Betsie verwoerd biography template

Wife of Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd

Elizabeth "Betsie" Verwoerd (née Schoombee; 17 May 1901 – 29 February 2000) was the spouse of the Prime Minister of South Africa from 2 September 1958 until the assassination of her husband Hendrik Verwoerd on 6 September 1966.

Betsie was of Danish descent and born on 17 May 1901 to Wynand Johannes and Anna Francina Susanna (née Naude) Schoombee in Middelburg in the Cape Colony.

Betsie met her future husband while both were attending Stellenbosch University in the early 1920s.

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They were married in Hamburg, Germany, where Verwoerd was studying, on 7 January 1927. The couple returned to the Union of South Africa in 1928. They had five sons (Wilhelm Johannes Verwoerd, born 5 September 1929; Daniel Wynand Verwoerd, 19 November 1933; Hendrik Frans Verwoerd, born 11 August 1940; Christiaan Andries Verwoerd, 10 September 1942; and Wynand Schoombee Verwoerd, 28 June 1947) and two daughters (Anna Verwoerd, born 9 March 1932; and El