WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BRIDGMAN QUADRUPLETS?
September 6, 2025
Miriam NDWANDLE was a Zulu woman from Orlando, Johannesburg. She gave birth to quadruplets on 24 July 1948. This occurred at Bridgman Memorial Hospital in Brixton, Johannesburg. She died in December 1948. The three girls and a boy had four older siblings. Their grandmother lived in Natal, while their father worked at a furniture shop. The father’s employer gave him a pram and a baby bath. The children were known as the Bridgman quadruplets, and they stayed at the hospital until August 1949. Their names were Sipiwe (Daphne), Sibonile (Beauty), Thamsanqa (Tiny), and Sibonakele (Boy).

On October 21, 1949, the quads left Johannesburg with Matron E. MacGREGOR to go live at the Salvation Army’s Mountain View Hospital in Vryheid. A charity group, The Friends of the Bridgman Quads, founded to help cover the children’s expenses. In 1955, they attended school, and their favourite topic was drawing. Beauty wanted to be a schoolteacher. Daphne aspired to be a nurse. Tiny dreamed of marrying a minister and having babies. Boy couldn’t decide between medicine and the ministry. What happened to these quadruplets? Are they still alive?

Clara Davis BRIDGMAN (1872–1956) founded the Bridgman Memorial Hospital in 1928. She used funds she collected in memory of her late husband, Reverend Frederick Brainerd BRIDGMAN (1869–1925). By the time the government forcibly closed it in 1965, 93,000 black women patients had passed through its doors. Apart from its role as a birthing centre, the hospital also provided emergency and routine medical care and taught mothercraft. By 1938, the hospital had already built a second extension to the original 20 beds. A total of 12,468 inpatients and 45,659 outpatients had visited the hospital. Additionally, 52 of the 65 nurses who completed the training school course had received the Government Medical Certificate for Midwives. In 1967, the Bridgman Clinic opened in Zola, Soweto, funded with money received after the expropriation of Bridgman Memorial Hospital.
The hospital began as a project to train and certify black midwives. The United Christian Board for World Mission (UCBWM) sent the American missionary couple to South Africa. They played key roles in establishing institutions to aid black and Coloured communities. He played an instrumental role in founding the Helping Hand Club in Jeppestown with Henry Melville TABERT and Howard PIM. He also founded the Bantu Men’s Social Club in 1924. Additionally, he collaborated with Dr Ray PHILLIPS to create the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Studies. This was the first institution to train black social workers in South Africa.
Frederick also started a clinic to offer medical care to migrant mine workers and others in need. He dreamt of building a hospital. Unfortunately, he died at an early age in 1925. This happened during a visit to the USA. Clara raised the finances for the hospital to open in 1928. It was located in Mayfair, near the current UCCSA Brixton Offices. The Garden City Clinic is now on the same site.

Frederick Brainerd BRIDGMAN was born on 18 May 1869 in Ifumi, Natal, to Henry Martyn BRIDGMAN and Laura Brainerd NICHOLS. He died on 23 August 1925 in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Clara Strong DAVIS was born to Jerome Dean DAVIS and Sophia Demond STRONG on 10 February 1872 in Kobe, Japan. She married Frederick on September 7, 1896, in Kane, Illinois, USA. They had a son, Frederick Brainerd Jr, on 25 June 1909 in Durban. He died on 12 January 1985 in Guilford, New Haven, Connecticut. Clara passed away in 1956 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts.


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