The Wedding

 

I did this quick arty style layout using a gorgeous wedding photo that I’ve had for years.

The photo ( hand coloured ) is of my Great Grand Aunt who i knew of all my life as Aunty Ede. She was a Salvation Army member as were many of the Grant /Abbott families she is descended from.

I know very little about the wedding except that the flower girl on the far left is my Grandmother, and the one on the far right with the gorgeous red hair is my grandmothers sister Mollie.  The girl in the middle is Pauline Grant who was the daughter of Ediths brother James ( Jim) Grant .

Edith Emily Marion Grant was the youngest daughter of William Grant and Louisa Mary Abbott, and one of 7 Grant children.  She would not have known her father very well at all as he died in 1906 when she was less than 7 years old .

My Great Great Grandmother Annie Elizabeth Grant was Edith’s eldest sister, there being 22 years between them in age .

Edith married John Alexander Montgomery ( known as Jack) on September 26 1923, but sadly Jack died in an accident in 1933 aged only 35.

They had only one daughter – Wendy, who Edith bought up as a single mother.
Edith lived till the age of 85, dying in 1984.

Gertrude Goodwin

I dont know much about Gertrude Goodwin yet, but this photo is so pretty I just had to use it in a layout.
What I do know about Gertrude is that she was the fourth child, and eldest daughter of James and Mary Ann ( Nee Gleeson) Goodwin and was born in 1885 . She was the sister of my Great Grandfather Phillip. 
Gertrude married Robert Job Maisey jr , son of a farmer ,who in 1917 was a labourer and later became a farmer in Morrinsville –
Gertrude and Robert had 2 children, Mervyn Claude, born 1910 and Ivy Beatrice born 1912 who at the time of writing is still alive.

William Henry Goodwin 1881-1918

Its been a while since I made a post on this blog due to real life taking priority over genealogy, but today I managed to do a layout which features the elder brother of my Great Grandfather.

Journalling on this layout reads:
William Henry Goodwin, my Great Grandfathers eldest brother. Named for his grandfather, and a man I knew nothing of until recently. and how sad. How easily these lives that were given so frequently in the name of the freedom  are forgotten.
In researching his Military file I could find little information. on his death. It simply lists that he died in the field in France, ( like so many thousands of other young men) - It makes me  wonder if his family at home ever knew any more details. If this were my son and he had given his life for his country, I would want to know at least where he died and what battle was being fought. It reeks of how little the lives of these men were worth at the time.
William Henry is buried at Anneux British Cemetery, one of 37 New Zealand men buried there who died on the same day.

The photo on this layout is one from the Auckland Museum Cenotaph Database. Im not 100% convinced it is the right photo as the text under the photo says Corp. W Goodwin from Morrinsville. - 
My William was a Private and was from Ngaruawahia before his signed up , however it appears there is only one other William Goodwin who died in WW1 and he has the correct photo so Im hopeful that the photo above is in fact my William Goodwin.

Ellen Hardy–Commonly known as Mrs Miller–and Daughter Ethel

 

 

I have very long and involved stories to tell about Ellen Hardy, but for this photo, which is so different from the usual family photos taken during Victorian times,I just wanted to display it in a pretty fashion.

Ellen Hardy’s photograph was the subject of biscuit tin lids. Apparently back in the early years of the 20th Century the biscuit companies used to put photos of beautiful girls and women on the lids of their biscuit tins. I’ve never seen one like it myself but I wonder if perhaps this photo was for one of those tins.

Obituary Mrs Margaret Rea

 

The Rea family are still quite a mystery to me. I have very little information on them and I understand from the few people who have attempted to research them that its a difficult family to trace.

Mary Jane Rea was my Great Great Grandmother. I would love to know more about her. She left my GG Grandfather in Katikati and came to live in Ponsonby in Auckland at least as early as the beginning of the 20th century , though they remained married all her life.

Her Mother was Margaret Rea, the rather imposing woman in the photo below.

 

The journalling is from her obituary in the Auckland Star February 6 1925

One of the links with the early pioneering days of Katikati was severed by the passing away on Tuesday last of Mrs Margaret Rea at the residence of her daughter Mrs Stanaway. The late Mrs Rae with her husbandand four children came out to New Zealand in 1875 with the first batch of settlers under the late Mr G Vesey Stewart, founder of the Katikati settlement. Throught the fifty years since arrival in the country the deceased lady resided at Katikati, and it is believed she was the last of the band of original adults who took part in the building of the settlement. The late Mrs Rea by her sterling qualities, kindly disposition and readiness to tender help and advice, endeared herself to all who knew her. her Husband predeceased her 12 years ago. She leaves four daughters and 2 sons.

The Goodwin Brothers

This layout features a photo of my Grandfather and his two brothers.
Trevor Owen Goodwin was my grandfather. Born in 1912, and his brothers Phillip Austin ( known as Austin) and Warren Basil were each born 2 years apart.
I’m picking this photo was probably taken around 1925, with Trevor looking to be nearing his early teens.
There was originally a 4th ( older ) brother – Lester Rae Goodwin who was born in 1909. Sadly though he died aged just 4 years in 1913 of cancer of the eye.

A Letter of Recommendation

 

A brief background to the layout below. Stewart Rea was my 3x Great Grandfather. He was one of the “ Number 1 party” – the first group of Irish settlers to accompany George Vesey Stewart to begin a settlement in KatiKati in the Bay of Plenty.

The Sam Middlebrook mentioned in the article on the first page,  who was in the employ of the Lands and Survey Department was my 2x Great Grandfather. He eventually married Mary Jane, one of Stewart Rea’s daughters.

 

Journalling on this layout reads:

The Stewart’s lived at Lisberg near Ballygawley in County Tyrone and Vesey Stewart built up a business as an estate manager. He also built a linen mill at Lisdoart, also near Ballygawley. With the mill he also erected houses for the staff which are still standing in 2010. However this venture failed and near bankruptcy and with the land and religious troubles escalating during the 1860s and early 1870s, he began to think of emigration, not only for himself and family, but as an ‘Ulster plantation’. Vesey Stewart departed London on the 19 December 1873 on-board the ss Mongol, the first steamship to New Zealand. He was looking for land suitable for his proposed settlement. In late April 1874 Vesey arrived in Tauranga and was very impressed with the area.The Survey Office put at his disposal a young man named Sam Middlebrook and together they rode towards the northern end of the harbour, through trackless hills, swamps and rivers.
Application for 10,000 acres of land was made to the Waste Lands Board and Vesey returned to England and began the task of recruiting suitable families and friends through the Orange Lodges in Northern Ireland to join his Ulster Plantation in New Zealand.
On June 8th 1875 the Carisbrooke Castle left Belfast with 238 settlers, among them the Rea ( or Wray) family who had worked on his estate in Ireland. In January 1877 Vesey Stewart began arrangements for the 10,000 acres adjoining the original block for a second party of special settlers. He returned ‘home’ with many letters of support from the first party and wrote Notes on the Origins and Prospects of the Stewart Special Settlement, Katikati, New Zealand; and on New Zealand as a Field for Emigration . Again he went on a recruiting campaign and his second party, which included his parents Captain Mervyn Stewart, his wife Frances, his brother Hugh, Hugh’s wife Adela and their son Mervyn left for New Zealand on the Lady Jocelyn. On the 17 August 1878 the Lady Jocelyn arrived in Auckland with 378 immigrants for Katikati on-board.
The letter opposite, written by Stewart Rea (or Wray as the name was sometimes spelled) ,was clearly a great letter of recommendation and assurance to the future settlers of the KatiKati Region.
P2 - transcription of letter
Sir- Being informed that you are about to start for Ireland with the object of bringing out a second party of settlers to locate upon the lands adjoining us, which you secured from the Government for that purpose on such favourable terms, permit me to wish you a pleasant voyage, every success in your mission, and to say a few words of what I think of this country as a home.
I have 80 acres of right good land: a beautiful stream runs through it and whilst the greater part of it is a sort of rich loam, easily worked, I have enough bush to keep me in firewood all my life,and that of many generations after me. All this free of rent for ever. In fact, the trees are larger and the foliage richer, than those at Favor Royal at home. I have about 15 acres in cultivation and the crops are certainly magnificent, and far surpass my most sanguine expectations. My house is comfortable and I feel quite happy and contented, and never regret leaving old Ireland, with its miserable wet climate, for the bright skies of New Zealand.
I have no hesitation in strongly recommended any sober and industrious man, with a few hundred pounds capital, to join your second party, and of course if he has a wife and grown-up family to assist him, so much the better. But you will be able to give a more experienced advice on these points than I can, and looking forward with pleasure to seeing you back with us
again, with many of our old friends and countrymen, with hearty
thanks for your unvarying kindness to me since I left
Ireland with you in 1875.
Yours very gratefully ,
Stewart Wray.