WILLEM PRINSLOO MUSEUM HISTORY

	Dining room	The dining-room resembles the interior as it was when Mrs Miertjie le Roux lived here. The Prinsloos had only two meals a day: breakfast between 09:00 and 10:00 and lunch between 15:00 and 16:00. The blue earthenware dish on the little table is the dish in which Grandma Cornelia served souskluitjies (milk dumplings) on Sundays. The other chinaware on the table forms part of a set that belonged to Grandma Cornelia. When it was not possible for the family to go to church in Pretoria, the families of the two sons, Klein Lang Willem and Lang Hans, assembled at this house to read, pray and sing hymns together with Grandpa Lang Willem and Grandma Cornelia.
	Kitchen	In the homemade kitchen dresser there is a Five Roses teaset. In the thirties, a coupon from a Five Roses packet of tea earned one a gift cup or saucer from the Five Roses company. This tea-service was highly sought after. The huge copper pot on the dresser was used for the making of jam. It was hung over a fire. On the stove is the coffee roaster used for the roasting of raw coffee beans. It was rotated while the beans were being roasted. There are also a waffle-pan and a calabash in which salt was stored. Housewives liked to keep salt in calabashes, because they could be sure that the salt would remain dry.
	Passage	The open stoep was only closed in after 1945 to form a kitchen, pantry and bathroom. The dresser in the passage belonged to Grandma Cornelia.
	Pantry	The door to the pantry could be locked to prevent the children from pinching soetkoekies at all hours! The blue earthenware jug on the floor was used by Grandma Cornelia in the concentration camp. Vinegar was stored in the other jugs on the floor.
	Bathroom	The bathroom was only installed after 1945. Everything in this room belonged to the Prinsloos.
	Smoking room	The big corner chair is an excellent example of the cabinet-making skills of the Transvaal pioneers. On the table is a pipe, tobacco, cutter and spittoon used by menfolk who chewed tobacco. At the time, men restricted their smoking inside the house to the smoking room.
	Main bedroom	Grandma Cornelia slept in this room on the bed which at present has two mattresses on it - a coir mattress and a feather mattress on top. The pram was bought in 1908 when Miertjie was born. The Bible and spectacles on the bedside table belonged to Lang Willem.
	Drawing room	The drawing room (voorkamer) was the smartest room in the house - virtually only the teacher, the constable and the minister were received here. The house organ used to be in the house in Pretoria which the family used over weekends when they attended Nagmaal. After the Second Anglo-Boer War, it was brought to the farm. The paraffin heater helped to drive away the intense Highveld cold. In the wall clock there is a porcelain set which was a gift from Grandpa Lang Willem to his granddaughter, Miertjie, of which she was particularly fond. She kept it in the clock, and it has never been removed and put elsewhere. Above the door there is a photograph of Lang Willem and Klein Lang Willem, and next to the door one of Willem Wragtig and Lang Willem. Next to the print of the lion there is a photograph of Lang Hans (seated), and his two cousins Louw (left) and Mooi Willem Prinsloo (right), who were brothers.
	Guest or girl's room	This room is furnished as it was in the days when Miertjie lived here as a young girl. Have a look at the exquisite sewing basket and the sewing chair with the trays at the back.
	Outside rooms	1. The attic: The attic ran the full length of the house, from the shed to the main bedroom. In the attic anything from dried fruit to coffins was stored! 2. The rondawel: Food, for example meat, was stored here, because there were no fridges at the time. 3. The jonkmanskamer (boys' room): The outside room was the bedroom of Lang Willem and Cornelia's sons. The little car belonged to Aunt Miertjie's brother. He received it as a present on his second birthday in 1925. The reed ceiling kept the room cool. 4. The storeroom: Behind the jonkmanskamer is a storeroom which Grandma Cornelia used as a pantry before the present pantry was added on in 1945. 5. The milk rondavel: In this cool room the farm's dairy products were stored. 6. The outside kitchen. 7. The outside bathroom: When Grandpa Lang Willem and Grandma Cornelia lived in the house, tap water was not available in the house and they had to bath in an outside room in a big zinc bath. Water had to be heated and carried to the outside room before they could have a bath. 8. The flour room: Ground flour was kept here and the women kneaded the bread and rusks here, because it was close to the outside oven. 9. The outside oven: This oven looks slightly different from other outside ovens, because a part was added on for cooking. To use the oven for baking, fire has to be made first which burns for 2 to 3 hours, whereafter the coals are removed. To test for the correct temperature, one puts one's hand deep inside and if it is possible to keep it there for ten counts before burning, the oven is at the right temperature. Bread takes about an hour to bake, and 15 loaves fit into the oven at one time. 10. The waenhuis (shed): Usually, the waenhuis was a separate building on a farm, but here it was built onto the house. At the back of the waenhuis there are stairs leading to the attic. The wagon belonged to Lang Willem. Have a look at the beautifully painted wooden panels. 11. Ndebele hut: This was not part of the original farm buildings, but is a replica of what a Ndebele hut looked like from the turn of the century to about 1920. In a hut such as this, a man, his wife and their very young children could have lived. When one enters the inner door of the hut, the area to the right was for the husband to sleep and put his belongings, while his wife used the left side of the hut. In the area between the two walls, the daughters had their small room to the far right, and the rest of the area was used for storage. The small room to the far left with its outside door was the boys' room, as they had to get up very early to look after the live-stock.