Luella Annemarie Niebuhr / Meister. – by Ingeborg, her daughter. 2018. Luella Meister was born on the 18th of June 1941 to Richard and Annelie Niebuhr.

She was the first of four daughters and they lived on Roodewal farm in Lüneburg. Luella went to boarding school at Lüneburg from Grade 1 and then moved to Glencoe high school for secondary school. She excelled academically and even managed to skip a school year.

After school in 1958 she went to the Durban Technicon where she studied home economics and especially loved her pattern making and sewing classes with her lecturer Miss Alyce Defty. She also loved photography and had her own darkroom and was an active member of the Church youth club where she met her future husband Karl Gustav Meister (Gus).

Lu and Gus got engaged and had their engagement celebrations at Spiesdale Gus’s family home in Uelzen. They got married in 1962 in Lüneburg. Lu had bad very bad pneumonia just before her wedding, but she managed to get better for her wedding and was a beautiful bride with her little sisters and friend Barbara as flower girls / bridesmaids. Gus adored her, and they had a happy marriage!

Lu and Gus moved to Johannesburg from Durban after he qualified where he worked as a charted accountant and Luella worked as a teacher. Their first daughter Naomi Meister was born on 4th August 1965. They built a house in Blairgowrie, Randburg and lived there till they retired to the farm, just undertaking additional renovations as their family expanded.

They moved to Pietermaritzburg in 1967 and had Ingeborg as their second born on the 16th August 1968 but moved back to Johannesburg shortly after and on 29 March 1970 an Easter Sunday morning, Anita was born.

They spend their lives in Johannesburg as active members of the Lutheran Church, Luella also taught and sewed beautiful wedding and event dresses. She was a leader of the woman organization and part of the Red Cross. She loved travelling and she and Gus did some trips to Europe that fuelled her creative spirit.

Both Luella and Gus kept on studying throughout their lives always striving to learn more. They loved singing and joined the choir and it became a family tradition to go for a swim in the local pool every night when dad came back from work.

Family and family values was the overriding value to Luella and she spend lots of her live caring; and hosting all. Being part of a tight knit family was important and many great family moments and gatherings were planned and executed with military precision and much love.

Luella also loved nature and studied birds and plants and became quite an expert. She longed to move back to her childhood farm and when Gus retired in 1996 she was absolutely delighted when they moved back to Roodewal. Luella was in her element, they bought some beautiful cattle and repaired the run-down farmhouse. Sadly, Gus died very soon after, but Luella wanted to continue what she had started on the farm and build up a great farm and some support initiatives for the local farm workers setting up a nursery school and adult literacy class for them.
Although it was quite isolated on the farm and not very easy with continues power and phone outages she was happy and loved it when her family and children visited her.

She also had set up a cottage for rental and was so happy to have guests she could then show her beautiful farm. She loved swimming and walking in the mountains and streams and collected the local veld flowers, also eager to learn more and discover a new plant she had not previously known. She loved all the creatures and had ducks, cats and dogs as well as checking on her cattle herself every morning and evening…she also could take time to go visit her children, Naomi in CPT, Anita in Canada and Inge and the UK. She visited her family in Sweden and did a special trip to Jerusalem and the holy land, a true “wanderslust”! After each trip she was re-energized and ready to take on the farm again.

Sadly, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s not long after her 60th birthday and when she could not manage alone anymore she reluctantly moved to the retirement home in Paulpietersburg sad to leave her home and her freedom.

Here she lived for over 12 years as the horrible disease slowly incapacitated her. She was well looked after by the wonderful staff at the home and her sister Lola who visited often. Her sisters, daughters and family visited as often as they could.
She died on the 14th May 2018

Luellas Zimmer für 9 Jahre im PPBurg Care Centre. She will be remembered for her open kind spirit; her inquisitive creative flair and love for all. Zinzi is Luella’s only grandchild and anyone who visited Luella’s Room could see the Photos of the fairy princess full of fun and love, decorating the walls.