One of the family traditions was to wake the family member who was having a birthday early in the morning with birthday wishes and gifts. On one such occasion when Hilda's mother had her birthday, Hilda had no gift for her. Embarrassed she placed a little piece of paper in her mother's hands - unaware that the gift was most appreciated: a personal birthday wish, where she asked her mother, "to accept these our simple little gifts … be they not with gold unlined, yet they are with love."

Miss Hilda Postma was born on 7th September 1895 in Burgersdorp. Her father accepted a ministerial calling to Middelburg where Hilda completed her schooling. She was still very young when she started to write poetry, initially in English. She wrote one of the first South African collection of children poetry "Ons Oudjies" and according to Professor M.S.B. Kritzinger one of our best.