Louise was born in Johannesburg, South Africa to Claude & Louisa White and she was a sibling to her older sister, Anna, and younger brother, Andy. We met in December 1966 and got married in October 1968. Our son, Guy, was born in May 1970 and daughter, Leanne, followed nearly two years later in February 1972. We lived most of our married life in Johannesburg and had two short and very happy stints in Cape Town in the mid-70s and mid-80s. It was during our first stay in Cape Town that Louise came to know and accept Jesus Christ as her Lord & Saviour and her daily feedback to me each day of her own experiences enabled me to make that same commitment at the same time. Our Christian walk has ever since been the fundamental rock on which every aspect of our lives has been built. Our children both got married about six months apart in 1995 in South Africa to wonderful young people: Guy to Gilly and Leanne to Gernot. Both couples subsequently left South Africa and Guy & Gilly finally settled in England and they have two beautiful children, Meggie & Drew, whilst Leanne & Gernot and their two lovely children, Kai & Saskia, now live near Houston in Texas, USA. These two families were a source of unbelievable joy to Nana Louise, who adored her grandchildren and loved joking around and interacting with them.
In 2007 Louise contracted lymphoma, which was eventually successfully treated and she remained in remission from 2010. However, that situation caused Guy and Leanne to urge us to relocate to either England or the USA so that help from them would be close at hand if there was ever need in the future. We then relocated to the USA in 2011, initially to Utah. Unfortunately, the very aggressive treatment Louise had undergone for her lymphoma was the cause of her leukaemic condition which manifested itself in 2013 just as we arrived in Houston. We thank The Lord that we are at and experienced one of the best places in the world for such conditions to be treated. In 2018 we were very excited to be accepted as naturalised American citizens but sadly we never had the opportunity, because of Louise’s medical condition, to put our brand new American passports to use visiting family & friends in South Africa, England & Switzerland and a number of other countries around the world. The past two years have been particularly difficult for Louise with non-stop hospital visits, blood transfusions, treatments and doctor consultations but she never gave up, never complained and kept persevering with an indomitable spirit and a solid unflinching faith. Even when it became clear that the end of her life on this earth was approaching, she was totally calm and at peace and she has been a great inspiration and example to me and many others. However, the decision to move close to family was an absolutely correct one and we deeply appreciated the loving support we have received through all of this from Leanne and her family with wonderful encouragement from Guy and his family in England
I met Louise unexpectedly in 1966 when my sister, Mabyn, asked me to give a lift to a couple of her friends to a meeting place some 30 miles away as there wasn’t sufficient transport to get everyone to the rendezvous for a weekend away. Two young ladies came my way and I found myself frequently checking my rearview mirror, as one is meant to do, gazing at this stunning beauty in the back seat. Over the next few months I discovered this awesome girl had an amazing, off the wall sense of humour, was a hardworking highly intelligent young lady, who was greatly appreciated by her bosses. All her life she grossly underestimated how valuable a human being she was as evidenced by the fact that almost everywhere we went others randomly added an adjective to her name eg. lovely Louise, sweet Louise, kind Louise, gentle Louise etc. She never understood why people did that but it truly was a mark of the impact she had on people. She was never a “pushy”, centre-of-attention type of person but she sure could be depended upon and she had a strong backbone, was made of tough fibre and great determination which showed up when the going got rough. She hit problems head on and was of a very practical bent when it came to solving problems. All through my business career Louise was my supporter and encourager. She was a wonderful homemaker and that extended to being an outstanding, warm and gracious hostess for both our business entertainment and personal occasions with a great eye for detail and style. This lady, who I was lucky enough to have as my wife for a few weeks short of 52 years, was the devoted mother of two fantastic children of whom we are both very proud and Nana to four wonderful young people who are a total credit and blessing to their parents. People like “The Lovely Louise” are rare indeed and I, in particular, am going to find it extremely hard to walk the road ahead without her right by my side. I give thanks to The Lord for the gift He bestowed on me and I am so grateful for His grace, mercy and huge sacrifice on The Cross, which means that dear sweet Louise is celebrating in Heaven right now AND I will get to see and be with her again at some time in the future. God bless her as she has blessed me and so many others.
Denzil.
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