Written 5 August 2011!

Being in the senior choir had its advantages – my mom could now audition for roles in stage productions. Her first audition earned her the female lead role in the musical, Slave in Arabi, in 1949. This was the first time she had sung and acted on stage. Next came the musical, Maid of the Mountains, in 1950. For the next few years, Dr Joseph Manca produced one musical every year.

The senior choir, which did sacred work, like Verdi’s Requiem, did not do anything operatic at the time. It was 1956 when the Eoan Group Music Department, under the leadership of Dr Manca, staged its very first opera, the well-loved La Traviata. My mom, aged 26, shared the lead soprano role of Violetta with her talented colleague, Ruth Goodwin.

Private life

While working at The Cape Times, my mom befriended Sheila Brookes, whose enthusiasm for the game of softball soon had a group of them playing during their lunch breaks, at work. My mom enjoyed playing, and was persuaded by Sheila to join her club, City Wolves, in Maitland.

One evening, she went to a club meeting and was sitting reading a book, waiting for the meeting to start, when a very tall, dark and handsome young man came to sit next to her. His name was Johnny Rushin, and, no longer an active player for City Wolves Baseball, he served on the committee. They chatted a bit and, although she doesn’t go into much detail about their romance, I’d hazard a guess that there was an immediate, mutual attraction. At a subsequent meeting he asked her to accompany him to a dance in Stellenbosch, and that was the beginning of their relationship. She jokes that she wasn’t able to dance, and that, instead, she “hopped”. This was pointed out to her by Johnny, who was an accomplished, spirited dancer. He then taught her to dance, and going to dances became a big part of their social lives.

Looking at our family today, in the year 2011, I can see that this talent, this passion, was most definitely passed on to their elder daughter, my sister, Wendy.

I always enjoyed watching my parents dance together – they moved smoothly, as one.  It was the only evidence I had that, on some level, they’d been an awesome match.

Throughout my mom’s courtship with Johnny, the music side of her life continued. Mrs May Canterbury, Principal of the Eoan Group, and her husband, Eddie, were very fond of my mom.

On the 22^nd of September, 1956, my mom married Johnny Rushin. They moved into a room in Hart Road, Crawford, with my dad’s cousin and her husband, Beattie and Peter Jones. On 2 January1959, my parents’ first child, Wendy Catherine Rushin, was born. There are albums of photos of this happy addition to the family. From Hart Road, they moved to Tanner Avenue, opposite the park in Crawford, where they stayed as tenants of Freda and John Amroodt. It was in this house that their second child, Trudy Alexandra Rushin (me!) was born, on 10 September 1961.

My mother recalls the disappointed look on my dad’s face when he heard the second baby was also a girl. I know I felt terrible for a long time after being told this, but I’ve since found my peace with the contributing factors. My dad was a typical “man’s man”, and I suppose there was some macho part to him that wanted a son, to carry on the family name. (I also think there are some things you should not tell your children.) I kept the Rushin name, and, even though it won’t be passed on to my children, I’ll carry it proudly throughout my life.   

My mother doesn’t talk much about this time of her life, but I do know that she passed up an opportunity to travel throughout the Republic of South Africa with the Eoan Group when I was a baby, because my dad had strongly objected. She’d gone on a trip like that when my sister was a baby. The trip, to Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London, had lasted a few months, and my mom recalls that, when she returned, she’d extended her arms to hold her little girl, but Wendy wouldn’t come to her.   

My parents split up in 1963, and my mom moved, with my sister and me, to my granny’s house in Bloem Street. She must have been out of work for a while, having her babies, because she says that she went back to work, in some printing company, at this time. My granny, as a result of the Group Areas Act, moved to Hercules Street, in Bellville South.