History

 A Brief History of St. Anthony’s...

The final words of a dying mother to her Parish Priest, Fr. Pacificus Tait OFM, were the seeds from which St. Anthony‟s Home has grown. Fr. Tait was a Franciscan Missionary from Manchester, England. He came to South Africa in 1960 and was Parish Priest at Dannhauser in 1963 when a dying mother asked him to take care of her two children. Fr. Tait was true to his promise and took care of Nancy and Ernest until he died in 1969.

Before his death Fr. Tait had enlisted the assistance of Dr. and Mrs. Khoza who lived at Kalabash and welcomed orphaned and vulnerable children into their home. After Fr. Tait‟s death, Fr. Danny Longland came to the Home to say Mass and was later privileged to care for the Home for the next nine years. This fulfilled Fr. Tait‟s words to Mrs. Khoza that after he died, the priest who came to celebrate Mass would look after the Home without being asked. Fr. Longland says that “my time with the children was the happiest of my life” and describes Fr. Tait as “such a wonderful man and priest”.

By 1973, 22 children were living with the Khoza family. As the number of children grew the Franciscan Friars offered the Khoza‟s their disused seminary at Pomeroy and so the children moved there. Dr. Khoza died in 1978 and Mrs. Khoza cared for the children until her own death in 1985. The death of this wonderful couple alerted the Church Authorities to the great need for a Home for orphaned, abandoned and neglected children.

The solution was found in the Franciscan Minoresses of Melton Mowbray. They committed themselves to establishing St. Anthony‟s Home at its current site in Blaauwbosch Catholic Mission, near Newcastle. In the interim period the children were cared for at Amakhasi, in St. Antonine‟s Old Age Home. St. Anthony‟s building was completed in December 1987 and the children and Sisters arrived at their new Home just a few weeks before Christmas.

At the end of 2002 the Franciscan Minoresses withdrew from the Home and the first secular Director, Mbongiseni Petrus Nzuza was appointed. Under his direction St. Anthony‟s Home has continued to grow, always recognising the need for development and transformation, thus accommodating the ever changing needs of the children, families and communities we support