Page 157 - Bulletin 21

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the addition of the shop to what was a house in 1905. (Fig. 4.42.)

Wolfsohn Family

It is not known when the Wolfsohn’s came to Kalk Bay but like many Jewish immigrants

they arrived with very little. To quote from the van Blerk website:

At some time during Jan van Blerk’s lifetime there were two poor German Jews [they

were Russian], the Wolfsohn brothers, who were eking out a living pushing hand carts
around buying and selling empty bottles and bags. He took pity on them and gave

them financial assistance in opening shops in Lakeside and Kalk Bay in which they
prospered.

By the 1920s they had bought many properties in Kalk Bay and these included what became

the Wolfsohn shop and the fishermen’s cottages. (Fig. 4.43.) These were bought (erf 89939)
from the estate of Jan van Blerk in 1920. The 1892 erf plan shows there was a building on the

site of the shop at that time. The Wolfsohn shop was an institution in Kalk Bay for years.

(Fig. 4.44.)

Many are the stories of being able to knock on the door at midnight asking for a tickey

paraffin. Quoting from the oral history of Thelma Pritchard:

Mr and Mrs Wolfsohn – I can see them in front, in my vision, I can see them. Mrs
Wolfsohn had this pitch, pitch black hair, and she used to knit beautifully….

And I remember Mrs. Wolfsohn was a very big lady, and we used to go into the shop,

and she had a pencil where she used to write in the bookie, you know, whatever you
bought on tick.

I can still smell the smell in the shop. You couldn’t actually pinpoint where, where the

smell was. It was made up of so many different things.

Wolfsohn was of course a slum landlord spending as little as possible on his many properties.
On the other hand when times were tough for fishing families there was no suggestion of

eviction.