Hi, I am Luann B Seamons of Preston, Idaho, USA. My Bodily ancestors were in Capetown early in their stay in South Africa. I would like to learn about the ship they came to South Africa in and the following questions that I am asking along with a copy of a fun letter from my ancestor apparently written in her own hand and here transcribed by a descendant. They were only in Capetown for only a couple of years while the work was going on to renew the battlements there. I am submitting this recently found letter from my great-great grandmother who was born in England in 1816 came to South Africa 1844/45 and left for the United States 1860. My hope is an exchange of some ideas of where I can find more information about them. I am encouraged by the transcription of the Sidbury Angelican Church done recently where two children are baptized in 1853 & 1855. Mention is made of school, free school, in another history they call it grammar school. Apparently Robert Jr and William attended school while they were living in Cape Town. William later attended school in about 1856 in Port Elizabeth while the family lived at the "Inn" on Bushman's River. Are there any school records available? Also Grandfather Robert Bodily was a stone mason working in the engineers department on the battery and castle. Someone please tell me what this refers to and if there might be some records we could get into to find out more about his work while at Cape Town? Also Note the mention of a church building. The Bodilys are described as staunch members of the Church of England. What church might she have been referring to in 1847 in Capetown? What is the likely church to find the baptism of the son James born while in Capetown; and Mary Ann in 1849 and Edwin in 1851 born in Port Elizabeth? I hope you enjoy the letter as much as I did; it was like a window into their lives. Following is a letter written by Jane Pittam Bodily wife of Robert Bodily Sr. to an aunt in Great Britain: Cape Town, Sept. 13, 1847 Dear Aunt: I hope these few lines with our kind love will find you all well as it leaves us so at this time. Thank God for it. My children have been poorly with a cold or I may say complaint that most of the children in the town have had, but thank God, they are all better. I had the doctor to my baby for he was so ill, and there were so many of the young children that died, that we thought it better to have something in time, for here was four or five little children buried in a day in the English burying ground, for days together. The burying ground is not joining the church as at home. I should say it is a mile from the English church and they don't take the corpse to the church and if they read the burial service at the grave they demand twenty dollars, that is 30 shillings, and 15 shillings for breaking the ground. My boys are grown very much, they both go to school. I have sent William to the free school but I don't see that he learns any good at all for there are so many boys, so that I now send them to a woman that lives near us. I think it is better to pay a little and have them kept more strict. I daresay you have heard father's letter my little boy's name is James. He grows very nicely, is now four months old, he was born on the 6th (sixth) of May. Most people say he is like little Robert, he is a contended, little dear, and we don't make a little fuss with him. My husband is still working in the engineers department. The work has been very slack this winter, there has been but two or three masons all winter. Robert and one more that came in the "Susan," the vessel before us. Now they have set two more hands on but there has been so little work going on in town so that there has been a great many out of employment all winter. We now hear that the headquarters is to be removed to the frontier so I dare say there will be a great many men going, but I don't think Robert will go, for as he says, there will always be work in the battery and at the castle, and he has been very fortunate to have some good jobs there and he thinks it better to stop a year or two and see. We hear that the farmers and all that can take cattle are to have them so as people say it will be encouragement for them to try their best. Some say it will soon be over now, some say not for years but I don't know. Who knows? I suppose we shall have the meat cheaper when it is. Beef is now four d mutton 3d (six cents). Butter is now a dollar and milk is now at 2 1/4 shilling (fifty four cents) a bottle. We have had a good deal of rain this winter so that there is more grass for the cows which makes it so cheap. Vegetables are very dear. Potatoes are now 2d (4 cents) the pound and I myself have gave 4 1/2 for a brocily that was only just enough for dinner. When they first come in they are gone if any size. Onions are very dear and scarce. I gave 1 three fourths d (3 1/2 cents) for one the other day but the young ones are coming in so they will be cheaper. House rent is very dear at the Cape. We have been paying $20.00 a month for this last eight months and you can't get a place under if it is in any respectable part. You may get houses for eight or ten dollars but then it is up some back yard where there are all sorts of characters living. But the houses are most of them large ones so then a person takes one and lets rooms. We were in a part of one for eight months. We gave nine dollars for a front room and seven for a back one, but it is not like having a place to yourself. If there are three or four families living in one house you all have to cook at one fireplace in the kitchen for there are very few houses that there are fireplaces in the rooms and most of the houses have flat roofs. There are, now and then one slated house to be seen that has been built within a year or two and then they are only one story. But way out of town. It is more healthy and it is near Robert's work. They tell me that five or six years ago ther! e was only one house dropt here and now it will soon be all buildings, for every few days you may see some new one began. Robert has been buying some ground, it is about five minutes walk from where we now live, and as soon as we can we shall run us up a little house on it. It is about 160 feet square so that we shall have enough for to keep goats and I say we might keep a cow as you can turn them out to graze with getting a boy to look after them. And we shall be able to grow us a few vegetables in the winter if we live so long, it is no good to think of gardening in the summer as the southeasters destroy everything unless it is mounded in with a very high wall. People make two or three times the money he gave for it which was nine pound. (forty four dollars) as they are buying ground farther up every little time. And we hear there is ground being bought to build a church very near to us so that if we should at any time wish to go up the country we could sell it, but I don't like the thoughts of going on the water again and if we have plenty good luck I should rather stop at the Cape though there are a great many going to leave, some going to Port Natal. We hear that is a fine country and in a flourishing state. Some are going to Port Adelaide but perhaps it may not be found as it is represented. It is now the Malay's new year, as they call it. They fast thirty days. They neither eat nor drink from sunrising to sun setting for thirty days, and when the time is up they have a feast and call it their "New Year." They illuminate their burying ground for three nights and take coffee and cookies, that is cakes, and set by the graves. They are a rum set of people, they will steal anything they can. The Malay women wear red handkerchiefs around their head, no bonnets, and they have sleeves and their hair all combed back from their forehead, and make a great roll which is fastened up with a very large pin. They all wear ear rings, they are very proud and some of them dress very fine in their way. I have seen some of the women with a nice silk dress as any lady would wear, only sleeves of another color. We have had a long cold winter to what we had last year and several heavy rains. We had one very heavy thunder storm three weeks ago, and the hailstones lay that we could pick up a handful which is the first I have seen since I have been in the colony, but we now begin to have the southeaster come on again which shows us the summer is coming and the flowers are spring that I say it makes me think of April at home. I forget if in my letter to father, said they had been lighting the town with gas the beginning of winter. It looks very pretty at an evening to stand at our door and see the lights all up the streets for we live a little farther up, so that we have a fine view. I can't never shall say I like the Cape as my home nor should if I had my relations living with me but I make myself contented and think I ought to be thankful that we have our health and are in a way of getting a good living. For, thank God, I can say we are if Robert does but have his health as it all depends upon him, but I would never say to any one come out, for if you look at comforts stop at home for I often think of my poor father's words. He told me we should not be able to get things at home and so I find it. Oh, how I should like a nice bucket of apples to make some apple dumplings, for the apples we get here are not good, they have no taste as ours have, though the fruit is plentiful in the summer, and after all it is not the fruit we could get at home. My William begins to talk dutch a little, he often speaks to me in dutch, something he has learned of the children at school, and I tell him to speak as I can understand him for I shall never learn their talk. They call bread "brood." The Dutch people are so very fond of coffee they get their cup of coffee as soon as they are up and then they breakfast about ten o'clock but their living is very different to ours. I shall tire you with my scribble and must say that Robert joins me in love to my dear grandmother, father, brother and sister and Mr. Pittam. Also to uncle and Emma and William. My children often talk of them and William says, "When Willy cousin comes he shall show him something, and he often talks about going to milk old Derry and going with his grandfather to feed the pig. When you see uncle Joseph please to give our loves to them all. I will write to some to them before long for I really are almost ashamed that I write home so seldom, for I think you must think that I have forgotten you all, but I put off from time to time, but I often think you all over and can see you all in your homes though you form no ideas of me in mine. But I must say that I shall be very happy to hear from any of you when you can write, as I love to hear about home though I cannot see it. Please to give our loves to Robert's friends when you see them, and I must say to all uncles, aunts and cousi! ns and any inquiring friends, and accept the same yourself, from your affectionate niece, Jane Bodily Comments written about Jane Pittam Bodily by her grandson Joseph Bodily: After his (Robert Bodily) death his widow, Jane Pittam Bodily, went and lived with her daughter Jane Elizabeth Layton until her death 22 Sept. 1904. The last time I saw my grandmother, was 21 July 1901. Grandmother always impressed me as a person of unusual strength and ruggedness. She was above average size with unusually large hands and long arms with a body which at one time must have been as tough as a raw hide string for there was not an ounce of surplus flesh. Bone and sinew were as self evident as the strings on a bass fiddle. Yet she was one of the most considerate, unselfish and nonself-centered aged persons I have ever met.