But, always on the lookout for better-paying positions, she became a domestic servant for an elderly white couple. And knowing that cooks were paid a bit more, she learned enough, “with the aid of cooking books and recipes in newspapers,” to find work as a servant and cook. She even polished floors, despite the toll it took on her knees and legs.
Working for a family of Russian Jews, she learned for the first time about the communist revolution of 1917. They “spoke about a revolution in that country and me, not knowing anything about politics and the birth of a new world, took no notice of what they were speaking about. Until 1928 when I got an idea of the revolution of which they spoke.”17
Josie had her first child, Carol, with a Coloured man in Doornfontein in 1920, but she kept her maiden name. Around the time of the Rand Rebellion in 1922, when a white mine workers’ strike almost brought Johannesburg to its knees, Josie, Carol, and her mother moved back to Potchefstroom and stayed in Stephen’s comfortable house in the location surrounded by fig and apple trees. She gave birth to a second daughter, Francis, by another man in 1926.18
Although her childhood was rough, she acknowledged in an interview late in her life that she “learnt the value of doing things myself instead of always depending on the next person.”19
While Josie and her mother were eking out a living, Stephen was doing well as an interpreter at the magistrate’s court until a reorganization of staff led to his being retrenched in May 1912. After that he was used on a temporary basis.20 He was a highly respected figure in Potchefstroom. In 1915, the local magistrate described him this way: “I may add that so far as this particular Native is concerned I can only say that in regard to linguistic accomplishments, civility, sobriety, general behavior and ability, he is altogether exceptional.”21 But in late 1916, his world was turned upside down when he was charged with knowingly receiving stolen property.
The case revolved around some sheets of corrugated iron that another black person, John Konden, had stolen from his employer and various other people and sold to Mpama in August 1916. Konden claimed that Mpama bought the goods knowing they were stolen. He testified that Mpama had seen him in front of the courthouse and asked him if he had any sheets of corrugated iron for sale. Because Mpama made it clear to him that he did not want to buy costly material from a white person, Konden inferred that Mpama did not care how he procured the material. He then stole the iron sheets as well as pipes and gutters. After delivering the goods to Mpama’s home during the day, Mpama upbraided him for not bringing them at night. Then, when Konden was caught stealing some doors, he confessed to the police that Mpama had paid him for the sheets in front of the post office.
Mpama’s version of his dealings with Konden was very different. He said he was tending his garden at his home when Konden came by and asked him why he did not put a furrow under the bridge in his garden so that water could flow easier. Konden offered to sell him materials for the furrow. When he arrived several days later with some secondhand sheets of corrugated iron in a handcart, Mpama bought five of them and placed them in his backyard.
The investigating officer, Detective Robert Glass, questioned Mpama about where he had bought the iron sheets. Put on the defensive, Mpama first denied knowing Konden at all. Then, when Glass said that he would search Mpama’s home, Mpama admitted that Konden had given him one piece of piping as a present. After going to Mpama’s house, Glass found some of the stolen property, which had identifying marks, in the backyard. When Glass asked Mpama a second time if he had purchased any property from Konden, Mpama swore again that he had not. Glass said that if he found out that Mpama was lying, then he would be arrested. After ascertaining that the material was stolen, he arrested Mpama who, as a result, was suspended from his interpreter’s job.
After reviewing the evidence, the magistrate found Mpama guilty on October 5 and sentenced him to three months in jail. He suspended the sentence on condition of good behavior over the next three months. But, because of the conviction, the court had no alternative but to dismiss him from his post as interpreter.
Mpama appealed to the secretary for justice to overturn the conviction and reinstate him to his post. One wonders whether white officials had used Konden, who had been convicted five times for theft, to undermine Mpama because of his involvement in local and national politics. Indeed, once Mpama became aware of Konden’s criminal record, he argued that the presiding magistrate should have dismissed the case, and he asked the secretary to review the trial evidence carefully. Mpama received strong backing from members of the Potchefstroom Side Bar and the Wesleyan Methodist minister, Reverend Whitehouse, who wrote the secretary calling for Mpama’s reinstatement.22 He pointed out Mpama’s reputation for honesty from all quarters. “He may have been foolish but I think everyone is agreed that his character remains unsullied.” Despite these letters of support, the secretary replied that he could not intercede on Mpama’s behalf because he had been found guilty of a crime and thus had to leave the service.
In the meantime, Stephen had remarried around 1915.23 He met his new wife, Clara Emma (1893–1980), while she was visiting an aunt in Potchefstroom. Her mother was of mixed Sotho and European parentage, and her father was thought to be a Griqua chieftain. She had a fourth-grade education,24 and though she was largely self-educated, she could read and write well and kept up with the newspapers. The couple’s first of four daughters, Marcy Elizabeth, was born on April 15, 1917.
Stephen eventually found employment after his brother Josiah, a clerk at the Robinson Deep Mine at the bottom of Eloff Street in downtown Johannesburg, unexpectedly died at the age of forty-three in October 1917. After mine officials invited Stephen to take over his brother’s position,25 he built a wood-and-corrugated-iron home in the residential area reserved for married African clerks.26 In the homes of Stephen and his wives, the primary language was Afrikaans, but Clara Emma also spoke English and insisted that her daughters use it exclusively in public.27 An unabashed admirer of British royalty, she would embarrass her children by insisting that they dress up and stand at such prominent viewing places as in front of the Rand Club when a member of the British royal family was visiting Johannesburg.
In Johannesburg, Stephen fit comfortably into the social network of the African social and political elite. George Montshioa, an advocate and a founder of the South African Native National Congress, and Isaiah Bud-M’belle, chief interpreter of the Supreme Court of Griqualand West at Kimberley, were godfathers to two of his children. Josie’s half sisters remembered their family mixing with the leading lights of the time, such as Sol Plaatje. Stephen was active in the Transvaal Native Mine Clerks’ Association, which he served as chair for several years;28 the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives, which promoted interracial cooperation; and the Bantu Men’s Social Centre, a social, cultural, and athletic hub in downtown Johannesburg established in 1924 that catered to educated Africans.
Stephen’s children with Clara Emma recollected few stories about Stephen because they were so young when he died. They do remember him as a very strict person who expected his wife to set the table for tea at four o’clock sharp. Josie told them that he was highly intelligent and “a swanky old chap” who carried a hankie in his pocket to buff his shoes.
Stephen was forty-five when he died on May 3, 1927, at the Robinson Deep Mine Hospital.29 An indication of his stature is that his funeral drew three hundred people, including officials of the Transvaal Native Mine Clerks’ Association; compound indunas; leaders of the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives, such as R. V. Selope-Thema and Selby Msimang; T. D. Mweli-Skota, representing the ANC; and a Mr. Devenish, who promised that Stephen’s “widow and children would never be in want so long as he was Compound Manager of Robinson Deep.”30 Indeed, the family was allowed to stay in their home at the mine until they moved to Vrededorp in the early 1940s. Clara Emma made ends meet working as a seamstress, upholsterer, and housekeeper for white employees at the mine. After they later moved to Vrededorp, she was employed at a boys’ school in Mountain
