IN MEMORIAM 
57 
In July 1911, soon after her father’s death, Mary Page sailed for South 
Africa. Her health had become worse than ever and after a serious operation 
it was hoped that some big change in a warm climate would help her more 
than anything else could. It was a big change, almost a drastic one, from 
London to Dealesville (in the Orange Free State, some 5000 ft. above sea- 
level and 45 miles from the nearest railway) whose raison d'etre was some 
sulphur-springs, the possibilities of which were not being realised. “Here I 
am,” she writes to her mother, “after a fortnight without so much as a shoe 
to change, and still hoping for my things to come one day soon. Transport is 
so scarce with want of rain for oxen. But don’t worry — you don’t know 
how few things you need till you get away like this. We have had awful 
winds and sand-storms but still the rain holds off.” In a charming letter 
(November 30th) to her little nieces, illustrated with sketches of spiders, 
beetles and other queer forms of life abounding in that “wilderness” round 
Dealesville, she says — “I expect you are all sitting by the fire and I am 
sitting under the fruit trees, where the apples and apricots are beginning to 
get ripe, and trying to think I am not being frizzled up. It is really almost 
too hot for my walk at half-past six in the morning, only I always go, because 
it is no use to walk after breakfast, and puppy always conies to my window 
and calls to me, and I can’t resist his shaggy head, but put on my thinnest 
clothes and go off with him.” This life, in spite of certain privations, was 
doing her good. “I should like to be rich enough,” she writes, “to go on with 
the sun all the year round. I have so loved it, and have never felt it too hot 
except on the close thundery days; the dry hot air is so lovely to me. It has 
given me the health I was hunting for.” 
Early in 1912 came the move to Bloemfontein where “there are high hills 
overshadowing the town and hills all round wherever you look. Out at 
Dealesville it was uninterrupted flat vast distance, not even a shrub to break 
it; and the hot wind prowling incessantly over it, one way or the other. 
I felt a bit shut in when I first came here and missed the wind, which of course 
is much less, and my long wanders at all hours on the veldt; and especially 
I missed the various lightning displays all round. But it is a very welcome 
and comfortable change, and the plenty is a great boon — fruit, milk, butter, 
etc. I am still luxuriating in town life and no one could be kinder than 
Miss Scott.” Miss Scott soon became a very dear friend and her home was 
Mary Page’s ever after. “ She is so kind and cheery and very keen on my 
work. Fancy me conducting a tuck-shop at a huge school and college, all 
alone with my ‘boy,’ and all day busy chatting and chaffing with the youth 
of the Free State!!! I don’t like the idea, but must do something, and 
Dealesville has made me such a recluse I am shy of doing anything; and it 
is all so funny that it does not seem to matter much.” 
The various phases of life in Bloemfontein are vividly and amusingly 
