Elsa van der Byl
AUTHOR

Elsa van der Byl

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Elsa van der Byl’s professional career in South Africa spanned many years, encompassing teaching at both government and private schools, from preprimary to tertiary levels. She taught languages and music and served as principal to two preschools in Cape Town for more than ten years. She entered the tertiary education field in the 1980s and was promoted through the ranks till she became acting rector of a (previously black) college of education. She actively campaigned for the recognition of black cultural festivals and led her choir to great heights. She served on several regional and national educational committees before accepting a three-year contract as a Visiting International Teacher in the USA. Elsa achieved a Ph.D.(Education) University of Pretoria, M.Ed. Fort Hare, B.Ed. and Post-Graduate Preprimary UNISA, and B.A. (Languages) Cape Town. In addition, she obtained two Licentiates (Piano Teaching) at UNISA and the Royal Schools of Music (London). In 1987 and 1989, she published three teaching methods for recorder and theory for beginners (Perskor). As the daughter of the famous South African comedian Piet Pompies, she published his biography in Afrikaans, titled PIET wat POMPIES was (MalanMedia), in 2018. Although she relocated to the United States, she has maintained strong ties with South Africa, taking small groups on tour to the country. As a travel writer,  Elsa wrote fifty articles in various magazines and papers. In May 2021, she published Hippos, Hotspots, and Homelands, a memoir of her last twenty years in South Africa as an educator during the Apartheid years and beyond.  She followed it up with a sequel in November 2025, Immigration: From Lowveld to Lowcountry, a memoir about starting a new life in the United States. She is the proud mother of four daughters, a grandmother of nine grandchildren, and a great-grandmother of one.
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