East County love bloomed in Africa

When Mary Rooker-Smith looks at the card, it means as much as it did 71 years ago when Don Rooker-Smith gave it to her in their homeland of Kenya.

Or perhaps it means even more as the days, years and decades pass.

Last week, after Mary took the Valentine’s Day card out of her Bible, her forever safekeeping place, Don slid it across a table at their home at East County’s Stone River Retirement Community. 

The card has a picture of a boy and girl dancing.

Mary said they both were 13 when Don sent her the card while he was away at boarding school.

“I offered her to be my valentine,” Don said with a laugh.

He then told her she could write if she wanted.

“I remember that,” Mary said, as she laughed as well. “I thought he was a rather special fellow. I got this nice card from this wonderful fellow, who was a brilliant polo player.”

They eventually laminated the card, so they could keep it forever.

“It brings back happy memories and reminds me of how thankful I am that this girl said she’d marry me,” Don said. “That was the best thing of all.”

From that first card, it took another 10 years, but Don and Mary eventually were married. Now 84, they have looked at that Valentine’s Day card for the past 61 years as a married couple.

As kids, Mary lived on Kaptagat Farm, which was about 40 miles away from Don’s farm, Merrowdown Farm, in the town of Eldoret. Their farms were in the middle of the wild in western Kenya, near the Ugandan border.

Even though it was a substantial distance between their homes, connected by a “rickety dirt road,” their families knew each other because of their agriculture connection and because of polo.

In their region in Kenya, many children had horses and would spend the weekends playing polo at the Muthaiga Country Club in Nairobi.

“The parties were legendary,” Don said with a laugh. “Every year at New Year’s, we would have the most tremendous parties. We worked hard and played hard and had a good life.”

They originally met when they were 10 at a “pony club,” where children could take their horses for education in equitation. Their families were similar in that they were well off, but because of their location, there were hardships too.

“We grew up in a wonderfully privileged life, all outdoors and on good land,” Don said. “But the first refrigerator I saw was when I was about 18.”

Life was good for Don, though, as long as he was riding a horse. Both their families loved polo, and Don, as Mary put it, was “the best in Kenya.”

As Mary talked about Don’s prowess on the polo field, she reached out and grasped his shoulder.

His modesty emerged.

“Oh, no, don’t say I was the best because there were a lot of good Kenyan players,” he said sternly.

“I know, but they weren’t as good as you,” Mary said.

Don brought the attention back to his wife.

“Mary was a good polo player too,” Don said, who noted that all of Mary’s siblings were good at polo as well. He said they were part of a team that would win all the competitions they entered.

“They were practically unbeatable,” he said.

Unfortunately, their varying education careers kept them apart. Don went to boarding school from January to March, May to July and September to November with the other months being spent at home on vacation. Mary went to school near her home after her mother created a school because there was nowhere to send her older brothers. Don then went to an English agricultural university while Mary attended finishing school.

Life was exciting when they married in 1959. The reception was held in Mary’s family garden that had a river running through it. The honeymoon consisted of a drive through the Belgian Congo.

“He’s wonderful in every possible way,” Mary said. “He really is. He always has been.”

The Rooker-Smith family grew when Mary and Don had their four daughters, Zoë, Sally, Jane and Anne. Just like Mary and Don, the girls learned how to ride horses. It was a great way of life that was forced to change when Kenya earned its independence four years after their marriage. The British government bought up a million acres of agricultural land to return to native Kenyans. 

“Things were going well, and then all that land was bought by the British government, so that all came to a halt, bang,” Don said as he tapped his fingers on the table in front of him. “It took a long time to get over that, and consequently, people like me weren’t equipped to cope with that sort of thing. It was quite hard.”

Don and Mary moved their family to Brazil, where they felt they could invest in farmland to continue their lifestyle. They all learned to speak Portuguese.

Mary said it was an easier transition for Jane and Anne, the two youngest daughters who were 5 years old and 4 years old, respectively, at the time. For Zoë, who was 12 at the time, and Sally, who was 9, it wasn’t as easy.

Mary and Don decided to send Zoë and Sally to English schooling in South Africa, and Mary went with them. The couple’s time apart was terrible, Mary said.

“It was difficult for the whole family,” Don said. “But we weathered it.”

In 1982, they moved to Florida to start new again. They built their life together.

From 2001, when Don retired, to 2016, they would return to Kenya to vacation at a seaside home at Sand Island Beach, which is right on the Indian Ocean, with their children and seven grandchildren. The home has been in Mary’s family since 1940.

“It’s a wonderful property because it has a coral reef that was exposed at low tide, and you could walk on it,” Mary said.

Don and Mary would ride camels, play on the beach and rediscover the land where they spent their childhood.

“There’s nothing like the smell of Africa, the rain on dust and the open plains,” Don said.