In 1979 Dorothy O'Kennedy, an old resident of Rivonia, commenced a tremendous journey of discovery to find Rivonia's First Shop. Her story was published in the annual journal of the Sandton Historical Association. We retraced her steps but were unable to confirm whether or not the old building is still there. If you have any information on the shop please contribute to the comments section at the bottom of the article. Rivonia has certainly changed since this piece was first published!
I did not realise that I was part of the history of Sandton, until I noticed an appeal in The Star for people who had lived here in the early days to come forward and tell what they could remember.
In 1912 my family moved from Johannesburg to Rivonia - known then as Edenburg. I was eight years old, and I lived there until my marriage in 1926. My parents owned the tea garden Sleepy Hollow which was visited by people en route between Johannesburg and Pretoria. In those days it was much smaller than the present well known hotel.
One of the things which I remembered about my childhood in Rivonia was that Mr and Mrs Shull had a shop which was the focus of the neighbourhood, but no one else seemed to have mentioned it when reminiscing about the 'old days' so I determined to look for it, and to discover whether the building still existed.
As I had not returned to Rivonia for many years, I...
