon. The takeaway is: "Don't be such a skeptic - strange
things that seem to defy logic, do happen ... dare to dream!" The
unusual love of soul-mates involves some form of natural, physical,
hormonal, emotional, spiritual, synchronization between two
people, but maybe even at an atomic level in our DNA? But if there's
no synchronization, people become strangers, moving on to try and
find synchronicity with another - their soul-mates. If they succeed,
they'll want to be with each other for life, not wanting to be
apart, ever again! That's just as true for two 250y old metronomes
from Cardinal Richelieu's France (that Huguenots fled from) once
upon a time beating in perfect synch, one belonging to Genevieve's
family, the other to the family of Charles, separated across
continents and finally reunited, in the same place. In a very short
time synchronicity "magically" returns, like two hearts beating as
one, again, as it does for 2 romantic souls that were once
sweethearts in France,
then separated across continents, finally reunited, 250y later, in
super-romantic Africa, Christmastime, in a national park at the
seaside. We call the metronomes "a synchronized pair", the lovers
... "Soul-mates". It seems their romantic destiny's coded in their
DNA, passed on to them from their ancestors who'd found themselves
in a similar romantically entangled state too... once upon a time.
We're 64 & 65. Over the years, since our mid-teens when we
met and fell in love, many of the pieces of the hereditary puzzle that we
didn't or couldn't seriously research back then, have surprisingly
fallen neatly into place! Some time back we joined a popular
Heritage research network, soon discovering Jennifer's
family tree does indeed indicate a distinct French heritage
on her grandma Louise's side of the family, prior to their
lives in England, later South Africa, plus clear
non-Catholic, non-Anglican, protestant roots - all strong
clues of French Huguenot (The French Protestants) Heritage!
My family tree confirms, beyond any doubt, my direct French
Huguenot roots. We then ordered DNA test kits to investigate
further. A tense wait began to confirm (or not) our presumed
joint French Heritage. We've shared our research and DNA results
below. Either way we've
been part of an intriguing mystery - one that's been very
unifying for us to believe over the years. But of course,
we we're very curious! At best we'd find circumstantial
evidence which supports the possibility that our ancestors
were from the same areas in 1700's France, before they fled
to England and South Africa. Due to the expansion of the
British empire, those in England moved to South Africa, and finally everyone ended up together in
one country where, over time, maybe their direct
descendants met up again, fell in love again and
finally were married? That's sure a lot to hope for - but
hope's a good thing!
Heritage DNA tests should show something like this.
Ideally, the world maps of our heritage - the parts of the
world that our DNA originates from, will show a clear
intersection - France. Clearly it will show a common South
African heritage, but since we know that all came later in
time and in this story, that's to be expected. What we needed
to discover, is what
European DNA we have, and share? That came before the
South African DNA history, for both of us. Since I now have
a very detailed family tree dating back 300 years, I know I
have no (zero) British ancestry, just German, French
Huguenot, Dutch and Scandinavian. From what I know of
Jennifer's family tree, she has a lot of British ancestors,
and so far, one tantalizing connection back to France, which
may be legend, or it may be reality? We needed her ancestry
confirmed, using DNA, since her well documented family tree,
starts in Britain, only briefly hinting at a previous French
heritage. Much was known about her subsequent British
ancestors - little about any possible French ancestors.
We were hoping to see an intersection of our DNA - in
France, as in this DNA derived heritage map (above)
which is not our DNA, but somebody else's. It's very
tempting to leave everything we think we knew swirling around in the
realm of the legend - but we can get DNA heritage testing
done, so we've done that! Without giving too
much away yet (Jennifer won't let me) DNA tests often also
confirm (and identify yet more) relatives we'd never known we had!
Jennifer's dad was a travelling salesman, spending 1/2 the year away from his, by then, menopausal
wife, for almost 30 years, before old age (early 80's) and
her, forced him to retire. In that time he'd stay for
several weeks at a time, in each of: Colombia, Brazil,
Argentina, S. Korea, Philippines, Mexico, China, Japan +
many other "exotic" locations. He and fellow salesman pals
loved to party (he wasn't allowed to do any of that during
his brief visits to wife & home in Kelowna, BC, Canada) and
consumed way more alcohol (which clouds judgment and removes
caution - or should I say "precaution") than was sensible,
partying with his naughty salesman pals and others. We live in Panama, so we know all too well
that women in Central and South America are very beautiful
(they win most of the world's beauty pageants, looking like
they've fallen out of the pages of Playboy) and all of them want European
(white) babies! It's like winning the jackpot in all these
countries, even if the biological dad doesn't stick around,
as none do in these parts anyway. Often he's not even aware
he's fathered a child, but almost always the woman told him
she would not get pregnant, so not to worry, meanwhile she's
selected him to be the father of her child. Put another way,
it's way cheaper/easier than working through fertility
clinic, which can cost $10,000 and there's another plus - she gets to meet and
select the sperm-donor, the father of her child! I'm not sure when
(if ever) it would
be appropriate to disclose any such "DNA findings"?
Jennifer's dad passed
away July 18th 2020. His wife and Jen's sister decided
they'd hide that fact from her, out of spite. That was really nasty of the
mom and sister, done purposely to hurt her - one
last time. Jen and her dad got along well and on his
trips he'd "secretly" visit with her and our family, until
he was found out and his wife prohibited him from
visiting or contacting Jen ever again. But so much of
significance transpired or came to light when he was able to
still visit and speak with his daughter that the mother and
sister do not know about! Jen and her dad are part of a
whole new family that his wife is not part of. That should
intrigue you - and them! So should we
still hide his surprising legacy from them? A cousin found
out 9m later, giving Jen the sad news that he'd died. But Jennifer has long-since been much more meaningfully
related to her dad, than he was to his wife or to Jen's sister!
What exactly was said and done on that last visit they've ever had together, is not fully known to either of them,
or it's significance understood. But Jen and her dad fully appreciate all that
transpired during that last visit! I'm still debating with Jen what to
disclose, when, or what good (if any) such
revelations would achieve? Maybe I'm being way too cautious
by not disclosing the unexpected, unusual "inheritance" that
stemmed from his last (surprise) visit to his daughter, a
visit that suddenly found Jen, him and us all part of
another family, but nothing's obvious about when (or under
what circumstances) is a good time to disclose all that was learned, done
and said that day, or for that matter, to whom ... at least, not yet.
I think sometime it should be revealed!
All of that said, sometimes our grandparent's stories
(legends) are just fairy-tales. When asked "Grandpa, how did you meet
Granny?" by our youngest grand-daughter (age 5), I tell her the story of
how her Grandma was a mermaid, and I met her sitting on a rock at
the edge of the sea, and I instantly fell in love with her, as
Mermaids do that kind of thing to humans! The she says "Grandpa, I don't believe you!
Where's granny's mermaid tail?" So I tell her how
granny's mother (whom
I appropriately call the "Sea-Witch") was opposed to our love,
wanting to keep her mermaid daughter with her forever - but
she swam away to meet with me instead/ Later, after we first
kissed, she became fully human, losing her tail, getting shapely ballerina
legs instead. So she could never
return to the sea. That made the "Sea-Witch" angry - determined to kill me! So we ran away together, many times, to escape
her wrath, our latest escape being to Panama, where she was
born. Then she looks at me skeptically, wanting to say "I don't think so,
Grandpa!" So now I double-down,
showing her this "photo" (painting done from
period photos of Jen on the Wilderness beach, at 15) of her
beautiful, much younger grandma sitting on the rocks, where we met by the seaside -
with a tail, and she's fascinated! Then she asks "And
Grandpa, why's your hair white?" I then put on my most
serious face as in hushed tones, full of danger, I reply "The
Sea-witch cursed me!" Immediately her eyes and mouth
open wide in horror, as she hurriedly asks "What about
the hair growing out of your ears and nose?" Then I
confirm her worst fears, replying "The Sea-Witch!"
She gasps and protectively puts her hands over her mouth and nose,
and still with eyes wide, she exclaims "Oh Grandpa, I
want to keep my long blonde hair, and I don't want hair
growing out of my nose and ears! I'll never go near to the
Sea-Witch!" That also tips me off that's it's time again
for using my little trimmer. Of course there are strong
overtones of truth to my allegorical tale - since if you
replace the mythical beings with humans in my little Fairy-tale, it all
actually happened, as you've gleaned from the synopsis of
the novels above. I just tell her our story in a way that
all young children understand ...
as a Fairytale.
Then she starts to doubt, so I show her this
==>
Short Video of her
Grandma (the mermaid)
animated from the painting (above) and it's so
real, amazingly real, actually, but of course, an
animation of a painting has no sound! In this particular
case that's not a problem, since in the fairy-tale of the
"Little Mermaid" which she knows well,
Ursula, the sea witch, lets Ariel
exchange her voice for legs,
after which she can only use her eyes and smile to win her
true love. Giving up her voice not only means she can no
longer sing, but more importantly, that she can no longer
speak!
She must get the
Prince to kiss her within three days of them meeting or
Ariel will turn back into a mermaid and become the sea
witch's lifetime slave. Then I quickly point to the painting
(cover of the 1st novel) showing us kissing, and say "But as
you can see, just with her beautiful eyes and smile, granny got me to kiss her before the 3 days
passed, and so she got her voice back and she got to keep
her legs and stay
human. The sea-witch was very angry about that!"
Over time she's becoming skeptical of the "sea-witch" being
real. Recently I drove by a big mansion at the seaside where
we all often go and have beach fun with our family, with a
name plate on the wall announcing that it's the
"Sea-Witch's" mansion (I'm rather puzzled as to the origins
of that sign!) One day soon, I'll drive by there with Granny
and her, and point it out, with a lot of drama added (for
special effect) in hushed tones, hinting at the immense
danger we're in for being so close to the "Sea-Witch"
- pointing to my hair and hers. No doubt she'll tell me
"Grandpa! Drive away fast! Then
our family legend of "Granny the Mermaid", will stay real
for her, at least for a few years more.
By contrast, Granny's love-story, that unfolded (summarized
above) over the last 50y, is real, and we've found
tantalizing clues tying us both to the Huguenots of 1700's
France. We've updated this story (below) with the results of
our research, which we had hoped would shows our shared French heritage.
We knew that if our research uncovered a shared French past,
about 250 years ago, we'd definitely celebrate! If not, we'd be a little
sad, sigh and say "Oh well, it was an intriguing
possibility!" But reasonably speaking, at least some -
but likely many love-stories from that era, cruelly ended as closely connected,
terrified families fled religious persecution in France, must
have experienced eventual reunifications (known or unknown) when
descendents of all those exiled families came into contact with each other
again, as many did in South Africa and elsewhere. So why not ours? We've
always felt we're each other's soul-mates. That's not changed...it never will!
It explains our compelling need to search for each other,
each time we were separated, to be together again - often
against all the odds. The fascinating thing, however,
is that Jennifer's family presented as "British only", and I
only found out much later about her French heritage. For
that matter, whilst our family knew we had a lot of French
in us, I had no idea of the original "French Connection's"
significance, only about my 2 grandmothers being French. It
was like both of us were on "auto-pilot", actively being
guided by unseen, loving, determined forces. Honestly, we
knew we'd felt, instinctively, that we were soul-mates, but
we had no idea of anything deeper than that. Only as time
went by did we begin to look a little deeper for the reasons
that we'd met, fallen in love and ended up marrying, despite
all the opposition to our young love (which still persists
to this day - albeit in the ice-cold heart of a 90y old
matriarch) and circumstances that often felt way beyond our
control. We just never gave up.
Most Fairy-tales end with a wedding and "They lived happily
ever after, in a land far, far away!" That's true of this
story
too. Some people ask "OK, but what happened
after the wedding?" Well, "Happily ever
after" as of 2021, is 42y
married (and counting) 50y since Christmas 1971 when we
first met and fell in love (or maybe met again?) "Far, far away" is Panama,
not Africa or Canada. But how
did all this happen? An excerpt from
"Deliverance" is included at the end of "The Wedding", plus
Images, photos
& videos. Here's our 23d Great-Trek, by road; 11,000km,
July 2006.
After retiring at 43 in Canada (Okanagan
valley) at 50 we all escaped to Panama
L-R: Daughter of friends, Mom (Elizabeth) &
Dad (both 60+) Sons, their wives, all in Panama, where we've found
many replacements for the "Secret place" in the Wilderness, from our
youth. Now Elizabeth has an eldest Panamanian grand-daughter! One
day "the Ring" will be hers, and help her find true-love.
Cape Town 1979: The wedding of
Elizabeth & Nicholas (Jennifer & Ian in real-life)
1979: Rosebank Methodist church, Elizabeth is married using her granny's ring!
But that's not all there is to this part of the story. I was so
elated that Lizzie had run away from Canada and "The Queen"
holding her captive there, back to me in Cape Town, that I
hurriedly arranged for the wedding, not even thinking that we needed
another ring - I mean, she already had an engagement ring and we could
always get a wedding ring later? The Reverend didn't even think
to check that I'd got a ring, so when we ran up to the altar (we
were a bit late) hand in hand, and he started proceedings, at
the appropriate time, he asked for the ring. In a panic, I
replied "But I didn't think we needed a ring?" and he, rather
exasperated, relied "Oh yes, In this ceremony you most
definitely do!" Lizzie turned to look at me, and realizing I was
panicking, she smiled calmly, removed her Granny's ring from
her right hand, handing it to the Reverend, asking "Can we use
this old family heirloom of mine, as my wedding ring?" to which the
flustered Reverend quickly replied (very relieved) "Yes, I don't
see why not. It looks like it has lots of history attached to
it too. Maybe it's the perfect ring with which to get married
here today!" Then he smiled at us (to calm us down) before
proceeding. When he handed the ring back to me and we'd got to
the "With this ring I thee wed" part, it seemed appropriate for
me to say "With this ring, your granny's ring, I thee wed". We
all seemed quite relieved - happy with that long-overdue
outcome!
2003: Same place, Lizzie & sons, her solemn
childhood wish (prayer) came true!
Let's take another look at that wedding photo - this time with
250yrs of history added:
France, 1700's: Genevieve & Charles (Charl) Cape Town, June
1979: Jennifer & Ian
UPDATE: Here's the heritage overlap/link we've been
looking for! Ian's heritage, well documented back to the early
1700's, is entirely European, with Zero United Kingdom DNA to be
found in his family tree. His heritage is German, French & Dutch
from his dad + Scandinavian, Dutch & French from his mom. All were
Huguenots/Protestants!
Jennifer's heritage is mostly English & Scottish PLUS a good
French
representation! Her ancestors were Protestants which likely
means they were also French Huguenots!
When we overlay Jennifer's heritage over the top of
Ian's
heritage here's what we get
The likelihood of a Shared
French-Huguenot Past, for
Jennifer & Ian, is very high!
How often have you heard people say "I wish I had a
Fairy-tale life!" Maybe you've even said that? I personally don't
know of Fairy-tales without dastardly evil villains victimizing
innocent people, so there's that to look forward to. It turns out
"evil drives the story", as without evil, typically there's not much
of a story left to tell. That's so true of real-life too - just
watch the news, it's fixated on evil and mankind's desperate
struggle against evil. Generally, whilst couples and people in fairy-tales face tough
times (foisted on them by the evil villain) they do overcome many challenges together,
so in the
end all ends happily and successfully for them.
That's the "Happily ever after" part we all prefer
and like to dream about. What is also just as true,
is that the evil, which seems so powerful for most of the story,
get's defeated! Good triumphs over evil, love over hate, truth over
deception.
While reading the summary of these novels (above) you
may be tempted to wonder what it would be like to
have a fairy-tale life and love-story? At some point
in the synopsis (above) it should become clear that
what you're really wishing for, is just the tip of
the ice-berg (the visible, enviable 20% part above
water) But what you don't see (and wouldn't want) is
the connected 80% of that ice-berg, hidden,
under water! Down there, out of view in the cold,
murky depths, is where most of the Fairy-tale's action
happens. When you tell your story, don't just
mention the good parts. Both
the good and the bad got us to where we ended up. It's always a case of "No pain, no gain!" You get
to have all of the ice-berg, or none! So do be careful
what you wish for, as fairy-tales are not simple,
gentle little stories! They're 80% danger, sadness,
despair and challenges - maybe only 20% easy, fun and
rewarding! So let's look at some of that dramatic 80%
now.
But with icebergs you see just the small part
above the water. Most of the iceberg is obscured
from view, under water, and it's very dangerous in those
cold, murky depths! Here's a peek under-water.
Elizabeth in the novels (Jennifer in real-life) was
an almost perfect daughter ... an over-achiever in
almost all things, still is! She never drank in
high-school, or smoked, or did drugs, came top of
her class consistently, a ballet star, wasn't
promiscuous, well mannered, gentle and kind. She
was extremely loyal, quite dependent on her
mother, and kept that way - until she met me. The
mother disliked me (I was not her chosen husband for
Jennifer) especially since they were planning to
leave South Africa for Canada, and Jennifer and I
were at university together and soon engaged.
Naturally she
feared that she'd lose her daughter, despite my
reassurances to the contrary. She wanted to control
the outcome immediately, and get a guaranteed
outcome, so I was disposable. That set
in motion a range of very cruel over-reactions, by
her, designed to punish her daughter for choosing to
love me, getting engaged
to me and for choosing to stay with me in Cape Town
whilst I finished my Computer degree there. Her goal
was to keep upping the pressure on Jennifer by
ignoring all her letters and any attempts to still be part of "the
family" (shunning her) till she
cracked, mistakenly blamed me for all of her pain,
then left me to
return back to mother in faraway Canada, without me,
back to her old family. Only then would she ease up
on the pressure. That's a diabolical strategy (and very effective,
since Jennifer chose to stay with me in Cape Town) and it may even
have worked - except that I understood what she was up to, and so
one day I told Jennifer, struggling through depression "Your
mother's cruelty has forced me to capitulate, for your own survival,
which is more important than my own happiness!" As the old saying
goes "If you love someone, let them go. If they come back to you,
then they were yours to begin with." I'll not mislead you, that was
one of the toughest things I've ever done in my entire life! So it
was that I put Jen on a plane, back to her mother in Canada. I
thought that would go smoothly - but I had no idea just how dramatic
the day of her departure would be! Friday 6th of October
1978, will be one I'll never, ever forget as without our knowledge,
Charles (the mother's chosen one for Jen) appeared seemingly out of
nowhere, to accompany Jennifer out of Africa, and away from me, even
managing to arrange to sit next to Jen on that 747. That made for a
very stressful time, which would have been exponentially worse, if
God had not intervened with a small miracle, that defeated
Jennifer's mother's plots & schemes to get her way - designed to end
Jennifer's attachment to Africa and me, forever. So it was
that Jennifer arrived in Canada alone. Jen
naturally missed me, and looked at her mother, daily, saying:
"You're the reason I'm not in Cape Town with my beloved. I'm not a
child anymore, I'm 22! How dare you try to ruin my life and control
whom I love and where I live! You're
selfish and cruel and would never have allowed your parents to do
this to you!" The mother just doubled-down and upped her control and
cruelty, trying desperately to still blame me for any of Jennifer's
unhappiness - but I was gone. In every letter I wrote Jennifer, in
Canada, I was honest with my feelings, telling her how very much I
loved her, and how much I missed not having her with me, and how if
we ever got back together again, I'd insist we get married as soon
as possible! All of those emotions were genuine, heart-felt.
Jennifer felt the same in distant Canada. Finally it was all quite
clear to her (as it always was to me) that the real reason for
Jennifer's unhappiness, was not me (as her mother would have her
believe) but the cruelty of her mother. So it was that we became
mortal enemies,
and though I made several well-intentioned attempts
to change that through the years, she refused to even try to get
along, rather choosing to keep using her once
successful strategy - to reject Jennifer (her near-perfect
daughter) until she'd finally crack under the strain and got
rid of me to appease her mother, in the vain hope
that since it had once worked so well, it would again. Sadly she
managed to enlist the support of some unwitting extended family
members, who simply didn't ask the right questions or worse yet,
didn't care, such as: "Since you only had 2 children, both girls, why
didn't you give either of them weddings?" All the extended
family were rather confused and hurt! "Why did you so
aggressively cover up the protracted childhood illness of your
youngest daughter, and insist we all do so too?" or "Why did you stop your husband and
his family
from celebrating grandpa's final birthday, when you could
so easily have stayed one day more, and joined the rest of us doing so,
instead of going to a nearby caravan park for a holiday?" Plus a
whole lot more! Ironically, the mother's side of the extended family
(Likely since they knew her better) only had to listen to any one of the
recordings (examples below) I'd made of Jennifer and her sister
speaking about these kinds of things, to throw their support behind
us. Sadly Jennifer's dad's sister and family, even knowing that his
wife was "a real piece of work" after hearing all the recordings,
took the mother's side (we suspect to appease her) but in so doing, re-victimized Jennifer and
our family - often feeding back sensitive private information, about our
family, to her! Knowing that, I used them to send false information
to Jennifer's mother to help us escape. Then I ended those duplicitous family-ties, as even
though they all readily presented as "Christians", I told Jennifer
"I'm sorry Jen, but with one exception - you're cousin's
husband, I find no courage or integrity among them, just
self-interest. They always seem to curry favor with your parents at
our expense. As such, they pose a distinct danger to us, going forward!" I'd done a lot of research
into the mother's past, to find clues to her very strange behaviors,
to find weaknesses, to fight back. Soon I found much more than I'd
bargained for and my dislike of her became disgust! As the years
went by, her behavior became ever more cruel and dictatorial. There
was literally a trail of dead bodies behind her - even a grandson,
Jennifer's sister's first child. But there was so much more I'd discovered! When it became apparent I'd uncovered her
deepest, darkest secrets, Plan-A was to have me
killed (no, I'm not kidding!) but we were forewarned by Jen's dad and
we escaped, first to live near the Niagara falls, on
the other-side of Canada, then we returned to live
across lake Okanagan, from her, right under her nose
- the last place she thought to look for us. "Closer
to danger, further from harm" When, after 7y, we
realized that our cover was blown by Jen's aunt,
whom she mistakenly had trusted with all of our sensitive plans and
other
information, including the fact that we were living right under her
mother's nose, we purposely told the aunt we were leaving Canada in
September of 2006, for good - while actually planning to leave months
earlier, knowing that she'd betray Jennifer's trust and dutifully
tell her mother. Then we sold everything and left Canada by road, for Panama, arriving 23d later, after an
arduous, dangerous 11,000km journey that's definitely a
one-way-trip! We later heard from our old neighbors that
just before when we'd told the aunt we'd be leaving (September) out of
the blue, Jennifer's family arrived at our old home, perplexed and
quite angry to find we'd escaped. We've lived safely out
of her reach, in the jungles of Panama, since 2006.
Plan-B was to isolate us from any/all family
who we could subsequently reveal truths to, by implying that
Jennifer was "mentally unwell", therefore they must not believe
any of her possible revelations. Considering Jennifer had been
a model daughter, that was a terrible thing to do to her. It was a
diabolical, pre-emptive plan, designed to demoralize Jennifer
and also to keep her isolated, shunned, sent to Coventry - kept there! Of course that
allegation wasn't true,
but by the time we figured it out, the damage was done,
and reversing that carefully placed "poison pill" would be painful.
For years, Jennifer & I
lived with that status-quo, just happy to at least have
escaped and to finally be living free of her
unrelenting weirdness and cruelty. So it was that
even when we journeyed back to Cape Town, we didn't make the effort
to re-connect with family (like we'd once tried) as it just seemed
like such a arduous process to even contemplate. It seemed that the mother
had succeeded in her determination to isolate Jennifer and render her
witness irrelevant and unbelievable. Meanwhile I'd
made secret recordings of phone conversations
between Jenifer and her sister (living with mother -
supposedly fully loyal to her) in which the mother's
cruelty was revealed by? None other than her sister, and all of it
was shocking! Armed with those, I
selectively sent recordings to just some relatives who'd bought into the mother's lies.
They were shocked to the core! Ironically it was her
birth-mother's side of the family that accepted Jen back, first. A
large part of her
dad's family (in Canada) callously glossed over these startling
revelations, in their selfish efforts to curry favor with Jen's dad
and mother, at Jennifer's expense. That didn't work out well, as
Jennifer's mother harbored a deep distrust of them, for decades! Either way, the
tables are now turned and it's the mother who's now isolated. Jennifer is inclined to
just forget about her, to let
God be her judge and punish her accordingly, and do nothing more. But I'm not in
full agreement!
I hate it when "evil" thinks it's succeeded and sometimes
there's a final straw ... here it is: Jen was
close to her dad, who since his mission to warn us of his wife's
evil Plan-A, was forbidden to ever visit with us again. 24 years
later, he died, on July 18h of 2020. Jen's sister was commanded not
to let Jen know, there was purposely no obituary or burial. It's as
if he just disappeared, forgotten, as if he'd never lived. 7 months
later, a relative found out and told Jen that her dad had died, and
when. As I watched my lovely wife having to deal with the grief and
the hurt, realizing that extra efforts were made to hurt her, yet
again, I decided it was time to start to make all of this public!
Evil flourishes in the dark - it's time to shine a bright light of
truth on it, to expose it in all it's ugliness! Now that her Dad's
gone (RIP) and Jen's sister is terminally ill, given just months to
live, soon the mother will end up alone, having long-since chased
Jennifer and our family away. One would think out of a sense of
survival she'd at least try to mend relations with Jennifer, but she's more aggressive
than ever - at 90! Her tactic was (still is) to break
Jennifer's spirit, have her give up on an
independent life, and return to mother, broken, on
her terms. She has no friends, all neighbors dislike
her, grandchildren were chased away or killed
- Jennifer's sister was forced, despite her
desperate, anguished pleas to be allowed to keep her
son
(Click link to Listen)
to abort her first son, or lose her parents,
no other option! She ultimately chose her mother,
which predictably ruined her life. She regrets it to
this day! That taped conversation is tremendously
sad, but there's worse. Later she had
another son, but this time followed our advice, telling mother only after it was too late to
be forced to abort
him,
(Listen here)
she then plotted and schemed to lose her custody of
that son, to get her to return to live
with her in Kelowna, alone, broken. Listening to
Jen's sister relive what it was like being
(Listen here)
put into an orphanage, by her mother, as a young
child, not even 10, to bully her into being
totally compliant to mother's iron-fisted rule, one realizes that
being disowned and rejected, as Jen was, is actually
a huge
blessing! It's time she pays for a life-time of callously
inflicting misery and pain on others. These
revelations (really just the less insidious ones - the tip of the
ice-berg) came as a huge surprise to some relatives, probably
because abusers are very good at covering-up and most people want to
believe they're nice, normal people. They're not! As a result their
victims suffer even more abuse - both from their abusers plus from
anyone else they convince to unwittingly support them. Both sisters
(and their
dad) agree that she's never said "Sorry" to
anyone, ever, because she honestly believes she's
done nothing wrong, so nothing to say sorry about;
also that she's never cried for anyone's pain or
suffering, except for her own, but she's often
relished the misfortunes, pain - even the deaths of
others, showing no empathy, merely saying "Serves them
right for criticizing me!" Jen's sister succinctly
replied, when she'd asked her "But Why?" (2nd
Recording, above) "Because she's cold... Cold...
Cold!" Well, she hasn't changed! She's as cruel now
as ever before - fearful
that her carefully crafted,
life-long illusion of "a perfect life" (she
firmly believes she's led a perfect life
despite mountains of evidence to the contrary) may
soon be shattered. These recorded phone calls are
damning evidence, yet they're not her deepest, darkest secret, which
Jen's aunt in Cape Town (RIP June 2021) unwittingly alerted us to, as newlyweds. The
threat of that revelation terrifies the mother. We've agreed to share
part of our story for several reasons:
(1) Jennifer's/Elizabeth's mother was determined to
control her daughter's life or failing that, to destroy it. God (King)
Jesus (Prince) me (her Knight) and all who cared about Jen, helped
and cheered as she broke free of tyranny, succeeding wonderfully,
despite all that evil pitted against her! (2) We want people to know
that if 2 people really are determined to love each other, then
despite any/all of the obstacles, as long as they never give up on
each other, their love for each other will triumph! Love's more
powerful than evil! (3) Don't ever underestimate the power of prayer
& faith! We did not reach "50 years and still in love" on our own!
(4) To be alive is to have problems & challenges! I asked my dad (Dr
Strauss in the novels then well into his 80's) "Dad, when does
life's stresses end?" His answer stuck with me: "When you're dead
son, when you're dead!" (5) Many people face problems far worse
than anything we've had to deal with! Please remember "This too
shall pass. Tough times don't last! Determined, faithful people,
depending on God's mercy and provision... do last!"
(6) Sometimes people (even family) are jealous of
your looks, talents, youth, success; then try their
best to put you
down to make themselves feel
better. Break away from that! If you Google
"Jennifer Eloff" you'll find a lot of success!
If you Google her birth-mother... Zero!
Jen's had the world's #1 Facebook pages for Low-Carb/Banting/Keto
for 7y straight and counting. She's written 21 cookbooks, 5
Best-sellers! (7) Jennifer depends on Heaven's help + protection! She's
humble, grateful, thanking God daily for loving and
protecting her, for adopting
her into His family when her birth-mother cruelly rejected
her, and for being the best "Daddy" (ABBA
Father) she could ever wish for! PSALM 27:10"For my father and my
mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me
in" Now that's the
best "happily
ever-after" ... that's the most valuable of all the
possible happy endings, ever!
Back in the late 1970's, in Cape Town, people would stop and
wave at Elizabeth, saying "Hi Kate!" You have to be older to have
watched "Rich man, Poor man" to remember how, in the south of
France, in an epic love-story, Tom & Kate got married, and how,
sadly, that love-story took a sudden, unexpected, deadly turn, as
their honeymoon started. It had exactly the unhappy ending Constance
("the queen", Lizzie's mother) day-dreamed about, over her afternoon
cup of tea, in faraway Canada, whilst Elizabeth & Nicholas were on
their honeymoon in South Africa. She'd recently seen "Rich man, poor
man" and knew everyone thought of Elizabeth, as Kate's doppelganger. She relished
"poor man" Tom's death, on his honeymoon, fantasizing about a similar fate for
Nicholas. Thanks to Lizzie's dad getting her to promise not
to return to Siesta after their wedding, that saddest of endings, common in South Africa then, much
more so now, didn't happen for them on their honeymoon!
With the help of Elvis, here's
the 3 min "Cole's notes" video version (Circa 2015)
Constance spent much of her life trying to devalue
Elizabeth's life, love and accomplishments, putting her
down, attempting to regain control over her. She was jealous
of Lizzie, that much was plain to see! The most generous
thing that can be said about her life, is that she excelled
at evil plots & schemes, but at little else! She's
earned her title as "the queen", Snow-White's mother, the
villain in this real-life story. But the King (God the
Father), the Prince (Jesus, our Savior) me (her
knight/champion) and others (friends, fans, supporters -
even some of her relatives, though sadly, not all) were
equally determined to help Elizabeth break free of
that oppressive tyranny, encouraging her to summon-up all the strength deep
inside her - to fight back, to never give up! So it was that she
kept believing, worked hard at her dreams and succeed beyond even her own wildest expectations!
She even found the time to homeschool her sons, who have
both excelled in academics and in life.
Here's just one example of what God has done with Jennifer's
life,
a sweet,
humble young girl from Wellington, Western Cape, South Africa:
World's #1
Low-Carb/Keto/Banting Facebook pages for 7yrs straight,
and counting! Here's statistics for her main Facebook
page (1.1 Million likes) which crossed 1 Million
Likes right on Valentine's day 2021 - a loving gift from
the Lord! It makes up 1/3rd of the team's totals.
Here's the top 5 countries that adopted Jen, becoming her
champion. All are important countries from Jen's life story!
United States
(USA)
889,182
Canada
29,545
South Africa
22,495
Australia
17,959
United Kingdom
14,024
Here's a list of the top 45 cities (of her fans) in the
world. Cape Town, her old home, is #3 in the list
Pretoria is #21, major Australian cities are all
there - but the USA is by far her #1 Champion! And
Texas stands out in the crowd, being by far her
most ardent champions world-wide, with 9 of 45 in the
list of Jen's world's Top cities - that's
almost 1/4 of them, from one state -
Texas! To be fair, many more cities, love and support
Jen, and she loves them too! There's still a lot of nice
people in this world - despite what the "bad news", here,
there and everywhere would have us all believe. It's been a
wild ride and it's drawing to a close. Jen turns 65 in 2022.
This photo's for Texans,
of the adopted
Low-Carb cowgirl off to enjoy "the Greatest outdoor show on
earth", the Calgary Stampede, Alberta, Canada.
Whenever Constance worked to undermine
her daughter's plans, to make her fail with her "Red Kryptonite apples",
to more easily control her life, I'd
put this photo on her desk looking at
Jennifer working on her PC. Granny's "Green Kryptonite"
worked!
All
over the world
