Gazette 6 Dec 1938 Aberdare Voters List

Mrs Mary Hoey says - A huge fat man - original duka owner at Rumuruti. Very tall thin wife. A South African Dutch and ran a small farm on outskirts of the boma. Their daughter Cecily a pretty girl who we knew well at Rumuruti in the 1920s. They ran angora goats as well as all the usual livestock.

Land 1909 - E.J.A. Grimbeck - Grazing and agricultural, 2790 acres - Uasin Gishu - 28/12/08 - Leasehold under Occupation Licence for 5 to 99 years from 1/6/09 - Registered 6/9/09

Land - 1911 - E.J. Grimbeck - Grazing and agricultural, 2746 acres (Farm No 58) - Uasin Gishu - 4/8/10 - Under Occupation Licence for 5 to 99 years from 1/8/10 - Registered 15/2/11

Gazette - 29/12/15 - Etzard Johan Adolf Grimbeck vice Fred. Allen Bates - Permit issuer, northern part of Gilgil

Gazette - 7/4/15 - Liable for Jury service, Gilgil - E.G.A. Grimbeek [sic] (British), Settler

SKP - 1938 - Society of Kenya Pioneers - over 30 years in Colony - arrived May 1905 - Rumuruti

David Forrester - 24/1/2002 - From 1908 there had been an Assistant District Commissioner at Rumuruti - a Mr C H Adams. Between 1912 to 1920 the administrative centre was closed down. Nonetheless by 1920 several Europeans had taken up farms in the area. Adjoining the Rumuruti Township was a small block of land owned by a Mr and Mrs Grimbeck. A portly German with the Christian name of Hertzog he had lived in Kenya since 1905. Being in the Colony at the outbreak of war, it seems that he worked with the British government during the war years to qualify for a farm, rather than being interned. He had an extensive knowledge of wines, but was more suited to running a Post Office than farming.  Mrs G, as his wife was known, was a tall woman with a strong personality, but nonetheless a sympathetic mother to those who needed help. She was "high Dutch" and woe betide anyone who alleged she came from ordinary Dutch or even Afrikaner stock. In the custom of the time she had a ramrod stiff back. With her grey hair and steel rimmed spectacles, she could easily have passed for a Victorian school-marm. Yet there was always a twinkle in her eyes. As small childen we regarded her as a benevolent grandmother, who gave us delicious cakes whenever we visited her. She was the driving force in the family and ran their small herd of dairy cows, together with a host of ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys. With the earnings from a posho-mill the family eked out a reasonable living. At one stage they imported Angora goats. These were not a success, because they had disappeared by the late thirties when I became old enough to notice the Grimbeck's menagerie. The Grimbecks had built an intriguing house of cedar. In the centre of the house were large dining and sitting rooms with high ceilings. Bedrooms and a bathroom on each side opened off these rooms. The centrepiece of the sitting room was a piano. Mrs G was an accomplished pianist and her son Wilfred an expert on the drums. Not surprisingly they were the early centre of entertainment in the district.

In 1920 they had built a store on their land.  This was a failure, so that let in my father and Ray to start their business in 1922. For a couple of years Forrester Bros. also ran the Post Office, but they relinquished that part of the business back to the Grimbecks. The mail came once a week from Gilgil, by a runner who had to brave the threat of any wild animals he disturbed on the way." There were visits to the Grimbeck's mill, where maize was ground into flour ("posho"). The mill was a feature of the landscape for many years, with the familiar "tong-tong-tong-tong-tong" of the diesel engine echoing along the river. In Swahili it was called a "Tinga-Tinga". A place of swirling, gritty posho dust which accumulated everywhere, it wa not a healthy environment for those who worked the mill. The engine was housed in an open-sided thatched shed, so possibly the lungs of those involved were not so much at risk, as in a confined space. Risk-free working conditions as far as employees and hands-on owners  were concerned, were not even thought of at the time. Lung diseases just occurred." David Forrester - 24/1/2002 - " ……. Was I am sure a German and was certainly understood to be called Hertzog. However he kept to his farm for much of the time and did not socialise at the Club. I only remember him at the Sunday tea party after which he retired to his study. He died I think during the war. The difference in name and initials may be that Mrs G was the real owner to avoid reference to his being German at a time when just after the First World War they were not exactly popular. Mrs G. was definitely Dutch though she spoke perfect English. She did not die from the Mau Mau. She had a daughter…. called Cecily. Cecily I believe was a nurse. She went to South Africa and married a man called Reynolds. They had 2 children. I only know the elder boy Peter who was older than myself. …….. After 1960 Mrs G. was getting more frail so Cecily came to live with her at Rumuruti. I understood her to have either left or been divorced from Reynolds but may be wrong. In or about 1965 or 1966 a bunch of thieves broke into the house. Mrs G. valiantly defended herself with a stick while in bed but died some weeks later from shock and the bruises she had received in the attack.

Chrystal Bosch - 21/2/2002 - " ………… Mr E.J. Grimbeck, died in an aircraft crash whilst returning from London to Nairobi about 1949/50. His wife and son stayed on the farm until the trouble with the Mau Mau."

Rob Ryan - 6/2/04 - Old man Grimbeck and wife Hilda lived nearer to Rumuruti on the east bank of the Uaso Narok.

Red Book 1912 - E.J.A. Grimbeck - Naivasha

GenForum - Robin Dixon - "Mrs Grimbeck was a wonderful person with an indomitable spirit. She told me she was half Welsh, half Afrikaans, and had journeyed to Kenya from South Africa in a waggon drawn by oxen. When she first lived in Rumuruti the local post was delivered by a runner, coming on foot from Nakuru. She played the portable harmonium at the monthly Anglican church service, set up in the local Laikipia Club (the only 'church' I've ever been in that smelled of the beer that young white settlers had been throwing at each other the night before.) I'd sit in Mrs Grimbeck's kitchen and listen to stories of her life in Rumuruti."

Gazette - 26/9/1923 - Voters Register - Kenya Province - Erzard Johan Adolf Grimbeck, Farmer Farm 583s, Rumuruti

Gazette 18 Sep 1962 wife's probate