Lost Cities 20
After the war ended, the two regions where the Boers
lived became a part of the Union of South Africa. The
victorious British renamed Staats Model School to Pretoria
Boys High School.^77 Several years later, the same school
would educate an aspiring space and vehicle entrepreneur.
Fourteen years after the peace, Elon’s grandfather Wal-
ter Henry James Musk was born in Pretoria. He was the
son of Harry Musk, who had married the seventeen year
younger Lucy Frances Champion from Caledon, South
Africa. They had six children.
The artisan Walter married Cora Amelia Robinson
from England. They had two children: Errol Musk, born in
1946, and Michael Musk, born in 1952. Errol would become
the father of a billionaire, but first he had to find a wife.
Elon’s mother Maye Musk was born as Maye Halde-
man. The Haldemans can be traced back to 1808 when
Sarah Haldeman was born in Virginia, US. It’s not known
if she married, or if she lived with a man, but it’s known
that she in 1838 gave birth to John Haldeman.^97 The family
had now moved west through the country to Bloomington,
Illinois. This wasn’t a move without any risks - they moved
to the undiscovered frontier of the American wilderness.
Euro-American settlers, who had arrived to the area in
the 1820s because of the rich soil, established Bloominton
in 1831. The town had eight stores, three groceries, two tav-
erns, two lawyers, three physicians, a handsome academy