The marriage that interests us that between Joseph Choat and Kate Hakeman and it is their family that Anne belongs to. Joseph was a pharmacist and was employed somewhere in the London area and in 1905 he and his family emigrated to South Africa where he became the village chemist in the small town of Indwe, in Cape Province.
Joseph and Kate Ellen CHOAT
Kathleen (or Kate) was the third child of Bailey and Ann HAKEMAN and it would seem probable that they met while at school in Kings Lynn. The Hakeman family are thought to have been connected with the farming world as, at the time of her marriage, Kathleen was living with her mother (a widow) at Balaclava Farm, Terrington St. Clement, where Ann was housekeeper to her brother, the tenant of the farm.
At the time of their marriage Joseph was, by that time a pharmacist, living in London and that is where he and Kathleen set-up their first home. There were four children of the marriage, all born in England. In 1905, or thereabouts, Joseph and Kathleen, together with their remaining three children, emigrated to South Africa and settled in the small mining village of Indwe, in the Cape Province. Joseph established himself as the village pharmacist and it is here in Indwe that he started to produce and sell Choats Extract of Lettuce cough mixture. This remained a small personal venture until the second world war when supplies of cough mixtures from overseas became scarce. Demand was so great that he was encouraged to go into full-time production and a factory was established on Johannesburg, eventually being sold to one of the big pharmaceutical companies.
