Reference: Maturin.org.uk - Margaret LA Crosbie

Margaret Lucy Alice (Alice) CROSBIE, born 1898. She was educated at the French School in Bray. She was a very competent horsewoman who took part in the Dublin Horse Show. A talented woman, art crafts of all sorts, sewing & tapestry, piano & music, with a very adventurous spirit.

Alice married Samuel Dickson (Dick) SANDES at St John’s Church, Umtali, Rhodesia in 1926

Dick was born in 1899 on the Island of Texada, Van Anda, between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia where his father, also Samuel Dickson SANDES, was employed as a draughtsman on a copper mine. When his mother died in 1904, Dick was taken back to England to go to school. He tried to run away to sea but was brought back and put on a training ship and in 1915 he was in the Navy as a midshipman. Dick then joined the British South Africa Police and served with them until 1948.

After their marriage in 1926, Alice & Dick lived in Rhodesia, leading a very nomadic lifestyle between small towns and the huge expanse of the Rhodesian bush, Salisbury and Gatooma, then Fort Victoria and Nuanetsi. The latter is a large wild area situated some 150 miles from Fort Victoria, now Masvingo, between the Lundi and Limpopo rivers. Nuanetsi consisted of a native commissioner’s office and a police camp. There were no roads, shops or amenities and supplies were transported by bus, mules and horses. Thatched mud huts and canvas tents were provided for living quarters. The heat at Nuanetsi was unbearable, malaria rife and the area infested with wild animals. Despite everything, Alice loved this life-style.

Alice died of tuberculosis in Fish Hoek, South Africa in 1933. She was on her way back to Ireland with Lucy, her mother. She is buried in Muizenburg Cemetery in Cape Town