How time flies

1966

After 20 years as a blockman at the Roelcor group, Mathys Smit and his wife, Christina, rent premises at Goudini Station, where they start Goudini Butchery and work behind the counter themselves. (Their youngest daughter, Elisabeth, is born in the same year.)

March 1967

The Goudini premises are getting too small, and the Smits use the profits they’ve saved – R2 000 – as well as a first (and last!) loan of R10 000 to buy a butchery in Rawsonville from the Roelcor group. They rename it Chrisma. (Their eldest son, Boelie, takes over the reins at Goudini Butchery. That is where a teenager named Paul Laverlot starts to work at the age of 14 or 15. Paul moves over to Chrisma in Rawsonville in 1978.)

1972

The Smits buy another butchery in Rawsonville, called Rawsonville Vleismark, and rename it Boelie se Slaghuis after Boelie, who heads it up.

1979

After completing matric and a year of nursing, the eldest Smit daughter, Maggie, and her husband take over the management of Goudini Butchery. It is sold about two years later.

21 July 1987

Mathys Smit dies at the age of 60 on Elisabeth’s 21st birthday. His wife and two daughters continue to work at Chrisma, but decide to sell the other two butcheries, mainly because Boelie’s health is deteriorating due to severe diabetes. Christina asks her youngest son, Ockert, who is serving in the South African Police at the time, whether he’d be interested in joining the business.