With Royal View’s Eda and Steve Meltzer
By Adi Gelbart
Tucked into a corner of Royal View is a small logistical marvel. Eda and Steve Meltzer are in their fifth decade together, and they live in two separate one-bedroom units, side by side. Two front doors. Two kettles…presumably.
When I heard this, I asked the obvious question. Eda offered that it’s the ideal arrangement for any couple in which one party happens to snore. I’ve promised not to say who. I’ll only note that, after all these years, the quiet diplomacy of separate bedrooms and ‘living space’ may be one of the great unsung secrets of a lasting marriage. Note to self.
What the Meltzers understand is that belonging doesn’t require shared square meterage. Their devotion simply comes with room to spread out. It’s less “living apart” than “living perfectly together, with a wall for the volume control.”
They did not arrive at this happy geometry in a straight line.
Eda was born in Israel and came to South Africa at eight. She grew up in Bloemfontein and moved to Johannesburg to begin a BA in Psychology at Wits. She married her first husband, had three amazing children (2 daughters and a son) and spent twelve years teaching. Steve was born and schooled in Krugersdorp before moving to Johannesburg for his BCom, working in insurance at North City Brokers. He married and had three incredible children too- all boys.
They met forty-two years ago. Steve moved in within a few months, and the two of them began their life together in a big house in Winston Ridge, all six children under one roof.
A close friend of Eda’s owned a much-loved bakery, Mr Crusty, and wanted to sell. Steve agreed it was a good idea; the plan was to install a manager and let it run. Eda had other ideas. She left teaching, as she put it, to “join the world of adults” and run the business herself (knowing nothing about business) but armed instead with the can-do spirit that is so completely Eda. It was the secret ingredient.
Mr Crusty sat on the corner of Jan Smuts, next door to Executive Cars, in Rosebank. In those days supermarkets had no bakery counters; a bakery was a destination. “On Sundays,” Eda remembers, “the queue went right around the corner.” The speciality was healthbread, bagels and muffins, and it grew into a wholesale business supplying Netcare and hotels. They sold in 1996 after 10 years of round- the -clock work that brought its own stress but also its own rewards.
Without the Meltzers at the helm, the new owners lasted three months before closing the doors.
Eda went back to university in her fifties (a granny among the undergraduates ) to finish her Psychology honours, and has since turned her hand to more or less everything a curious mind can reach, art included. If there’s a lesson in her, it’s the interesting chapters are not behind you. “What do you want to be when you grow up” is relevant through all stages of life.
Steve, the steady hand, the long game who built a career in insurance, which is to say a career in the quiet, somewhat unglamorous business of making sure the people you love are looked after. If Eda is the spark, Steve is the hearth.
Two years ago they separated, and Eda moved into Royal View on her own.
It took 6 months apart for them to realize that they simply could not live without each other. There happened to be a 1 bedroom unit at Royal View right next to Eda’s unit. They quickly snapped it up.
They live side by side close enough to share a life and just far enough to keep a little kingdom of one’s own. “Royal View is wonderful . Everything’s on tap, we just love it,” Steve says. They’ve learned Kaluki; they play bridge. Steve joins Jules Gordon, our resident muso, every Friday in our Care Centre encouraging our Care Centre residents to join in on the Karaoke fun. There’s a particular kind of belonging that comes from living in a community like Royal View and they are both loving this chapter, together.
Two people who, after a lifetime of beginnings and one very well-judged reunion, still can’t bear to be too far apart.
By Adi Gelbart
