On Thursday June 4, Lucia Louis celebrated her ninetieth birthday.
This vibrant soul is sociable, talkative, and loves to be surrounded by interesting people at all times. She is highly passionate and easy-going, and always ready for an adventure or intellectual conversation. Those who can keep up with her train of thought often find her hilarious
This easy-going nonagenarian was a teenager during the second world war, which was in many ways a period of conformity with traditional gender roles, it was also a decade of change, when discontent with the status quo was emerging.Popular culture and the mass media reinforced messages about traditional gender roles, consumer culture, and the ideal of domesticity, but the reality of women’s lives did not always reflect these ideals
Non-white women faced particular difficulties in the pursuit of post war and material abundance. Popular portrayals of ideal femininity and home life ignored the lives of minority women and families.
Photographs of her Mauritian ancestors
Born Lucia La douce, in Houghton Road, Clairwood, she is the progeny of Mauritian immigrants who arrived in South Africa in the 1870s
After failing Afrikaans, she left school in standard seven, and began working in a clothing factory. In 1970 she married Julian Louis, the love of her life.
Lucia and family
“The secret to longevity is understanding yourself in a better way, and getting a sense of direction and purpose in life, while unraveling your true potential and fleeing from a depressive and stressed state of mind” ; she says.
By: Lorraine Richards