It is perfect timing.
Just as several major historic records – one with over a million images – are readied for the digital world, Knowledge Bank Hawke’s Bay is taking a big leap into the future.
With more than 18,000 records already on-line and near nine years under its belt; the charity will next week unveil its new website at a function at its home base: Historic Stoneycroft Homestead, in Hastings.
Getting food from the land on to the f
amily table was a major preoccupation 150 years ago – so vastly different from today’s trip to the supermarket.
In the 1800s nearly 30 years of diaries were kept by Hawke’s Bay farmer David Paton Balfour, until his death by drowning on July 13, 1894, the day after his 53rd birthday.
Balfour and wife Elizabeth Roberts raised three children and tracking down food for the family was top of mind.
Shining “nuggets” of history gleaned from hand-written diaries, oral histories and preserved newspaper clippings fascinated MP Melissa Lee when she visited Hawke’s Bay Knowledge Bank last week.
Ms Lee was in Hawke’s Bay for the Parekura Horomia Memorial Tournament; playing for the parliamentary netball team facing a Hawke’s Bay invitational side made up of friends and whanau of the late Hon Parekura Horomia. Despite her team suffering a loss against the locals, Ms Lee said the weekend was “wonderful”.
