Barnes - Early player for Harlequins RFC, 1920s - D. Somen

Jews - President of the Nairobi Hebrew Congregation in 1935-36

Nairobi Forest Road Cemetery - David Somen, Jewish, age 62, died 4/3/62

Dominion - Education Department - Assistant Master - 1930

Glimpses - Post WW1 - Dozens more Jews made their way to Kenya, most notably the extraordinary Somen family. The Somens had emigrated from Lithuania to South Africa, fallen upon hard times and died young, but not before producing 7 bright children who perforce learned to fend for themselves. In 1924 or 1925 Pauline, the youngest daughter, just 19, answered an advertisement for assistant leader of the Girl Guides in Kenya. And got the position. Shortly thereafter her oldest brother, David, a bright young man who was teaching in the Transvaal, came up to see his little sister. Once in Nairobi he got a job with Education Department, first teaching at the Nairobi Primary School, then rising to become headmaster of the Duke of Gloucester the government secondary school for Asians in Pumwani.

Meanwhile his younger brother Israel Somen, who had been put into an orphanage from which he escaped at age 16, pitched up, and found a job with the Railways. The other 2 sisters, Liebe Somen and Anne Somen, made their way up to Kenya, too, as did their brother Morris. Initially all the young Somens lived together in a house in Parklands and although, as David's son Michael says, "being all strong-minded characters, they fought energetically among themselves, but they always presented an intimidatingly united Somen front to anyone who dared criticise one of them".

Glimpses - David's fiancée, Lilian Isaacs, whom he had left in South Africa, joined him in 1932, and their son, Michael Somen was born in Nairobi - the only descendant of all the Somen siblings.

Rugby - Rugby Football Union of Kenya - Hon. Secretary 1927 and 1935-37

Red 31 - Govt. Indian School, Nbi.

Gazette 20 Mar 1962 probate

Barnes Nairobi Forest Rd Cem. in loving memory / of / Lilian Somen / died 22.7.1998 aged 95 / dearly loved by / Michael, Vera, David, Mark / Jonathan and Yassaman / and by her sisters
Michael Somen, David Somen's son: My grandfather Lewis met and married Sophie (Shifra) Lurie in Lithuania.  They had seven children, the two eldest born in Lithuania. Four more were born in South Africa and one in London.
1. Morris   1896 -  1907 born in Lithuania.
2. Anne 1897 -    1981 born in Lithuania.
3. David   1899 -  1962 born in Pretoria, South Africa.
4.  Liebe   1901 - 1992 born in Pretoria, South Africa.
5. Israel 1903 - 1984  (known as Issy) born in London, England.
6. Pauline 1906 - 2002 born in Pretoria, South Africa.
7. Morris   1908 -  1926 born in Pretoria, South Africa.
Their eldest son Morris died in 1907 at the age of 11.    The cause of death is unknown.   He was buried in an old cemetery in Church Street, Pretoria, South Africa, a cemetery which is no longer in use. The surname on Morris' headstone is given as SOMAN instead of SOMEN.
Anne, the second child and first girl never married.   She went to Palestine and claimed to have worked as General Allenby's personal assistant. She held a variety of high-powered secretarial jobs working at times for the Chief Secretary of Kenya (Head of the Civil Service), and the Commander in Chief East Africa, General Sir George  Erskine, during the Mau Mau uprising. It was alleged that her notorious tea kettle had been the cause of a famous fire when the Chief Secretary's Offices mysteriously burned to the ground. Anne always angrily and vehemently denied responsibility.  Anne was buried in the Stellawood Cemetery in Durban in South Africa.
My father, David, the third child, was born on 20th April 1899, and was the only member of the family to have a proper education which he achieved by getting scholarships from the famous Miriam Marks School* at the time. He then went on to Pretoria Boys High and then to Transvaal University College.  When he learned of the award of his degree, he boarded a train from Pretoria to tell his mother (she was in hospital).  His sadness was that she died when he was on his way and never learned of his success, nor of course did he have the joy of telling her.
When David was a young teacher in the Transvaal and the oldest surviving son, he felt it his duty to visit his youngest sister Pauline in Kenya.  She had moved there earlier (in 1924 or 1925) to take up employment with the Girl Guide movement.  He fell in love with Kenya, resigned from his Pretoria teaching  job, and returned to Kenya to start a successful career as a teacher being employed by the Kenya Government at the then Nairobi School for boys. He was offered the headship of the Alliance Boys High School, then and now the premier academy for the education of elite African boys, but turned it down on the grounds that being Jewish he could not contribute to the strongly Christian flavour of that School.
David went from Kenya to South Africa in 1935 on leave with an introduction to Lillian Isaacs. They got engaged within a fortnight, but he had to leave prematurely to escort Sophie (his brother Issy's wife who was suffering from Blackwater fever), from Elizabethville in the Belgian Congo to hospital in Nairobi. In due course Lillian got her trousseau together and sailed for Nairobi where they married on the 10th April [sic] 1935. Because their time together had been cut short she was not certain she would recognise her future husband. She did, notably and romantically, when he boarded the train 20 miles before Nairobi. David became headmaster of two high schools, one limited to Indian boys, and one to Africans, and in semi-retirement became a proof reader in the then leading newspaper in Kenya.
Like his brother Issy, he served as President of the Nairobi Hebrew Congregation on a number of occasions, and was involved in Cheder and other community activities including the Chevra Kadisha. He and Lillian had a wonderfully happy marriage, but he died at the tragically early age of 62 having at least lived to see me, his only child, qualified and employed.