Eulogy for Uncle Andrew Arries RIP 1926-2014

For anybody who doesn’t know me, I was raised by my mother in Uitenhage, South Africa – a small town near Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Andrew Arries was friends with my grandparents, and later, everyone just called him Uncle. For as long as I can remember, he lived with us, in my grandparents’ old house at the back of Sass Street.

As my grandparents died in the early 1980s, I now see that Uncle was a surrogate father to my own mother and her sister Brenda, who passed away in 1995. He was the rock of ages because we could always depend on him. Even in his 80s, he was more often looking after us than we were looking after him. Always independent, he was the epitome of self-reliance.

He regularly went to town to do his daily shopping for bread, milk, fruit and other groceries. He would often be carrying two packets of shopping all the way home, and refused lifts from strangers. He only rarely accepted a lift if he knew the person very well.

When I was about 10 years old, he took me along to Sunday School at the Dutch Reformed Church (now URC Ebenhaeser church). When there was no lift from Dominee Esterhuizen, we walked about 6km to church without question. In 1996, I celebrated my 21st birthday and graduated from university on the same weekend. My own father could not be there, so Uncle stepped in.

The last time he visited me and my cousins in Johannesburg was in 2008 for almost three months. I remember booking his flight back to Port Elizabeth. He took time to visit and stay with everyone, including my mother’s brother and sister, who lived there for more than 30 years. Together with my group of cousins, including Alberton and Bernice Murray, we took him to the OR Tambo airport on a Sunday. At the boarding gate, he almost refused to leave because he was unusually emotional. It was like he was saying goodbye to all his grandchildren for the last time.

Each of us was touched by Uncle in a big or small way, who lived at Sass Street. I remember him mostly for this quality: integrity. He was truly a man who led by example. An example we can only imitate now that he’s passed away. RIP Andrew Arries 1926-2014, Uncle to many and oupa to a few whose lives he directly impacted.