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Name: DE WITT, Johanna Jacoba, Mrs

Nee: Kotzee

Birth Date: 1892 Potchefstroom, S. Africa

Death Date: 1981 Natal, S. Africa

First Date: 1920

Profession: After death of her husband moved to Nairobi, Valley Road and Ngong Road; made chocolates called 'Chocolates de Witt'. Firms like R.B. Duncan's sold them.

Area: Thika, Nairobi

Married: In Mombasa 1920 Arthur Bachelor de Witt (1889-1933)

Children: Esme Mavis (Browning); Ruth Olive (Norman); John Maximilian (d. 1988)

Book Reference: EAWL

General Information:

'My mother ran Granville Estate for a while with the assistance of a manager, Jack Bagehot [Bagott], but within a year the Estate was declared bankrupt. At that time coffee was only fetching £40 a ton, but was soon to reach astronomical amounts during the second World War. As a hobby on the farm, my Mother had begun making chocolates. Importing chocolate from Holland in huge slabs, and making centres - soft and others which she dipped. When we moved from the farm to Nairobi, she started her chocolate business in earnest, as a means of supporting her family, and sold most of her stock to R.B. Duncan, a Scottish grocer - a select store. She called her chocolates "Chocolates de Witt", which were sold in pound and half pound pretty gold boxes with a black dhow emblem. Her chocolates were famous in Kenya. The chocolates could only be dipped in the cool of the evening. Esme and I decorated and packed the chocolates, first into crisped cases and then into the boxes. We hated it, but the business gave us a good living. Eventually the business was sold, but the new owners did not make a success of the business and it soon ceased to be. Chocolates dipped in the heat would leave them grey streaked.'  Source: Mrs Ruth Norman and Mrs Esme Browning

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