[fusion_builder_container background_color=”” background_image=”” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_webm=”” video_mp4=”” video_ogv=”” video_preview_image=”” overlay_color=”” overlay_opacity=”0.5″ video_mute=”yes” video_loop=”yes” fade=”no” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding_top=”20″ padding_bottom=”20″ padding_left=”” padding_right=”” hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” menu_anchor=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_title size=”1″ content_align=”left” style_type=”default” sep_color=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” class=”” id=””]Past residents of Heritage House[/fusion_title][fusion_text]
Heritage House had a couple of famous residents that went there for a period to recuperate from various illnesses, most notably lung ailments.
[/fusion_text][fusion_text]One such resident was the esteemed artist Jean (Johan Max Frederick) Welz.
Born on the 4th of March, 1900 in Salzburg – Austria, 1 of 5 children, he trained as an architect in Vienna, Austria. He left Europe – arriving in South Africa on the 6th of February 1937, and here he became a full-time artist after being confined to Springkell with Tuberculosis in 1939.
Welz was then admitted to the Springkell Sanatorium in Modderfontein. He had to resign from his job as an architect, and became limited in what he could do. There was no medication for the illness, and patients were generally kept in isolation. During this time, he was restricted to the space of the hospital, and Welz began to carry out several sketches in pen and ink of the surrounding area and Highveld. His family was forced to move closer to the hospital in order to be able to visit him. After Welz was discharged from the hospital in 1940, and with the assistance of some friends and the niece of Hugo Naudé, they were offered a home in Tradouw Pass in the Klein Karoo at very low rent – where Welz could recuperate and continue his drawing. There he began to recover and together with Hugo Naude founded the Art Center in Worchester.
He developed a technique of working with pastel, charcoal and oil paint and started teaching art while his wife opened a tea room for passing travelers, many of whom befriended the Welzes and bought Welz’s works.
In 1940, at the 21st exhibition of the South African Academy in Johannesburg, nine of Welz’s works were exhibited. He had submitted the works while he was still in hospital. After his illness he began to draw and paint full-time, exhibiting in a total of eight exhibitions of the South African Academy between 1940 and 1950.
The tuberculosis reappeared in 1968, almost 30 years after Welz’s was first diagnosed. He was admitted to the Brewelskloof Sanatorium and released only six months later (Miles, 1997). With his declining health and inability to manage the trip to Cape Town from Worcester as often as he would like, Welz and his family moved to Rondebosch in 1969. In the same year Welz was awarded a Medal of Honour for painting by the ‘Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns.’ A retrospective of his work opened in August 1970 at the South African National Gallery.
Welz died on Christmas Eve at his home in Cape Town in 1975.
REF: Johans Borman – Fine Art[/fusion_text][fusion_separator style_type=”single solid” top_margin=”15px” bottom_margin=”15px” sep_color=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”center” class=”” id=””/][fusion_text]Another interesting resident of Springkell was the Venerable Edel Quinn (1907 – 1944), a catholic missionary to Central Africa.
She was the Legion envoy to East Africa from 1936 to 1944. Edel felt a call to religious life at a young age and wished to join the Poor Clares, but was prevented by advanced tuberculosis. After spending 18 months in a sanatorium, her condition unchanged, she decided to become active in the Legion of Mary, which she joined in Dublin at age 20. She gave herself completely to its work in the form of helping the poor in the slums of Dublin.
In 1936, at age 29 and dying of tuberculosis, Quinn became a Legion of Mary Envoy, a very active missionary to East and Central Africa, departing in December 1936 for Mombasa. Edel settled in Nairobi having been told by Bishop Heffernan that this was the most convenient base for her work. By the outbreak of World War II, she was working as far off as Dar es Salaam and Mauritius.
After months of poor health in Nairobi she was ordered to Johannesburg where she entered Melrose House first and then was admitted to Springkell in 1941, where she stayed for 6 months to recover from a recurrent bout of Tuberculosis. Fighting her illness, in seven and a half years she established hundreds of Legion branches and councils in today’s Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda,Malawi, and Mauritius.
She died in Nairobi in July 1944 and is buried there in the Missionaries’ Cemetery.
The cause for her beatification was initiated by the Archbishop of Nairobi in 1956. She was declared “Venerable” by Pope John Paul II on December 15, 1994, and the campaign for her Beatification began.
REF: Causes-Profile – Legion of Mary
Edel Quinn – Wikipedia[/fusion_text][fusion_separator style_type=”single solid” top_margin=”15px” bottom_margin=”15px” sep_color=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”center” class=”” id=””/][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
