Page 121 - Bulletin 19 2015

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£43,343.

In 1943 Rockorry was bought by Dr Leonard Abraham Joelson for £4,300. He was the well-

respected and loved Kalk Bay GP who practised from this house until he sold it in 1976 to

Alan Wyllie Howie. Leonard Joelson was born in 1906 and qualified at London Hospital,
Whitechapel in 1927. He first practised near Hopetown in the Karroo where the family had a

farm. When the farm was sold in 1938 he moved to Cape Town and into a practice with Dr
Arnold Raff who had his rooms at Strathdene near Quarry Road, Kalk Bay.

Dr Joelson was in Kalk Bay in an era when the doctor’s role went far beyond medicine – he

was an important man in the life and social structure of the village. He was friend, counsellor
and adviser to all and sundry as well. A doctor like this gave the village a sense of continuity.

He delivered countless babies, including my wife Judy and was guest of honour at our

wedding.

After selling Rockcorry in 1976 Dr Joelson retired from general practice but worked 5

mornings a week at a Government Day Hospital until the age of 87.

The Kalk Bay Sewage Pumping Station

This building was erected in 1906 and had the same initial ownership as Dalebrook House.

Behind it was the orphanage housed in Douglas Cottage and in 1904 the whole site was sold
to the municipality by the St. George’s Orphanage for £1,650 so that the pump station could

be built. Douglas Cottage was demolished and replaced by a municipal cottage – the home of
the McCready family for many years. (Fig. 3.11.)

It is tempting to think of this building as a ‘pump station’ which, of course, it was – the

implication being that sewage was pumped underground into and out of the pump station.
Many properties were not connected to the mains for many years and a 1908 KB-MM tender