Jo-Marie Claassen remembers Alta Schoeman:
Alta Roos-Schoeman was a member of CASA for many years. I met her at a CASA Conference in Pretoria in about 1990. She was originally from Namibia, I think; she taught Latin there, at Kroonstad and in Pretoria, and later at UWC. When UWC in 1998 reduced the number of Classics faculty after the demise of Latin for Law, she had to go.
She then worked at Stellenbosch University in the Division for Academic Support, helping first generation students, where her care for disadvantaged students was tangible and generous-hearted. After her retirement in about 2006, she was appointed to a similar position in the then new Academy for Design in the Technopark, Stellenbosch, where she soon rose to the position of Registrar, a post that covered dealing with students and their parents, composing curricula and writing annual reports and budgets. She was much loved by both colleagues and students.
Alta worked until well after 70, but ultimately she was forced to retire because of increasing ill health.
Nothing could daunt this brave and cheerful academic and caring human being, but increasing “tiredness” caused by the ravages of cancer took its toll and she passed away peacefully on May 13th, much mourned by fellow-academics, her many friends, but especially her three daughters, three sisters and their families.
Alta was endlessly ingenious, adventurous and resourceful, dressed stylishly and was a marvelous interior decorator (and exterior, as the attached photograph shows). She loved all shades of yellows and browns. Her particular academic interest was women in antiquity, such as the various Near-Eastern Queens.
Requiescat in pace!
