Ouma Dora Jacobs is one of Somerset East’s most fascinating historical figures. Believed to have lived to the remarkable age of 122, she was regarded as South Africa’s oldest person at the time of her death in January 2003, and was even considered by many to be the world’s oldest living person. Although her age could never be officially verified to Guinness World Records standards due to the lack of formal birth records from the late 1800s, her extraordinary life has become part of the town’s rich heritage.
Dora “Dotyi” Jacobs was born on the farm Paddafontein, in the district of Somerset East, to Lettie and Tukani Makalima. She was one of eight siblings. Dora never went to school and spent most of her life as a washerwoman on farms. Her abiding memories were of the rinderpest in 1896, when cattle died like flies, and the flu epidemic of 1918, when she saw the bodies of victims slumped at intervals along the dirt roads. She also remembered the arrival on the farm of the first motor car anyone in the district had ever seen. Dora’s life was one of hard work, combined with lots of friends, family, home-made music, dancing, laughter and storytelling. She never smoked or drank a drop of alcohol.
The only medication she remembered ever having was a home remedy called “versterkdruppels” (fortifying drops), and tablets for high blood pressure, which she began taking when she was about 100 years old. For the last 10 years of her life, she was blind.
Today, she is buried at the end of a short avenue on the side of the main building of the KwaNojoli Museum (formerly the Somerset East Museum). Here visitors can pay their respects and reflect on the incredible life of a woman whose story has become woven into the history of the town.
