Sarie Marais - The Real Sarie Marais

The Real Sarie Marais

It is not clear if Sarie Marais was a real person or fictitious. Two persons have been mentioned as being the real Sarie Marais: Sarie Maré (1840-1877) and Sarie Maré (1869-1939).

Sara Johanna Adriana Maré was born in Uitenhage, Cape Province on 10 May 1840. She married Louis Jacobus Nel in 1857 in Pietermaritzburg. Maré died at the age of 37 after giving birth to her 11th child, and was buried near the old homestead on their farm Welgegund, near Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal.

Susara Margaretha Maré was born in Suikerbosrand, Transvaal on 15 April 1869. Suikerbosrand was at that time in the Ward Mooirivier. She married journalist (and later a well-known poet) J.P. Toerien. She died 22 December 1939 in Bloemfontein. Toerien may have been the author of the Afrikaans version of the song.

Another version on the National Anthems forum supports J.P. Toerien as author and his wife Sarie Maré as the subject of the song. It too suggests the song's origins go back to Sweet Ellie Rhee, written in 1865 by Septimus Winner (1827-1902). The claim is that this song was sung by Americans working in the Transvaal gold mines, and heard there by Afrikaans journalist and poet Jacobus Petrus Toerien, who re-wrote the song in Afrikaans, substituting the name of Ellie Rhee with that of his own beloved Sarie Maré (Susara Margaretha Maré).