Elkhart Dinner Lecture
Peter Niehaus shares the story of his extraordinary life

 

[August 27, 2024] 

At the Elkhart Historical Society Dinner Lecture Friday, August 23, Peter Niehaus shared “The Highlights of an Extraordinary Life.”

Before speaking, everyone enjoyed a dinner of beef or chicken curry with sides of chutney, tomato and onion and cucumber with yogurt followed by dessert. Niehaus went around to each table and described the dishes he and his wife Andrea had prepared. He said the curry used in South Africa is less spicy than what we use in America.

Elkhart Historical Society’s Gillette Ransom introduced Niehaus by saying “return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear to what promises to be a wonderful journey that follow’s the highlights of Peter’s life.” Ransom said those have known Niehaus for a while have likely heard a few of his more exciting tales.

Over the course of his 80 years, Niehaus has lived in Holland, South Africa, France and South America. One set of travels took Niehaus from Panama to Alaska to Cape Horn then back to South Africa.

Of all the places Niehaus has lived, he said South Africa was his favorite. His three years as a Navy Engineer building submarines South of France is a close second.

Because Niehaus has lived so many places, he has American, Dutch and South African Citizenship and can choose where he wants to go. Niehaus also speaks nine languages.

Niehaus shared many memories of his youth and said he has many good memories. He was born in Holland during the last year of World War II. As Niehaus’ mother would carry him, she could hear bombs nearby.

One bomb fell outside their front door, but Niehaus said it did not go off. The next day the Germans came. Niehaus said the south of Holland was under German occupation.

The Germans put the bomb on the back of a truck. At the turn-off to the highway, the bomb went off. In that situation, Niehaus felt the saying, “here but for the grace of God go I” was fitting.

Growing up on a farm in the South of Holland, Neihaus said they had 200 head of dairy cattle. What we call Holstein cows in American are Friesian cows in Holland. At the young age of eight, Niehaus had to milk five cows by hand before he went to school each morning. They plowed with horses. The house the family lived in was 1600 years old.

There were eight children in Niehaus’ family. His grandfather lived to the age of 115 and his grandmother lived to the age of 109.

On his father's side, Niehaus can trace his lineage back nearly 2,000 years. Niehaus said for seven generations of his family, the eldest son was called Pierre. Though Niehaus’ given name was Pierre, he said his mother started calling him Peter to make it less confusing when she called out for him and his father.

Niehaus’ father was an engineer working on the coal mine during the German occupation. During that time, Niehaus’ father was also a leader of the resistance in the South of Holland and got caught by the Germans a couple times, though he escaped and went back home each time.

A few years after the war, Niehaus’ father got a job as an engineer in South Africa and went over there by himself initially. The family had lost some of their land by then and it had been turned into a commercial airport that is still there today. His father sold the rest of the land to his brother-in-law, who continued farming it.

A year after his father went to South Africa, Niehaus’ mother and the eight kids went over there by ship. The trip took about three or four weeks.

As a child living near the coast in South Africa, Niehaus said he would dive for lobsters to earn pocket money.

In 1970, Niehaus married his first wife in Cape Town, South Africa.

For three years in the early 70s, Niehaus and his wife lived in France, where he was an engineer in the Navy. Their youngest son was born in France.

During those years, he served on the Emily Hobhouse submarine, which was very efficient and quiet. The submarine went 3,000 meters below the surface of the ocean. Niehaus said they crossed the equator in it.

If a ship was coming, Niehaus said Dutch commandants would fire a signal to let people know the ship was approaching the harbor. That way, people could get ready in case there was an attack.

After being in France for three years, Niehaus and his family lived in the married quarters on a Naval base in South Africa. Niehaus remembers doing lots of camping, caravanning and going to see other parts of Africa with his wife and kids.

The house the family later lived in was brick and mortar because Niehaus said wood was not readily available. The roof was tile. He said they added on to the house.

Once Niehaus was out of the Navy, he became Marine Superintendent at the Royal Cape Yacht Club. Many boats are moored in the main harbor by floating moorings. When people would go to the end of the mooring, they could walk on their boats.

Niehaus owned various boats over the years and did lots of sailing. His biggest sailboat was a 55-footer with accommodation for ten people.

At the sea approach to Cape Town from the North, Niehaus said two mountains that are nearly 200 miles away are visible. The 3,600-foot mountain Devil’s Peak is to the left of Cape Town. The mountain to the right of Cape Town is Lion’s Head.

In the harbor near Cape Town, Niehaus said many cargo ships come in from Cape Point. The biggest cargo ships weigh 750,000 tons. Niehaus said these ships look like flats when they float past.

Clifton Beach is very beautiful. Niehaus said the sky there is so blue, when an American Company commissioned his friend to paint pictures of the surrounding area, the company sent all the pictures back. The company told his friend the sky could not be that color.

Cape Town does not have industrial areas, so Niehaus said there is little air pollution and industrial waste. It does have quite a bit of culture with opera houses and museums.

Something else Cape Town has is a five-point castle, which is five miles inland. Niehaus said each point can protect the other points of the castle.

In South Africa, there were seven stores called Martha’s Vinyard. Niehaus said years ago, South Africans were very interested in American crafts, so he made a lot of the craft they sold there.

Later, Neihaus married his current wife Andrea in Lincoln in 1996 with Judge Coogan presiding.

In this area, Neihaus has done quite a bit of construction. Niehaus helped restore the house Paul Beaver grew up in along with many other places in Elkhart and Lincoln. There are a couple of houses on Elkhart Hill Niehaus restored.

When Niehaus and his wife bought the old general merchant’s store in Elkhart, he said it needed quite a bit of work. For example, when Niehaus pulled up the old plush carpet in the building, the whole floor fell into the basement.

After extensive renovation, it now houses two storefronts called Horsefeathers and the Little Foxes. In the back of these stores is the Wild Hare Café.

As Niehaus finished sharing his stories, he said he does not regret much of his life. He did a lot of things when he was young and thinks it is now time to retire.

Several people then had questions for Niehaus.

One person asked Niehaus how he ended up in this area.

Niehaus’ wife Andrea was once married to a South African man. Over the years, Niehaus and his wife attended many of the same functions and they became acquainted.

Andrea Niehaus grew up in Michigan and her sister taught art in Lincoln. When Andrea wanted to come back home, Niehaus said they ended up finding a home in Elkhart.

Twenty-one years ago, Niehaus flew five 30-pound cats to America, paying $5,000 to fly them. The crates had been labelled with the words big cats, so some thought there were wild cats in them. At O’Hare Airport, Niehaus said it took a while to round up all the crates the cats were in.

Someone asked if any of Niehaus’ siblings are still alive.

Of Niehaus’s four sisters and three brothers, he said two sisters and two brothers are still alive. Three of his siblings live in South Africa. His oldest sister lives in Sydney, Australia.

Niehaus’ three sons are all married and living in Cape Town. His oldest son is an engineer who works on oil rigs all over the world. His middle son works in a body shop fixing cars like Mercedes, BMW and Volvos. His youngest son owns a division of Volvo. All have done well for themselves.

Another person asked Niehaus if he wore an oxygen tank to go lobster diving.

Neihaus said he didn’t wear an oxygen tank. He would deep dive sixty feet with a weight belt and could hold his breath for five or six minutes. Beside lobsters, Niehaus said he could grab abalone, which are marine nails, right off rocks.

There was a question about the submarine Niehaus was on and whether 3,000 feet was a deep depth then.

Niehaus said 3,000 feet was very deep. He said they did a lot of recording for Americans and took a lot of good pictures from the submarine.

When asked about the music in Cape Town, Niehaus said the area is very cosmopolitan. It is culturally well defined in the arts, music, operas and theaters. He said Cape Town is full of beautiful theaters. Cape Town has a rich heritage with many Dutch people who had come from Holland in the 1800s.

There is a little chapel right off Fifth Street in Lincoln that Niehaus helped build. As Niehaus helped build the chapel, someone asked what a Dutchman would know about building cabins. Niehaus said the Dutch were building cabins 1,000 years before America was discovered.

The next question was whether Niehaus lived in an old or new house when they lived in Lincoln.

The house in Lincoln was not very old. Now, they live in an old farmhouse. It was in a pretty bad state when they bought it, but Niehaus restored it. They used to own a house in Sunset Lake but sold it when they bought the farmhouse.

A final question was about political changes in South Africa when Niehaus lived there and how they affected him.

Farmers Niehaus knew built houses for their laborers on the farms. These farmers raised cattle and often gave the workers a head of cattle. The workers were buried in the farm cemeteries.

Though many have heard bad things about Apartheid, Niehaus said there were some good things about it too.

To Niehaus, one good thing was his children going to school with children of various ethnic backgrounds. He and his children had many black friends in South Africa.

Apartheid had nothing to do with political situations in Niehaus’ experience.

The embargoes were about gold, diamonds and precious metals the rest of the world wanted for nothing. Niehaus said South Africa held these metals for ransom because it is all they had.

Niehaus felt the embargo was all about money. When the embargo was put on South Africa, the workers suffered the most. In large companies, Niehaus said the presidents and vice-presidents got big handouts and the people working for these companies were just put out on the street.

The problems were more about money than anything else. Niehaus said the conflicts affected everyone and many people left South Africa. Some of these families had been there for generations.

When Niehaus left South Africa, he could only take $30,000.

There were a lot of problems, but Niehaus said it was not that easy to resolve those problems. In America, there are problems, too and Niehaus said no one seems to be able to resolve some of them.

Some of the positive memories Niehaus has of South Africa are the birds and the flowers. He said the West Coast of South Africa is semi-desert, but within two weeks of the rains, it turns into the most glorious paradise of flowers one has ever seen.

With the many birds in South Africa, Niehaus said there is a riot of colors for hundreds of square miles. The combination of colors is something Niehaus has not seen anywhere else.

Diamonds can be found on the West Coast of South Africa, but Niehaus said it is illegal to have an uncut diamond in your possession in South Africa. Debeers controls the diamond industry there.

There are rooms filled to the ceiling with diamonds. Niehaus said after low tide, workers go in with bulldozers. The bulldozers lift the sand off from the seashore as far as they can reach before the tide changes. Next, Niehaus said they send around 200 or 300 guys with dust masks and brooms to sweep the diamonds out of the crevices. The diamonds are then put in forty-gallon tubs.

Once Niehaus had finished answering the questions, he said “that’s enough.” He had provided insights into a world those at the lecture did not know about before. Niehaus has enough stories, he said he could have gone on for hours, but decided to stop after sharing many of the highlights from his life.

Friday, September 20 will be the next Elkhart Historical Society dinner lecture at the Wild Hare Café with Bill Walter speaking about the restoration of the Logan County Courthouse. Walter is the project manager of the courthouse restoration. His other projects have included working on the White House in Washington, D.C., the Kentucky State Capitol building, the Michigan State Capitol building, the Texas Governor’s Mansion and many others. Reservations can be made in the next few weeks by calling 217-947-2238.

[Angela Reiners]