Max Sonnenberg

Sonnenberg was the only son of Louis Sonnenberg and his wife, Mathilde Strauss. Two of his uncles, Charles and Isaac (Ikey) emigrated to Griqualand West to join the early diamond mining industry there, and Max's father, a teacher, and his family persuaded him to follow their example in 1891. Charles was elected to the Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope in 1896. Louis's family first lived in the village of Madibogo, where he managed a two-room hotel in partnership with S. Solomon & Co. They later moved to Vryburg, where Louis owned a store. After a time working as a traveling salesman along the railways being built through Bechuanaland and Rhodesia, Sonnenberg opened a grocery in Bulawayo in 1898.

After the Second Boer War, he returned to Vryburg, where he farmed and continued to grow his mercantile career; he served as mayor of the town (1919–20) after being elected to the city council in 1912. He was a founder of Bechuanaland Dairies, which was later acquired by Royal Dairy Ltd. He persuaded the city to spend £40,000 to build a reservoir to mitigate chronic water shortages. During the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, he contributed money to the Vryburg Hospital to buy equipment, for which he was later compensated unexpectedly, and built a soup kitchen in which he and his wife both worked.

Sonnenberg's marriage in 1906 to Lillie Isaacs (1887–1963), daughter of Samuel Isaacs of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, produced five children, a son named Richard (born in 1907) and four daughters. His son succeeded him as chairman of Woolworths and continued to hold that job for many years.