| Notes |
- "Bubbles" was the executor to her mother's will and signed herself as Asthore McLoughlin at that time, 1974
Asthore Lundie was born in Middelburg in the Eastern Cape Karoo on 31 January 1915. His parents were Marshall Lundie and Elizabeth ("Lily) (nee de Klerk).
Asthore hated her given name and never used it. She was known as Elizabeth, her baptismal name, at school and "Bubbles" to her family and friends. As an infant she evidently looked very much like the advertisement for Pears soap which featured a beautiful young child blowing bubbles. The model was, it is believed, a little boy!
The family moved to Pretoria a year or two later.
Bubbles claimed to have been at school for only eight years- from the age of eight to sixteen, in 1931, when she matriculated with very good results, B's in all subjects except Mathematics where she scored a D! She was at the Diocesan School for Girls in Pretoria. She had no great academic ambitions, and attended a secretarial college, preparing herself for the work she was to do in later years.
The family moved to Johannesburg in 1936. They lived respectively in Riviera Road in Killarney and Tottenham Avenue in Melrose.
In December 1938 Bubbles married Jack Gordon Boswell, but the marriage was not destined to last, and they were divorced in 1940.
On a visit to Zebediela Bubbles met Patrick James McLoughlin, who was managing a farm for a local farmer in the district. They were married in Pretoria on 10 February 1945.
Both Bubbles and Patrick found jobs on the East Rand and their first son, Mark, was born in Nigel on 27 December 1946.
A subsequent move took them to Kroonstad in the Free State, where their second son Richard Marshall was born on 30 June 1949.
In 1952 they settled in Krugersdorp where they were to live until 1958, then after a short spell in the Northern Transvaal they moved to Johannesburg in early 1959. They were to live in the Johannesburg area until their retirement in 1977.
While in Krugersdorp Bubbles worked for an architect as a general factotum and she enjoyed she environment so much of her working career was with architects.
Her great love was gardening, and she had very green fingers with beautiful gardens in all of her homes.
Although she always fed her family extremely well, she was never enthusiastic about being in the kitchen!
In 1977 Bubbles and Patrick retired to Howick in Natal where they were to live for the rest of their lives. Patrick died on 11 December 1986 of a brain tumour.
On 8 January 1993 Bubbles married Richard Mervyn Lushington Morant, eleven years her junior. She had by now taken the name "Thora" as she felt that at the age of 75 plus "Bubbles" was no longer appropriate! They had ten happy years together, and said that her third marriage was the most successful of all.
On 15 April 2003 Asthore died in Howick, in her 89«sup»th«/sup» year. She had indifferent health for the last few years, with the beginnings of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and great discomfort from arthritis. Mervyn was a great support during that time.
[Source: Mark McLaughlin]
- PRIVATE
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1915 - 2003 (88 years)
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