Reitz

A mysterious grave next to a railway line

On the road from Reitz to Bethlehem (R26) in the Free State one crosses over the railway line about 10km out of Bethlehem. Inspecting the area under the bridge one finds a grave next to the rails a few meters from the bridge. It is marked by some upright railway sleepers, totally overgrown and with a largely illegible gravestone. I could just make out... ‘Nov 1931’. 

Who is buried here? And why next to the rails, not in a cemetery?

“Presumably a criminal is not always a criminal” - Wakkerstroom’s photographic artist Maximillian Alfred Daubert (1865-1951)

Most photographers at the turn of the last century were upstanding and hard-working citizens, however, there is always the exception. This article is about one such exception, namely the photographer Maximillian Alfred Daubert who was based in towns such as Wakkerstroom, Reitz and Pietermaritzburg. Daubert who often clashed with the law, spent many months in local jails, due to various criminal transgressions.

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