UWC 360 Issue 7 S1-Draft 7 1/17/14 11:22 AM Page 5 C
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THREE-SIXT-E | ALUMNI E-NEWSLETTER | ISSUE 7/DECEMBER 2013
Not just a workplace
Professor Fanie Sonn and his wife Brenda Sonn are another alumni couple whose relationship has stood the test of time.
1973 was a volatile political time at UWC, when the campus even closed temporarily. Brenda was a law student, trying her best to finish her studies under the worst political circumstances. “I left UWC then and decided to enroll at UCT to further my studies in Social Science. Naturally, I still had friends at UWC. So one day I visited a friend of mine on campus and joined her in one of her classes – Fanie’s class," explains Brenda. Fanie was a psychology lecturer at the time. Brenda laughs when she says Fanie has his own version of the story – that she distracted him on purpose to the point where he couldn’t concentrate on his lecture. Although there was a twelve-year age difference, they started dating soon afterwards. After she completed her degree in 1976, they got married and she started teaching. During this time Fanie had to leave to study in America. While he was there their eldest daughter was
born. Brenda: “After a year apart, I joined Fanie for a year – to take a break and to attend to family life. His studies ended in America and the following year we were back at UWC. Fanie was the first Dean of Community and Health Sciences and soon afterwards I started working in the Faculty of Education.” Whenever Brenda’s job required her to travel abroad, Fanie would take over the reins at home and fulfill her role for a couple of weeks. “I think what worked in our marriage is the fact that we could support one another in this way,” says Brenda. “We would take turns to help the other develop and grow career-wise.” And what makes a marriage like theirs last this long? “If I had the recipe I would sell it, but it is the normal, clichéd stuff I suppose our parents taught us: be best friends, laugh a lot, talk about the same things and at the same time give each other personal space. Also, know how to resolve problems as they arise.”
What makes a marriage like theirs last this long? “If I had the recipe I would sell it, but it is the normal, clichéd stuff I suppose our parents taught us: be best friends, laugh a lot, talk about the same things and at the same time give each other personal space”. Fanie now works as a psychologist and Brenda still lectures full-time. UWC not only represents the place where they both qualified and worked for most of their lives, but also where three of their four children studied and qualified. PAGE FIVE
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