Newspaper Article 2016 – Feisty ladies tame farm

Feisty ladies tame farm

The saying, “a chip off the old block” was given a real life example in a recent talk to the Hawke’s Bay branch of the New Zealand Founders Society.

Some 80 members of the society heard Tessa Tylee describe how two of her great aunts had inherited a fierce ‘can do’ attitude from their mother.

They applied this to restoring the iconic Hawke’s Bay station, Kereru, in the Maraekakaho district, shortly after World War II.

Speaker, Tessa Tylee, said that after a long career in producing and directing for New Zealand television assignments, she was delighted to take on a different project which resonated with her farm upbringing in the TukiTuki valley and with her family roots.

Project-managing the passage of the acclaimed book, Kereru Station: Two Sisters’ Legacy, opened a window for her on the most interesting lives of two of her great aunts, Ruth Nelson and Gwen Malden.

The book was released in mid 2015. Local writer, Mary Shanahan, penned the words and Grant Sheehan produced the photographs.

Kereru Station is steeped in Hawke’s Bay’s early settlement history as it was founded by James Nelson Williams, a son of Bishop William Williams, the first Anglican Bishop of Waiapu.

Tylee said Ruth and Gwen’s mother, Winifred Nelson, had instilled a strong streak of determination and independence in her daughters and no doubt these qualities urged them to take the opportunity to ‘bring the station back into the family.’

As described in the book, they overcame many obstacles in achieving their dream to see the station restored to good working order.

When the sisters took it over in 1946, many of the paddocks had reverted to rabbit-infested scrub, fences had fallen down and the once grand old homestead was being used to store hay and shelter calves.

In the pre-war years both sisters studied at the Canterbury School of Art; Ruth becoming an acclaimed wood carver and Gwen, an accomplished artist in watercolour.

The farm is owned by two charitable trusts (the A R Nelson and Gwen Malden trusts) set up under one title.

Photo caption – Ruth on the left Gwen on the right – both Nelson at this stage – applied their ‘can do’ attitude towards restoring the iconic Hawke’s Bay station Kereru.