Elizabeth was my 3x great grandmother. She was born in Cape Town on 18 January 1774 and baptised on 7 December 1783. For some reason later in life she said her birthday was 18 January 1782. Why she did this I’m not sure. Possibly she really did not know her birth date or she wished to appear younger but she had many siblings so she must have had an idea of her real age. So she was 83 when she died and not 75 as the family thought.

Her ancestry is described above. I do not know very much about her life except I believe she waited for Ernst Jacob Heckrath to return to the Cape having left a few days before they were to be married. It is not known why he rushed off back to Germany at such short notice, but perhaps he got cold feet! He says it was for business. It took him a few years to return but I’m sure they kept in touch by letter. When he returned he was 27 and she 25 and they married 7 weeks after he arrived back in Cape Town.

She was a Dutch speaker and learnt to read and write. However she did not speak English because when her son was away at school in England his father asked him to write in Dutch so his mother could read his letters. She had many brothers and sisters, including half siblings, and it appears was close to several of them. When Ernst wrote to his son he often referred to “your uncles, aunts, nieces and cousins”. These relatives were Elizabeth’s family since his were in Germany and her sisters were often godmothers to her children. On 5 March 1819 she and her sister, Catharina Hendrika Rorich, gave birth to daughters on the same day! Consequently they decided to baptise the children together on 4 April 1819. Catharina’s husband Johan Nicolaas Rorich was godfather to Elizabeth’s daughter, Susanna Clasina Carolina. Her sister’s daughter was named Anna Petronella Elizabeth Rorich.

In 1826 she received a reply to her letter from her husband’s nephew, Jacob Ernst Cyre, who lived in Mainz. He says his mother, her sister-in-law, had just died the previous month. He mentions his elder brother being in Batavia and a captain in the Dutch Artillery. He says his brother, as a youth, had enlisted under the French Flag against Russia in 1812. He was taken prisoner by the Russians and “after the political changes entered the service of the King of Beyeren. On account of his military experience and fine stature he was appointed an officer in the King’s Grenadier Guards in the year 1815 and was transferred to the garrison at the Capital Munchen”

She continued living at 8 Grave Street, Cape Town, after Ernst died and in 1824 was recorded as letting lodgings presumably to bring in some income. She died on 17 September 1857.