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children and their only cousins, due more to distance than anything else. Doug who was a lot
older than Irma became alcoholic, resulting in Irma divorcing him. She never married again and
died at Port Alfred Retirement Village in 2012.
So both Denis and Irma have left us now, Denis on 4 December 2003 and Irma only recently.
And apart from me there is only Russel who still carries his Father’s name. I believe there
might be other Brownlee relatives who we know nothing about.
I’d like to mention Irma’s children briefly: The eldest daughter Deidre is married to Mike Japp
who has been a pineapple farmer near Port Alfred for some years and Deidre teaches at the
High School. They had three sons; Christopher, Gordon and Kevin. Kevin was a healthy young
man at university in Cape Town when he died very suddenly in his sleep in 2012. Shelagh who
is an engineer has been living in America for many years and has been married at least three
times! She has two children; Natalie and Paolo. Michael lives with his life-partner Alistair in
Durban and is an accountant and Grant is married to Martie in Johannesburg where they are
both physicists. They have two children; Grace and James.
So all Granny Brownlee’s strict Homework Schedules when she lived with them while they
were growing up paid off!

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CHAPTER 2: JOHN RITCHIE BROWNLEE (1891 - 1950/1)
ow we’ve had a short introduction to Denis and his immediate family we need to take
a step back and find out who his Father was and where he came from. Unfortunately
there is no genealogical chart to provide us with names and dates but I do have some
documents which we can piece together to give a little background.

Denis’ Father was born JOHN RITCHIE BROWNLIE (note the spelling) on 12 April 1891. His
place of birth was 30 Canal Street, Port Dundas, Glasgow, Scotland. His Father’s name was
ROBERT BROWNLIE and his occupation is described as ‘Railway Surfaceman’. Apparently, a
Surfaceman, as the name implies, is required to keep the surface of the railway lines clear of
debris. Port Dundas, incidentally, is an area of Glasgow approximately 1.6 Kms from the city
center.
His Mother was MARGARET BROWNLIE, born RITCHIE. There is no record of her date of birth
or death although rumour has it that she was alive and well and living in the Cape in the 1950’s.
She must have been very old by then. Jessie only found out about the presence of Jock’s mother
and other relatives after his death. She then learned that he had been sending her money for
years although he never once confessed that he had close relatives and that he was in contact
with them. How very strange he was.
Jock’s parents were married on December 31st 1890. The small amount of information I could
access was taken from the Register of Births for the District of St Rollox in the County of Lanark
on 26th August 1983. It was acquired by Denis when he was researching the possibility of a
British passport based on his Father’s birth in Scotland. He did get the passport but
unfortunately the right could not be passed on to me or his descendants.
In my photo-diary is an official statement, signed by Denis’ Mother, to the effect that her late
husband’s name had been changed to Brownlee due to an error made by an official when he
arrived in South Africa in the early 1900’s. The young John (always known as Jock) decided it
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