Standard Bearers in Aotearoa New Zealand – A History of the Crosse Family of Hawke’s Bay
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FOREWORD
The Crosse family reunion held at Havelock North on 9th October, 2010, came 170 years after Elizabeth Thorby set sail with her parents and siblings on board the New Zealand Company ship, the Lady Nugent. As a young woman in early Wellington she met and married Charles Grant Crosse. The young couple, began a pioneering life in Porangahau, farming in Southern Hawke’s Bay and isolated from neighbours and family.
The compilers of this family history have shared in seeking out information and historical data about their own branches of the family, and offer the following stories as a record for you to build on. It’s not as comprehensive as we might hope, but it does tell something of our family beginnings. We thank Catherine Downes for spurring us on to gather as a family, as well as the committee for organising such a great event on 9th October, 2010. We also thank the Revd Jo Crosse and Donald Crosse for hosting all who went to Porangahau the following day to the church service, and then to Mangamaire and Kelvin Grove. In some cases we have found it very difficult to trace the family story. If you have more information then you can send it to one of the following:
[Name and address withheld]
Catherine Downes [Address withheld]
Bill Bennett [Address withheld]
The family tree at the end of this book will be a starting point for further reflection and research. Please add to or amend it as required.
We are indebted to the authors and family members for the following chapters and for the time given to researching their own family line, writing up their stories and providing photographs – especially [Name withheld], Catherine Downes, Barbara Stokes, Donald Crosse, and Marie Johnston. They in turn have received family data from Ann West, Beatrice Harper, Elizabeth Sterling, Sue Wallace, Brian Small, Alison Breakwell, Sandra Small, Heather Doelman, George Crosse, Aileen Crosse, Jeanie McCrae, Bruce Mandeno, [Name withheld], Kirsty Reisima and others. Also our thanks to Andrew Long for his graphic design work on the family crest, and to Gregory Bennett who has edited the final draft of this book. In particular we are indebted to the late Anne Crosse, wife of Donald, for the work she did in compiling comprehensive family records and photos. Angie Piper ensured we could access the Geni family tree website.
Further information about the Crosse family members can be accessed from other sources: Barker Bears and Forebears – by Robin Barker and Others (1991), Petticoat Pioneers – North Island Women of the Colonial Era – by Miriam MacGregor (Reed 1973), Early Stations of Hawke’s Bay – by Miriam MacGregor (Reed 1970), Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (updated to 2007), History of the County of Hawke’s Bay – by Kay Mooney 4 vols 1973-77, as well as Google websites and old newspapers.
The succeeding generations of the Crosse family have spread far and wide and now have a variety of cultures and ethnicities, akin to a mini United Nations. There is one thread, however, that dominates throughout our stories – there remains a succession of generations who live the great New Zealand tradition of farming the land. This history touches briefly on the lives of our forebears. I hope you will expand on the stories offered here, and continue to write and record the people and events of your own family line.
Bill Bennett
February 2011
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THE 2010 FAMILY REUNION
On Saturday 9th October, 2010, about 200 of our Crosse family descendants gathered in the Havelock North Community Centre to celebrate the 170th anniversary of the arrival of Elizabeth Crosse (nee Thorby) from England and the 157th anniversary of her marriage to Charles Grant Crosse. The last reunion was held in 1979 in St Luke’s Church, Havelock North.
A light lunch was served, followed by speeches by Lawrence Yule, Mayor of the Hastings District Council, and Trish Giddens, Mayor of the Central Hawke’s Bay District Council. She spoke of the association of Thomas Crosse in local body affairs, including the Hastings Borough Council. Family members also spoke, representing various generations of the Crosse family – Jim Howard, Donald Crosse, Catherine Downs [Downes] and Hamish Crosse. The Master of Ceremonies was Gerald Dewar.
The reunion cake was cut by Graham Speedy (aged 92 years) from Dannevirke and Dorothy Carlisle (aged 91 years) of Hastings.
A large amount of memorabilia and photos were on display. Such items as a ring worn by Charles Grant Crosse, a teak coffee table that was once a portable writing desk originally brought out from India by Charles when he was in the British Army in India, a Christmas card from William Colenso to Elizabeth Crosse, a canteen of cutlery, and family trees dating back to 1654.
On Sunday some of the descendants attended a church service at St Michael’s and All Angel’s church, Porangahau. The service was taken by the Revd Jo Crosse, wife of Hamish, from Weber. The organist was Rosalie McCullough, a descendant of Charles Crosse, the youngest son of Charles Grant Crosse. Flowers were laid in the churchyard cemetery where Charles Grant Crosse and son George (the elder) are buried.
Later we visited the Mangamaire Station homestead site, some seven kilometres south of Porangahau on the Porangahau-Wimbledon Road. Some family members found pieces of broken crockery and bricks at the site. The area was very rough due to logging taking place at the time.
Some then continued on to Kelvin Grove, Weber, the home of Donald Crosse, where we had a picnic lunch. (The weather was very cold and windy – not untypical of Southern Hawke’s Bay!)
Members of the Committee who organised the reunion are: Bill and Wendy Bennett, Donald Crosse, Catherine Downes, Beatrice Harper, [Name withheld], Mike and Angie Piper, Ian Houston, Barbara Stokes, Lyndon Thomson.
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CONTENTS
Foreword and acknowledgements 4
Chapter One Arrival in New Zealand Elizabeth Crosse (nee Thorby) and Charles Grant Crosse 7
(Bill Bennett)
Chapter Two Elizabeth Ann Palmer (nee Crosse) 15
[Name withheld]
Chapter Three Thomas Ezekiel Crosse 27
(Catherine Downes)
Chapter Four Latima George Crosse 39
(Barbara Stokes and Donald Crosse)
Chapter Five Catherine Amelia McKenzie (nee Crosse) 51
(Bill Bennett)
Chapter Six Samuel Grant Crosse 53
(Eileen Bennett)
Chapter Seven Marian (May) Barker (nee Crosse) 55
(Robin Barker)
Chapter Eight Charles Crosse 57
(Marie Johnston)
Chapter Nine Family Tree 69
Location maps Stations and sites mentioned in the text 87
Family Reunion 2010 Photographs 89
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CHAPTER ONE
CHARLES AND ELIZABETH – ARRIVAL IN NEW ZEALAND
By Bill Bennett
Introduction
Most of us at some point in our lives are curious about who our forebears were and how we fit into the family tree. The following pages record, albeit briefly, how two young people arrived in early colonial New Zealand, eventually met in Wellington in the early 1850s and were married, and began a life of challenge, adventure and achievement. Then follow stories about their children and descendants written by members of each family group. We are enormously grateful to them for their research and writing. We hope you will find this family saga as fascinating as they have. The October 2010 family reunion at Havelock North has helped us forge links with the ever-widening strands of the family surnamed CROSSE.
Voyage to New Zealand
Crosse descendants in New Zealand come from principally two early settler family lines, the Crosse and Thorby families. The prevailing tradition is that the surname ‘Crosse’ was given to the bearers of the cross standard or Christian flag during the times of the Crusades (11th to 13th centuries). Charles Grant Crosse had immediate forebears who were lawyers, university dons, Anglican clergymen and military men. If you go to St Margaret’s Chapel alongside Westminster Abbey you will see plaques commemorating two Crosse forebears – the Coat of Arms of Sir Thomas Crosse granted to him by Queen Anne during her reign (1702 – 1714), and Sir John Crosse, a highly regarded citizen of London who died in 1762 and is buried at St Margaret’s. The Thorby family, by contrast, belonged to a larger group of artisans and craftsmen who lived in and around London.
So our Crosse and Thorby tipuna were part of the migration of British settlers who came to New Zealand to establish a new life for themselves. The publicity of the New Zealand Company advertised the colony as the new utopia.
The Lady Nugent sea voyage
On the 10th October 1840 the Thorby family joined 258 other passengers on board the barque, Lady Nugent, at Gravesend docks, London, with Captain Santry as ship’s master. (The 2010 family reunion was held 170 years after almost to the day.) Autumn was approaching and the immigrants would have been glad to leave before winter set in. Ezekiel (aged 30), his wife Mary Anne, nee Wood, (aged 27) and their four children – Elizabeth (10) and three other siblings under the age of four, had left their home in Bishop’s Stortford, north of London, a market town in Hertfordshire, near the Essex County border. Ezekiel was a carpenter and would have been attracted by the prospect of full employment in the building trade in the young colony.
England had just crowned their young new queen, Victoria. Huge numbers of families were pouring into the towns and cities from rural villages, desperate for work and housing as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace. Just before Ezekiel and Mary Anne left Bishop’s Stortford that township was rocked by a number of arson attacks on public buildings and houses. This may have reinforced their decision to find a better way of life. Many would-be settlers were disillusioned by the symbols of Establishment – the government, the aristocracy, the church, the justice system and the rising
Photo caption – Above: A Punch cartoon of 1848 contrasting life in England and the attractions of new life in the South Seas. Alexander Turnbull Library.
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wealthy middle class. This explains in part the strong practical egalitarian philosophy of our forebears which carries over into the present day. The 688 ton Lady Nugent was five months at sea. We assume the Thorbys were assisted immigrants. Life on board was not easy.
In the Lady Nugent fifty emigrants were at the last moment poked into a stuffy luggage apartment where they received no air or light except through four large spoked windows looking into the second class saloon. ‘From these windows,’ complained the second-class passengers, ‘at all times issued, on our devoted heads, foul air of some kind, accompanied by dust and filth, of course, proceeding from the whole length of the Emigrants Steerage. The hot stench effluvice [sic] at one period and cold and filth at another were nearly equally intolerable. The noise and quarrelling of women and children of course added nothing to our comfort. But worse perhaps than all was our being prevented from holding any conversation whatever among ourselves, without every word being heard by our so closely intruded neighbours.’ And even in first-class apartments, owing to the thinness of cabin doors and partitions, every cry, every ‘I won’t’ and ‘I will’ was perfectly audible in the saloon. [Ref. P. 39 ‘Early Victorian New Zealand: a study of racial tension and social attitudes 1839-1852’, John Miller, OUP London 1958, quoting papers relating to the Lady Nugent, National Archives, Wellington]
It cannot have been a happy voyage for the Thorbys, given the conditions they had to endure. Indeed it was a tragic journey for a family full of hope for the future. The three youngest children died en route (no names are provided on the ship’s manifest) – first, a nine month old son on 12th November 1840 (of a diseased mesenteric gland [sic]), a three year old daughter on 4th December 1840 (chest infection) and a two year old son on 11th December 1840 (croup) – three family deaths within four weeks! Burials at sea were very unceremonious. ‘Child buried,’ recorded a passenger, rather ludicrous than solemn. Body sewn in a canvas bag. Taken to gangway. Covered with a flag. Doctor read funeral service – mate reading the responses – and then, amidst all the hustle of working the ship, the body was dropped overboard. Sic transit.’ [Ref. Ibid. Miller, p. 39] There were at least 21 other deaths recorded on board. [Ref. www.freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ See also ‘Early Wellington’ by Louis Ward, Whitcombe and Tombs, Wellington 1928, or www.nzetc.org]
Mary Anne Thorby was pregnant when the voyage began. After the death of her third child she herself contracted influenza, but recovered in time for the birth of a son, Henry, on board on 26th January, 1841. Ezekiel must have been a feisty individual. A fellow passenger, Mr Greenwood, noted in his diary of 1841:
Jan. 6th Thorby involved in a disturbance with a midshipman.
Feb. 9th About 6 last night Thorby and Hannaday, immigrants, had a fight upon the deck. The former was victorious and the latter badly hurt.
En route the Lady Nugent called into Tasmania:
Running short of water, she put into Hobart on 27th February, and while she lay there great inducements were held out to the people to disembark and make their homes in Tasmania instead of going on to the wilds of New Zealand. But they wisely decided to stick to the ship, which left on March 17th [sic]. Among the cabin passengers was Mr Edmund Storr Halswell, FRS, who had been appointed by the British Government to the post of Commissioner of Native Reserves in New Zealand. [Ref. White Wings (Vol. 2) by Henry Brett, The Brett Printing Company Limited, Auckland, 1928]
Settling in Wellington
Arriving in Wellington (also then known as Port Nicholson or Whanganui a Tara) on 17th March 1841, the family were put ashore at what is now the lower end of Tinakori Road, and which was described as a fine beach. Wellington boasted 700 residents as well as the impressive pa of Chief Wi Tako, the leading Maori chief of the region. The Thorbys spent five weeks in barracks. Ezekiel meanwhile secured a lease on a section in Bolton Street, at the back of what was known as the Sydney (later Bolton) Street cemetery, and built the family’s first home. Carpenters’ wages were good – eight to eleven shillings per day. Four years later, when a road had been constructed to Karori, they shifted there. Present day Thorby Street can be found in the suburb of Northland. The move seems to have been a matter of necessity – was Ezekiel having financial problems? In the ‘New Zealand Spectator & Cook’s Strait Guardian’ newspaper edition of 20th September 1845 is the following notice:
In The Court of Requests
Johnson V. Thorby
By virtue of an order of this Court, The Bailiff will sell on Tuesday next, the 23rd inst., at 2 o’clock, upon the premises of the above defendant, Ezekiel Thorby, adjoining
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the said premises, together with sundry Goods, some Goats and Pigs. Dated Wellington, this 19th Sept., 1845.
While Wellington was a bustling optimistic community, the Thorbys would have known of the disturbances nearby – the clash of New Zealand Company settlers in the Hutt (Heretaunga) with Ngati Toa Maori led by Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata which resulted in the Boulcott farm conflict. The young Elizabeth however described relations with local Maori (Te Ati Awa) at Wellington as very cordial. She spoke of an abundance of food supply including potatoes and pumpkins. Pigs, pigeon and tui were plentiful. She described tui as a mouth-watering dish. There is a family tradition that she became quite fluent in te reo Maori – she must have had a good working knowledge, given her good relationships later with local Maori at Porangahau.
The first place where Christian worship services were held for Pakeha was in a store belonging to Major Hornbrook. Elizabeth attended the first service there in the company of her father. It was situated opposite the present-day old St Paul’s Cathedral. This church-going habit remained with her all her life. She recalled attending the first race meeting at the Hutt. [Ref. Her 100th birthday, reported in ‘The Dominion’, 17th July, 1930] She said, ‘Sir Charles Clifford, Mr Weld and Dr Dorset (the settlement’s first doctor), and few other choice spirits organised the meeting. Sir Charles Clifford, of course, was the father of racing in the Colony. Afterwards the races were held at Burnham Water, now called Miramar.’
She remembered that the Lady Nugent carried timber to construct the first Empire Hotel in Willis Street. ‘Dances were held at Kaiwarra [Kaiwharawhara], but the first place of amusement was called “Ship’s Hotel”, a curious place in Manners Street. The hills of Oriental Bay had no trees, and a Mr Dupper [Duppa?] had a sheep run there.’ She vividly remembers the first two ships built in Wellington. ‘One Sunday morning she was going down to get some water while her father and a neighbour had been watching the first of the ships that had been launched making its way across the harbour in choppy seas. When she returned up the hill with the water she informed her father, who had gone inside, that the ship had gone down. A boat was immediately sent out and all except one of the crew was saved.’ [Ref. Ibid Dominion 17.77.1930]
So, arriving as an 11 year old girl she saw the early growth of Wellington. Elizabeth recalls the first school there, run by Mr Finnimore, who had been a fellow passenger on the Lady Nugent. While she grew up within the family home at Karori we must assume she later had employment domestically in the district. She said:
In those early days, had my life been as full of varied interests as are the lives of young people today, I think my memory would have been poor, but the arrival of a boat, new scenery and new people, meant a great deal to us in the early ‘forties, and seem to have printed indelible pictures on the minds of the pioneers. [Ref. Elizabeth’s recollections on the occasion of her 99th birthday]
Ezekiel and Mary Ann Thorby remained in Wellington for the rest of their lives and are buried in the church yard of St Mary’s Church, Karori. Mary Ann died on 15th August 1879 aged 68, and Ezekiel on 29th August 1887 aged 79. As noted earlier, Henry Thorby was born
Photo captions –
Above: Thorndon Flat, Wellington 1841, painted by Charles Heaphy. Original in Alexander Turnbull Library, reference number ref. No. C-025-010.
Above: Elizabeth Crosse (nee Thorby).
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on board the Lady Nugent en route. Elizabeth’s other siblings were Jemima, Harriet Mathilda, Alfred John (stillborn), Thomas, Martha, Frederick, John and Walter William, all of whom have descendants scattered throughout New Zealand.
Elizabeth’s life was to change dramatically in 1853. She was 24 years old.
The Arrival of Charles Grant Crosse
He was born in 1827 and baptised at St Giles’ Church, Camberwell, in south London, to Thomas Crosse (1779-1845) and his wife, Elizabeth Ann Crosse, nee Grant (1786-?). One source says his birthplace was Lyme Regis, Dorset. He was the second youngest of seven brothers. These were Thomas Neufuille (born 1815), Latymer George (1820), Samuel (1822), Joshua Grant (1823), Robert (1825), Charles Grant and John Hill (1832). His paternal grandparents were the Revd Joshua Shaw Crosse and Elizabeth (nee Norris) of Bath, England.
Charles’ father, a solicitor by profession, had a house and office premises at 3 Hatton Court, Threadneedle Street, London. [Ref. Commercial Directory 1846, p. 176]. He also owned land and ‘manorial farmlands’ in various places throughout England including Lincolnshire, Somerset and Chester. The family can be described as well-to-do, given the occupations of Charles’ forebears. Robert, his next older brother, was a Lieutenant in the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, serving in India and marrying while there.
Details of Charles’ London upbringing and subsequent life are frustratingly thin on detail. It is family speculation that he joined the merchant navy, serving on the England-China run, but that at some time (attracted by Robert’s Indian adventures?) he worked in the Colonial Service attached to the British Army, and from where he eventually worked his way to New Zealand, arriving here in 1849. In the family’s possession is a small coffee table, apparently made from part of a teak writing desk that he bought out from India. What he did on arrival in Wellington remains a mystery, but now aged 22 years he wanted to establish a new life for himself. We assume that as an independent immigrant he was able to bring some capital with him, and the lure of procuring land must have been strong.
Marriageable young women were in short supply in early colonial New Zealand. At some point he must have met Elizabeth Thorby and, as they say, the rest is history.
We know nothing about how they met. Suffice to say they were married in St Paul’s Church on 26th January, 1853 – the marriage certificate (above) states ‘Wellington’. This St Paul’s is more likely to have been the Anglican church at Waiwhetu in the Hutt rather than the ‘old’ St Paul’s in Molesworth Street, Wellington. Like many colonial matches it was probably more a marriage of convenience, one based on companionship in a harsh and often lonely landscape. Family members who cared for Elizabeth in her latter years reported she sometimes referred to her long deceased husband in a less than flattering way saying, ‘I never loved him – I never loved him. He never ever let me forget that I came from trade!’ We often overlook the fact that the class system was part of the cultural baggage brought here by settlers, most of whom wished to escape the social stigmas of the land of their birth.
They remained living in the Hutt – it seems Charles had tried unsuccessfully for a land grant in Karori. Elizabeth, their first child was born in the Hutt. Meanwhile Charles learnt that Maori land was available for lease close to Porangahau, on a 19,500 acre block called ‘Mangamaire’ (literally Maire Stream). He began negotiations to acquire the block. So began the long journey northwards.
Photo caption – Above: Charles Grant Crosse.
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[Marriage Certificate]
Journey to Porangahau and ‘Mangamaire’
Their travels to Hawke’s Bay and thence to Porangahau remain a classic pioneering tale. They sailed to Napier by schooner in 1855. Negotiating the lease took some months, necessitating a longer stay in Napier than intended. But eventually they began the overland journey south to Porangahau (the name means ‘crazy winds’).
Elizabeth was again heavily pregnant. The party walked south 12 kms to the mouth of the Tukituki River to the pa near Waipureku (East Clive). Further negotiations took place to hire a canoe and Maori paddlers to ferry them upstream to Patangata Pa, some 45 kms south, a journey that took five days. (Patangata Pa then was sited quite near present-day Camp David on Middle Road.) It was here that Thomas Ezekiel was born. Elizabeth recalled on her 100th birthday:
The journey up the Tukituki River from Napier to Patangata is unforgettable. I was one of four women to venture on the journey which took six days and nights. The mother of the late Dr Newman was with us. The trip was a wonderful one but very, very wearisome. The last day we were without food, and the last nine miles I had to walk carrying a baby ten months old. It is rather strange to think that now that trip can be covered in eight hours. [In 2010 it takes less than 45 minutes by car!]
These four women assisted Elizabeth at the time of Thomas’s birth. The party then took some days to re-provision and eventually continue on to Pourerere Beach. En route they met a local chief who offered Elizabeth 1000 acres in exchange for baby Thomas. When asked why, he replied, ‘When they cut their teeth they taste the sweetest’!
They soon reached the mouth of the Porangahau River just south of Blackhead and were canoed upstream to the pa at Porangahau. They were offered hospitality by local Maori but Charles decided to set up camp, with all their belongings on the banks of the river opposite the pa. Being tidal, and unknown to them, this was the time of a full flood-tide. They were awoken one night by local Maori shouting, ‘You foolish Pakeha!’ As they roused themselves awake they discovered water up to their knees and Maori calling, ‘Wainui (too much water) – get over the hill till the moon goes down!’ They lost much of their rice, tea and sugar, as well as their prized fowls. But this redoubtable couple and their two small children sought refuge at the pa, enabling Charles to begin to erect their first home at Mangamaire ‘constructed of poles cut from the bush, slabs of bark, pressed clay, and toetoe for the roof. [Ref. ‘Petticoat Pioneers’ by Miriam Macgregor, Reed 1973]. Charles
Photo captions –
Above: Marriage Certificate of Charles Crosse and Elizabeth Thorby.
Above: Mangamaire homestead, built after the first cottage Charles Crosse built was dismantled.
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imported Merino sheep from Sydney and by 1860 there were 1,227, in the flock. By 1873 the flock had increased to 3,348. But times were tough – on one occasion 2000 wethers were boiled down, netting just ls 6d each. (Refrigeration had yet to be invented and the main income was from wool. Bales of wool were carted north to Blackhead and taken by lighter out to waiting anchored ships.) We can imagine that Charles spent much of his time developing pasture by cutting down native bush. The Alexander Turn-bull library has a letter he sent to Donald McLean, who was Governor George Grey’s Land Purchase Commissioner, and responsible for the eventual purchase from the Maori chief, Hapuku, of the Central Hawke’s Bay block for Pakeha farm settlement. The arrival of a milking cow and some ewes was warmly greeted. Charles used local Maori for labour, paid at a rate of two sticks of tobacco for a full day’s work. (Two sticks was equivalent to one pig, killed and dressed.)
The remainder of their children were born at Mangamaire – Samuel Grant [1] (who died in infancy), Catherine, Latima George, Fanny, Marian, Samuel Grant [2], Clara and Charles. Elizabeth was assisted at birth times by local Maori women (who affectionately called her ‘Peti’) and by Sarah Lambert and Sarah Herbert, neighbours who lived some miles away. For the first 10 years Elizabeth did not move out of the district, rarely enjoying the company of other Pakeha women. A visitor from time to time was William Colenso, the Church Missionary Society Missioner based at Waitangi near Clive, who covered an area from Hawke’s Bay to Wellington. Family members have Christmas cards he sent to Elizabeth.
60 years of Widowhood
Life was to change dramatically for the family in 1871. Porangahau was on the favoured overland route between Napier and Wellington. The ‘Seventy Mile Bush’ between Norsewood and Pahiatua was very difficult to travel through. Poles for telegraph wires were stockpiled at Porangahau. Family tradition suggests that Charles’s horse he was riding suddenly took fright and bolted under some trees at the sight of these stockpiles, causing Charles to fall and break his neck. A newspaper report in the ‘Wellington Independent’ states: Fatal Accident. It appears from the Hawke’s Bay papers, that a well-known and respected old settler, in the person of Mr C. G. Crosse, met with an accident on 19th [January], which ultimately caused his death. He was mounting his horse at White’s Hotel, at Porangahau, when the animal plunged, and threw him so violently that he had to be carried into the hotel. The unfortunate gentleman never recovered [from] the shock, and died on the following Saturday.
He was only 46 years old. His grave is in the cemetery at St Michael and All Angels church at Porangahau. He was buried with his infant son Samuel Grant Crosse. Elizabeth carried on farming Mangamaire with the help of Thomas and Latima George. Thomas, aged 16 years, who was at school in Napier, was called back to oversee the farm work. Her last child, Charles, was only six months old when her husband died. Her sheer toughness and resourcefulness helped her through these times. On one occasion a man arrived demanding food and a bed, threatening violence if she refused. She called out to the children to bring the gun – he made off, not knowing there wasn’t a gun in the house!
In 1874 she decided to move to Napier to better the children’s education. By then Mangamaire had 4,395 sheep. Thomas and Latima George continued farming the property. But in the early 1880’s the leases on the land were expiring. Ashton St Hill and Alfred Henry Price took over much of the leasehold land. Thomas took on the Whawha-kanga [Whawhakanga] block nearby comprising 6,204 acres. He also bought land at Kumeroa near Woodville, placing a manager on the property. More importantly, inspired by the invention of refrigeration, he set sail for Scotland to learn more.
Photo caption –
Four Generations – Elizabeth Crosse, Latima Crosse (grandson, standing), Latima George (son, seated), and baby George (great grandson).
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Meanwhile, Elizabeth, during the years of her widowhood, moved in turn to Palmerston North, Whanganui, Matamau or Whakaruatapu (just north of Dannevirke), eventually returning to Palmerston North and 98 Broad Street, remaining there till her death in 1931. She was cared for, not only by Clara, but by various members of the family, who apparently took turns at living with her and attending to her wants and needs. She worshipped at the nearby Methodist Church regularly.
The celebrations for her 99th, 100th and 101st birthdays were occasions for family gatherings. And her reminiscences of pioneering life were reported in local and national newspapers. Most photos show her wearing a crocheted bonnet, an indication of her adherence to old familiar inherited customs. She is buried in the cemetery at Terrace End. Clara her daughter who died in 1941 is buried beside her. Across the pathway are the graves of Samuel Grant and Elizabeth Crosse. Many other members of the Crosse family are buried at Mangatera cemetery, Dannevirke.
Photo captions –
Above: Elizabeth and daughter Clara.
Elizabeth’s 100 birthday: (standing from left) Kate McKenzie, L. George Crosse, Fanny Davis. (Seated from left) Clara Crosse, Elizabeth, May Barker.
Family members: Standing from left) L. George Crosse, his wife Annie, Kate McKenzie, Clara Crosse, Fanny Davis, James Otto Barker. (Seated from left) May Barker, Elizabeth, Amy Barnicoat and baby John Barnicoat.
Celebration Cake: (standing from left) Clara, Kate, Fanny, and Elizabeth with her cake.
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CHAPTER TWO
ELIZABETH ANN PALMER (nee CROSSE) OF MANGATOITOI
By [Name withheld]
Elizabeth Ann Crosse, Charles and Elizabeth’s first child, was born in Lower Hutt on 14th November, 1853, and baptized the following March 18th. By the age of 10 months she has travelled with her parents to Porangahau via Napier. She grew up on the family farm, Mangamaire. Apart from her siblings there few Pakeha children to play with in such an isolated area.
Her education was divided between being taught at home and later attending the settlers’ Porangahau school. Her teacher was Miss Emma Herbert (later Mrs Hirtzel). Her mother must have arranged for her children (Elizabeth, Thomas and George) to either go to schools in Napier at some point, or have correspondence lessons. The Hawke’s Bay Herald (Dec. 1864) reported on The Napier Training School list of prizes according to daily marking through the year: “Miss Elizabeth Crosse (12 years) a prize for Industrial Work”. Also her brother “Master Thomas Crosse (10 years) First Prize for English Classes”.
After the tragic death of her father when Elizabeth was 19 years old she was expected to help her mother with her siblings, Thomas and George. In 1874 she moved to Napier with the rest of the family.
On 30th December, 1878, Elizabeth married William Palmer. She was 25 years old. The marriage took place at her mother’s residence of just one month at Whakaruatapu (now called Matamau, just north of Dannevirke). William was 32 years old, and had been in Porangahau four years. He had arrived as an immigrant in New Zealand in 1874 on the Euterpe. His occupation, a carpenter and stairmaker in England. He was the 5th child of Thomas and Eliza Palmer, farmers of ‘Summerfield Farm’, Staple, Kent, England.
Elizabeth and William first lived at Porangahau. It was here that their six children were born: Mary Ethel (1880), Charles Grant (1881), William Sutton (1883), Elizabeth Marion (1885), Ruth Evelyne (1888) and Clarence (Ben) Crosse (1890). Their seventh child Frederick Clifford was born in 1892 after they shifted to Weber.
While living at Porangahau William was employed doing odd carpentry jobs in the district. He unsuccessfully tendered to erect the new Porangahau School – the tender was not accepted.
It’s worthwhile remembering that Porangahau was then on the main transport route between Napier and Wellington, as the 70 Mile Bush inland was a considerable obstacle.
In 1882 William, in partnership with George Cripps, opened a new store. The advertisement in the Hawke’s Bay Herald read:
THE NEW STORE
William Palmer begs to inform the inhabitants of Porangahau and the surrounding districts that the above store is now open. W. P. trusts by strict attention to business and supplying a good article of merit a fair share of public support.
Porangahau, January 31, 1882
The shop and land consisted of four acres, value £400 (according to the 1882 Return of Freeholders). Stores were transported up the Porangahau River with the help of local Maori. A local resident wrote to the Hawke’s Bay Herald saying: “By judging the number of empty cases around their premises they must be doing a very good thing”. However, after three years the business partnership was dissolved, with William going into partnership with Mr Buchan.
In 1887 he purchased Mangatoitoi Farm of 296 acres on the Weber-Herbertville Road, according to the Weber Allotment Book. The family move there – we assume the store was sold. Nine years later he purchased an adjoining property of 280 acres on the Tahuokaretu Road. On this road a timber mill was erected, about one mile from the main road and by the Tahuokaretu Stream. Timber from neighbouring properties (approx. 500 acres) of rimu, matai and totara was cut and generally used locally or carted by wagon to Dannevirke. Mangatoitoi Farm had a deep valley running through it and very little flat land. [Name withheld] (a grandson) remembered a flying fox slung over the valley for hauling logs across. However, in
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April 1906 there were severe fires in the district. L.G. Crosse recorded in his diary that the Palmer mill was completely destroyed.
Family Life at Mangatoitoi
Family life on the Mangatoitoi Farm was very busy for Elizabeth with seven children to care for. Cooking was done on a wood range and washing by hand as there was no power. There were two to three beehives to tend to, cows to be milked, hens fed, and a vegetable garden to care for. According to [Name withheld] it had many large gooseberry bushes in it. The house had three bedrooms on the ground floor and an attic under the roof. Getting to the attic was reached by a steep stair case, the walls being covered with local newspapers. [Name withheld] remembered sleeping on mattresses in the attic with his cousins at Christmas time, recalling what a fire trap it was! The toilet was a long drop with a bucket at the bottom of the garden. China chamber pots were kept under the beds at night. William had an extensive workshop with all types of carpentry hand tools for furniture making and doing projects in the district. At Christmas time the Speedy, McRae and Charles Palmer families gathered at Mangatoitoi Farm. This ensured extra help on the farm for hay-making, the grass being cut with scythes, turned and stacked for several weeks.
The Palmer children were educated at the Weber Primary and Dannevirke High Schools. William joined the Weber School Committee in 1902 and was elected Chairman in 1904. The five mile trek to school on horses in wet weather on the unmetalled road was quite treacherous. The Bush Advocate (May 1904) reported on ‘2 chains of mud up to the horse’s knees’ as the school requested government funding to have the road metalled. School picnics were held on private farms. School concerts were frequently held. Ben Palmer was in a play, ‘Doctor by Proxy’. ‘The acting was very good which caused continuous roars of laughter from the audience’. (Bush Advocate, Dec. 1905)
The Palmer family played an active role in the Anglican Porangahau and Weber churches. In July 1878 William was elected as a vestryman. (This was while he was still a bachelor). In 1906 the Weber church was opened and William was a Churchwarden. Prior to this services had been held in private sheds and homes in the district. However, getting to church could be difficult. The Waiapu Gazette reported roads were metalless and there was a river to ford, so not everyone could attend services. The Gazette also reported: ‘W Palmer and L G Crosse were using their business capacity to obtain improvement in the financial aspect of the Weber church’. During services Frederick Palmer took up the offering while his sister Elizabeth played the organ.
Community Recreation
The family helped with the building of the Weber Library. A fund-raising concert was held in April 1905. The Bush Advocate reported there was much singing accompanied by a piano and violin. Evening competitions included a hat-trimming competition for the gentlemen, nail-driving for the ladies, sheep and cake-guessing (one of which was won by Ben Palmer). Then dancing followed until daylight, the ladies providing food. £15 was raised.
When the Weber Hall was built William was one of the shareholders, milling the timber and supervising the building. Opened in June 1905, the Bush Advocate reported that 150 people attended, a grand march was held followed by dancing which ‘went on with great vigour for several hours. Charles Palmer efficiently officiated as M.C.’ [Note: both the church and hall have been shifted from their original sites into the village itself]
Winter Balls were frequently held in the district – the Cricketers’ Ball at L. G. Crosse’s woolshed, the Bachelors’ Ball, the Leap Year Ball and the annual Ladies’ Ball. The local press described the decorations in detail – nikau palms, ferns, Chrysanthemums and dahlias. On one occasion people wore fancy dress: ‘Misses L and R Palmer as twins, Sutton Palmer as a cricketer and Miss Carman in patriotic red, white and blue’. Charles Palmer was frequently MC. The pianist was Elsie Carman and others played the violin and accordion. Solos and duets were sung, and food was catered for by the ladies, with dancing continuing on till daylight.
Kelvin Grove was the site for cricket matches. The Weber Rifle Range was in Tahuokaretu Road, of which Sutton, Charles and even Ruth Palmer were keen members, Ruth winning a brooch as a prize in 1904.
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On 28th December 1928 William and Elizabeth celebrated their Golden Wedding. When William’s health deteriorated they shifted to Dannevirke with Elizabeth, their daughter. William died on 8th September, 1929, at Rawhiti Hospital, Rawhiti Street, aged 83 years. Two days later he was buried at the Mangatera cemetery. Elizabeth then shifted back to Mangatoitoi Farm where she lived with her son, Frederick and her daughter, Elizabeth. In her later years she rarely left the farm owing to poor health. On 2nd January 1933 she died at home following a stroke a month earlier, aged 79 years. She was buried on 4th January beside William. She was greatly respected and beloved by her relatives and had a large circle of friends. Her mother, Elizabeth, had died 13 months earlier in Palmerston North, aged 101 years.
The Children of William and Elizabeth Palmer
1. Mary Ethel (1880)
2. Charles Grant (1881)
3. William Sutton (1883)
4. Elizabeth Marion (1885)
5. Ruth Evelyn (1888)
6. Clarence (Ben) Crosse (1890)
7. Frederick Clifford (1892)
1. Mary Ethel Palmer was born on 3rd February 1880 at Porangahau. She was educated at both Porangahau and Weber, leaving school aged 16 years. Against her parents’ wishes she decided to go out to work. While positions were limited for women she eventually secured the job of Lady Help in a private home, continuing in this type of work until her marriage to Peter McRae on 29th May, 1912, at Porangahau.
Peter, a Scotsman from Glasgow, was born on 30th September 1868, the youngest of six children of William and Elizabeth McRae. By the age of six both his parents had died. He worked as a printer. When about 16 years old he arrived on the ship Margaret Galbraith in Dunedin. He worked on a farm near Cust, Canterbury in the 1890s and early 19005 before coming to Hawke’s Bay. It was here and later in the King Country that he met Mary. By the time of their marriage he was farming on his own account at Hangitiki [Hangatiki] near Otorohanga. It was real pioneering country, only recently opened up to European settlement, with farms being literally carved out of the bush. He was never a very successful farmer, probably because he could not afford to buy decent land to work with. He lost this block in the 1902’s Depression in the wake of World War 1.
The McRae’s, now with four children, moved to Kihikihi township in 1921. Then in 1934 they moved to Te Tahi Road, Pirongia, in order to get their eldest son, Colin, started on a farm. They rented out their Kihikihi home, returning in 1937 where they remained till their deaths. Peter died on 1st June 1955 aged 87 years and was buried at the Kihikihi Cemetery. Mary died a year later, aged 76 years on 10th February 1956 and is buried with her husband. The children and descendants of Mary Ethel and Peter McRae
The children and descendants of Mary Ethel and Peter McRae
Mary Elizabeth McRae was born 16th June 1913 and educated at Te Awamutu District High School. Her aim to become a teacher was frustrated by the Depression, so she worked as an office girl in a carrier’s office, then as a nurse aid for the Tokanui Mental Hospital. Finally in 1934 she attended Training College, later teaching at primary schools at Te Kuiti, Parawera, Gordonton and later at Pekerau, Te Awamutu as Infant Mistress. Retiring in 1967 she married Gerald Akers McRae (no relation) on 13 May 1967, a farmer and widower with 11 children. Mary lived on Gerald’s farm at Aria in the King Country, and at her home in Te Awamutu. Gerald died in 1976 and is buried at the Kihikihi Cemetery. Mary continued to live at Te Awamutu till her death in 1995, aged 82 years. She is also buried alongside her husband and parents at Kihikihi. They did not have children of their own.
Colin William McRae, born on 26th October 1914 was educated at Kihikihi Primary School and Hamilton Technical College (later Fraser High School), travelling there by train each day with his brother. He first worked in a grocer’s shop at Te Awamutu, did a short stint as a beekeeper, then moving with his parents to the Pirongia farm. When World War 2 broke out he enlisted, seeing action in Greece and being taken prisoner at the fall of Crete in 1941. He remained as a prisoner of war in Austria till 1945.
Soon after the Pirongia farm was sold he married Eleanor Betsy (Betty) Bygrave in May, 1948. Betty came from Te Awamutu. After working on a dairy farm near Waikeria they eventually bought their own farm at McRae Road, Rangiatea, near Otorohanga. Betty drew the winning marble in the
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Returned Servicemen’s Farm Ballot. As a farm in the early stages of development he spent many years of blood, sweat, tears and money building it up to the successful dairy farm it is today. Colin’s health forced him to retire to Otorohanga in 1948. His son Peter had taken over the family farm by then. Colin died on 16th January 1986, aged 71 years, his ashes being interred at the Otorohanga Cemetery. Betty continued to live in their house in Otorohanga till increasing frailty saw her moved to a rest home in Cambridge. She died in 2003, a month before her 88th birthday. Her ashes are interred next to Colin.
Their children are Heather and Peter:
Heather Catherine McRae was born 3rd October 1949 in Te Awamutu. Educated as a foundation pupil at River Road School, Otorohanga, she went on to board at the New Plymouth Girls’ High School. She nursed after leaving school before marrying Cornelius Everadus (Kees) Doelman in 1971. Kees was born in Holland but grew up in Indonesia. He qualified as a petrol and diesel mechanic (A grade) and spent the greater part of his career working for Gough Gough and Hamer, the Caterpiller [Caterpillar] agents in Hamilton. Poor health forced him to retire in 2009. Heather and Kees first lived in Hamilton (1971-1991) but now live on a small farm at Ngakuru, south of Rotorua.
Meantime, Heather has held various paid positions over the years, and also done voluntary work, especially involving children and education. She completed a BA at Waikato University in the 1980s. The move to Rotorua prevented her continuing on to do her Masterate. Her passion for history has been expressed in her role as a guide at the Rotorua Museum of Art and History. Her other interest is her large country garden.
Heather and Kees Doelman’s four children – Pieter Colin, Elizabeth Anne, Catherine Nicola and Rachel Andrea:
Pieter Colin Doelman was born […] in Hamilton. Educated in Hamilton he did his engineering intermediate in 1990 at Waikato University, went to the Auckland University School of Engineering, began mechanical engineering, changed to mining in 1991, graduating BE in 1995 with first class honours. Since then he has worked at various mining sites in New Zealand and Australia. He is currently employed as project manager for New Zealand Solid Energy, Huntly. His interests include DIY, triathalons, multi-sports and off-road motor cycling. He married Barbara Kelly in […]. They have two children – Ciara and Beth.
Elizabeth Anne Doelman was born on 31 August 1973, but died from a cot death aged six months on 16th March 1974.
Catherine Nicola Doelman was born on […] in Hamilton. Educated in Hamilton and Rotorua she went on to complete a BMS degree at Waikato University in 1998. She has worked in marketing and research, first in Auckland, then in London. In 2000 she married Mike Rose, an accountant. Sadly, after touring the Uk and Europe together, they separated in 2007 but remained good friends. In May 2010 Mike died in an accident in South Africa. Catherine returned to New Zealand in October 2010.
Rachel Andrea Doelman was born […] in Hamilton. Educated at Hamilton and Rotorua, she did casual work on leaving school then moved to Australia in 1997. She spent three years doing seasonal work and well as taking a trip to India. She has been in Wellington for the last eight years, completing an art and design degree, and working as a dog ranger. She is currently employed in Customer Services for the Rotorua City Council.
Peter Charles McRae was born on […] in Otorohanga. He was educated at River Road School, then later at Otorohanga College and New Plymouth Boys’ High School. He did various jobs in Hamilton and Australia before returning in 1983 to take over the family farm from his father, Colin. He married Maureen Jean Mather on […]. Peter purchased the farm from his parents over time. As their children did not wish to take on the farm it was eventually sold. They built a house on a nearby run-off they already owned and live there still, farming dry stock and growing maize. Maureen does relief milking. They are both keen on off-road cycling. Their children are:
Lance William McRae, born […]. He is an animal lover, especially cats, is an SPCA volunteer and has started a new job at Hamilton.
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Laura Zean McRae, born […].
Gordon Palmer McRae was born 25th August 1916. Educated at Kihikihi and Hamilton Technical College he first worked as a carpenter. Having lost an eye in an accident in 1936 he was declared unfit for military service for World War 2. So he ran the family farm during the course of the war. Afterwards he returned to his carpentry trade, married Joan Mary Matilda Currie in 1965, moving to Whakatane where he built their home. Joan was a registered nurse. Gordon died in 2002, aged 85 years. Joan died in 2006 aged 86 years. Both are buried in the Whakatane Cemetery. They had no children.
Jeanie Clarice McRae was born on 9th April 1918. She was educated at Kihikihi and Te Awamutu. She started a nursing career in 1938 at Te Kuiti as a hospital aid, transferring to Hamilton in 1939 for General Training, graduating in 1942, followed by Maternity Training in 1943 and Plunket Training at Dunedin in 1944. She worked for the next five years as a Plunket Nurse in and around Te Awamutu, then later as a Staff Nurse at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Rotorua.
She spent three years from 1957 travelling to the UK and Europe, returning by bus and ‘boat’ to New Zealand via the Middle East, Afghanistan and India. In 2000 she published an account of her adventures as a local Millenium [Millennium] project. A further 8 years were spent at Queen Elizabeth Hospital as Matron, then later a return to Waikato Hospital as the Home Sister. In 1970 she built a house at Te Awamutu, retiring from nursing in 1978. She now lives at a Retirement Village in Te Awamutu aged 92 years. Jeanie has never married.
[The McRae family information is from an edited extract by Jeanie McRae written in 1994 and updated in 2010 by Heather Doelman (nee McRae)]
2. Charles Grant Palmer was born 9th October 1881 at Porangahau. He grew up at Porangahau and Weber and was educated at the Weber School. On 26th May 1909 aged 27 years he married Elsie May Carman, daughter of David (deceased) and Mary Ann Carman, sheep farmers of Masterton, Wairarapa. Their wedding was held at Ellen Franklin’s residence at Ti Tree Point, Hawke’s Bay, at Bloomfield Farm. The Bush Advocate reported: ‘The bride was dressed in cream cashmere and her bridesmaids Daisy Carman and Annie Franklin wore cream silk. Fifty family and friends sat down for the wedding breakfast followed by a dance held in the Bloomfield woolshed. The happy couple were conveyed by coach to Ngapaeruru for their honeymoon’. Elsie aged 29 years had been living with her Aunt Ellen Franklin for 6-7 years when she met Charles. He lived just along the road and they attended the same social gatherings. They first owned a farm named Crows Nest on the Te Uri Road, near Ormondville, Hawke’s Bay. Their four children were born while they were here: Mavis Mary (1911), [Name withheld], Florence Enid (1916) and Clarice Elizabeth (1918). The residence was very small and about 1/2 mile from the road. There was no power and the toilet and laundry were in the backyard. Tank water was used.
To obtain supplies the whole family travelled to Ormondville, staying the night. Transport was by a one horse gig with the family sitting high on top. The return journey was rather difficult as one very steep hill required several attempts to negotiate at a very fast speed to reach the top.
Charles not only farmed sheep but carted timber with his bullock dray. By 1920 there had been several years of drought, bush fires and depressed overseas produce prices, which forced the family to sell the farm. They shifted to 76 Millar Road, Dannevirke. Elsie inherited land in Nairobi, Kenya, from her cousin Samuel William Franklin who had died in 1917 in World War 1. This she sold, enabling the family to purchase the land and buildings in Millar Road. The 5-10 acre property was opposite the Sale Yards and had the Mangatera Stream on its southern boundary.
The house was quite large with verandas on two sides. There were hens that laid their eggs everywhere except in the henhouse, several cows that were milked, and the cream left in a muslin covered billy for daily collection at the gate. The large garden also boasted a tennis court at the front. The family had many visitors from the coast to stay, some waiting for the birth of a child, and later gaining strength again for the return journey home.
There were frequent visits to see Grandma Crosse in Palmerston North, leaving at 9.00 am by train and returning at 4.00 pm. The carriage windows would be slammed firmly shut when passing through the Manawatu Gorge tunnels to avoid
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being covered in black coal smuts from the steam engine. Grandma expected her great grandchildren to be well-behaved and seen and not heard. She once gave [Name withheld] a pocketknife.
The family worshipped at St John the Baptist Anglican church in High Street. On Sunday mornings they walked to church, then the children returned in the afternoon for Sunday School. There was some resistance to this regime – [Name withheld] was once found by his mother hiding in the bushes – she was not pleased.
Elsie was a good pianist and singer in her younger years. She encouraged this talent in her own children – Mavis played the violin, Enid the piano and Clarice the cello. Lindsay was not interested at the time but later regretted it.
Charles was away from his family quite often, as he was a sheep and cattle drover. He also helped with bush clearing and carting timber with his bullocks from the coast. During the school holidays in the 1920s his son [Name withheld] helped his father with fencing out the back of the Franklin and Crosse farms. Staying in a whare, they cooked meals in a cast iron camp oven on an open fire. In Ivor Morgan’s book Tahuokaretu Road he mentions Charles fencing on the Frederick Franklin and Evan Morgans properties on Birch Road, Weber – ‘120 chains (11/2 miles) at 16 shillings a chain. Charles insisted cutting 2 inches off the 1800 battens as they were too long’.
In the early 1950s, due to poor health, Charles, Elsie and Mavis sold the property and shifted to 95 9th Ave., Tauranga. ‘Crowsnest’ was also the name of this 1/4 acre property. It overlooked the estuary towards Bethlehem. Charles health continued to deteriorate and on 9th March 1954 he died in the Tauranga Public Hospital, aged 72 years. He was buried in the Tauranga Anglican Cemetery. He was a tall lean man with a very good sense of humour. Elsie continued to live with her daughter until she died at home on 20th February 1962 aged 81 years. She is buried with Charles. Elsie was quite a small person, approximately five feet in height and of slight frame. She was a very good church supporter. Their children were:
Mavis Mary Palmer was born 31 January 1911 in Napier, and baptised two months later at Mangatoitoi Farm, Weber. She was educated at Te Uri School, Dannevirke South Primary and Dannevirke High School. She first worked in Dorrington & Poole Solicitors, Dannevirke, but later in the 1930s trained as a Karitane nurse, taking care of many children of her relatives and families in the district. She was an active member of the Anglican Church in both Dannevirke and Tauranga, was secretary of the National Party in Tauranga, and supported the Crippled Children and IHC Societies.
After her mother died she moved to Edgecumbe Road, Tauranga and later to Cambrae Hospital, where she died on 12th March 1989. She is buried with her parents. She never married. From her early 30s she struggled with severe Rheumatoid Arthritis.
[Details withheld]
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[Details withheld]
Florence Enid Palmer was born on 25th March, 1916, at Te Uri. Educated at Dannevirke, she worked as an accountant in a legal office at Te Awamutu 1935-1944. On 30th October 1945 she married George Crawford Mandeno at Dannevirke. They lived at Faircroft Farm, Mandeno Road, Hairini, Te Awamutu.
George served in Crete during World War 2. He was an active member of the community, serving on the Waipa Council, the Rangiaohia Domain Board, Chairman of the Hairini Dairy Factory, the Te Awamutu Power Board as well as being an Elder of St Andrew’s Church, Te Awamutu. Enid sang in the Anglican choir at Te Awamutu, was a very good pianist, was a member of the Red Cross and had an abiding interest in drawing and painting.
Their two children are: Bruce Crawford Mandeno and Max Crawford Mandeno.
Enid died on 2nd December 1975 at Faircroft Farm. George later remarried Mary Isabella Mandeno, his widowed sister-in-law. He died on 14th June 2009 at Te Awamutu.
Bruce Crawford Mandeno, born […], was educated at St Kentigern College, Auckland. He took over farming Faircroft farm and also acquired Glenholm Farm in the mid 1990’s. On […] he married Patricia Joyce Harris at Waitoa. They have two children – David Bruce Mandeno (born 1st October 1981) suited for a BE Hons degree, plus MEM, and is now a Management Consultant in London. Keith Richard Mandeno (born […]) graduated B Com from Dunedin and Dublin and presently works for the ASB Bank in Auckland.
Max Crawford Mandeno, born […], was educated at Te Awamutu College. He owns a 500 hectare sheep/beef block in the Ngaroma District near Te Awamutu. On […] he married Diana Victoria Barrett. In 1966 Diana was Manager of the Plastic Surgery Unit for Midland health. They have three children: (1) Ruth Cynthia Mandeno (born […], who worked as a registered Comprehensive Nurse in London in 1996. She married Paul Doone […] and their children are Lachlan and Maia. (2) Erin Phillipa Mandeno (born […]). She has teaching ballet and jazz in 1996, and has performed at the Drury Lane Dance Company. She trained as a teacher at Hamilton Teachers’ College and currently teaches at Te Rapa. (3) Mark Mandeno (born […]
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[…] at Te Awamutu. Initially an apprentice mechanic, he is now on his father’s farm at Ngaroma. He has a very active interest in rowing, having won North Island and New Zealand titles in 1996. He is married to Helen.
Clarice Elizabeth Palmer; born 11th January 1918 at Dannevirke, was educated there. She married Bernard (Mac) Sargent at St John the Baptist church, Dannevirke. He worked for the Railways. The family lived at Dannevirke, Opapa (near Te Aute) and later Taneatua (near Whakatane). Clarice died suddenly on 7th August 1984 in Greenlane Hospital, Auckland. Their two children are: (1) Alan MacGregor Sargent (born 21st February 1945). He married Raywin Barbara Thomas at St George’s Church, Whakatane. They first lived at Matamata, but now reside in Auckland. Their children are Sean Michael (born […]) and Michael Alan (born […]. (2) Judith Sargent, who married Peter Davis.
3. William Sutton Palmer, born 13th October 1884 [1883] at Porangahau, was educated at Weber School, passing the 4th Standard. He enjoyed both cricket and clay bird shooting. He enlisted with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force aged 33 years, the 26th Hawke’s Bay Battalion, as a rifleman. According to his war records he was 5’ 10” high with blue eyes, a ruddy complexion and brown hair. He was based at Etaples, France. At one stage he was hospitalised with severe Trench Fever. In April 1919 Sutton was discharged, having done two years service. This must have been a worrying time for the family as his brother Ben had died at Etaples in 1916.
Prior to the war he worked as a farmer at Moeotoa, Te Kuiti, then later as a labourer on the Auckland waterfront. In 1936 he married Caroline Lawson in Wellington. They had no family. In later life he returned to Dannevirke, living in Waterloo Street, where he died on 7th March 1972 [1973] aged 89 years. He is buried at the Mangatera Cemetery.
4. Elizabeth Marion Palmer (known as Beth or Liz) was born on 27th August 1885 at Porangahau. She never married but it is rumoured that she was’ once engaged but her father did not approve and put ‘his spoke in’. The boyfriend went to World war 1 and was killed. She lived on at Mangatoitoi Farm, helping her parents and taking care of them in their later years. She died on 9th September 1978 in Dannevirke and is buried with her parents.
5. Ruth Evelyn Palmer was born 2nd January 1888 at Porangahau. She attended Weber and Dannevirke High schools, gaining 1st prize in Senior Division Matriculation and Latin in 1905. She married Graeme (Max) Speedy on 17th February 1914 at Mangatoitoi Farm. Max was brought up at Wainui, now called Herbertville.
They lived at Paheno Farm at Ngapaeruru, but also had a house in Dannevirke (289 High Street), where Ruth lived with the children while they attended school in Dannevirke. Later they lived at Whakawahine Station in the Akitio district. Max managed the farm while the owner Ray Christopher was away at World War 2.
Ruth was good at sewing – she wrote in a letter in 1912: “I am up to my eyes in sewing”. At the same time she was planning a horse ride to Te Uri to stay with Charles and Elsie Palmer. She died on 15th November 1943 aged 56 years. Max died on 17th May 1945 aged 62 years. They are both buried in the Mangatera Cemetery.
The children and descendants of Ruth and Max:
Glen Ashton Speedy, born 15th December 1914, married Juanita (Nita) Gawith, and lived at Tauranga. Their three children are: (1) Juanita Helen Speedy, born 1941, married Leslie Smith. Their child, Nicola Helen Smith, was born in […]. (2) Phyllis Margaret Speedy, born 1942, married Moustafa Rizls. Their child, Mohammad Glen Rizls was born in […]. (3) Jack McRae Speedy, born 1944 married a) Pamela Caldwell, having one child Paul McCrae Speedy, then b) Julie Silverton, having their child Adrienne Patricia Speedy, born […].
John (Jack) Palmer Speedy was born on 20th March 1916. He died 2003-2004. Jack never married and spent much of his life as cow man and gardener at Glen Ora Station in the Akitio district.
Graeme Speedy, born 17th July 1917, married Lucy Rasmussen. He farmed at Herbertville, and now lives at Dannevirke. Their three children are: (1) Peter Graham Speedy, born […], married Joyline Ross. They live at Palmerston North. They have three children: Sonia Jane Speedy (born […]), Duncan Peter Speedy (born […]) and Gina Clare Speedy (born […]). (2) Andrew Charles Speedy, born […], married Kerry Phillips, and farms at Weber. Their children are: Kim Andrew Speedy (born […]), Alice Rosalind Speedy (born
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[…]) and Rachel Lucy Speedy. (3) Simon Maurice Speedy married Susan Stevenson. Their two children are Christopher Charles Speedy (born […]) and Hamish William Speedy (born […]).
Emily Elizabeth (Betty) Speedy was born 20th November 1918. She married Peter Balfour. Their three children are: (1) Elizabeth Ruth Balfour, born […]. She married, first Paul Barbey, then Max Patmoy, and now lives at Eskdale, Napier. (2) Ian David Balfour, born […], lives at Tinui, Masterton. (3) Juliet Helen Balfour, born […], married Murray Schofield. They live at Gladstone in the Wairarapa. They have three children: Rachel Helen Schofield, Rebecca Schofield and Daniel Schofield.
Alan McCutcheon Speedy was born on 7th October 1921. He married Marie Hales. Their two children are: (1) Judy Gay Speedy, born […], married Allan Swenson. They live at Dannevirke and their family are Hans Joseph Swenson (born […]), and Karl Michael Swenson (born 1977) with one child Danika Marie (born […]) in Dannevirke. (2) Pamela Marie Speedy, born […].
Phil Speedy, born 12th October 1924, married Leila Thorburn. Their three children are: (1) Judith Maud Speedy, born […], and married Peter Feakin. They have four children – Kylie Sharee Feakin ([…]), Andrea Jane Feakin ([…]), Gregory Feakin ([…]) and Alistair Feakin ([…]). (2) Donald Phil Speedy, born […], married Denise Jackson. Their three children are – Stephanie Speedy ([…]), Amanda Speedy ([…]) and Holly Speedy ([…]). (3) Stuart John Speedy, born […], married Kay Marshall. They have three children – Ben Marshall Speedy ([…]), Douglas Speedy ([…]) and Claire Speedy ([…]).
Hugh Groves Speedy, born 19th May 1926, married Nancy McSporran. Their four children are: (1) Ruth Margaret Speedy, born […], (2) Hamish McCutcheon Speedy, born […], (3) Marion Elizabeth Speedy, born […], married Miles Martin, their child being Blair Martin. (4) Graham Hugh Speedy, born […].
[Speedy family information supplied by Peter Speedy, Palmerston North.]
6. Clarence (Ben) Crosse Palmer was born 17th April 1890. He attended Weber School, gaining several prizes for most improved Writing and Good 23 Attendance in 1904, and Proficiency Prize in 1905. He was a lively and popular young man. Starting his career as a farmer he enlisted in the 1st Battalion, NZ Rifle Brigade in December 1915. He was 25 years old. He was 5’ 8”, fair hair and complexion, and blue eyes – according to war records. He served first in Suez, Egypt, then in France at the battle of the Somme. He was admitted to the Dannes, Camiers, General No. 11 Hospital with a severe thigh injury, dying 24 hours later on 26th September 1916. He is buried at Etaples Military Cemetery, France.
6. Frederick Clifford Palmer was born 16th July 1892 at Weber. His father was already 45 years old, his mother 40 years. He was baptised at Kelvin Grove along with Ethel Elizabeth Catherine Crosse (according to L G Crosse’s diary). He was educated at Weber and Dannevirke High School. He worked on the family farm afterwards, then in 1944 when 52 years old, marrying a Weber girl, Catherine (Kitty) Jessie Cameron at the Mangatoitoi Farm residence.
In an article written by Aileen Crosse (John Ernest Crosse’s wife) she has fond memories of Fred and Kitty, who were living across the road from Kelvin Grove.
‘[Kitty] was a great neighbour and having been a nurse was often called for help. She often sent me notes and small gifts addressed to “A Cross the Way”. Kitty was always full of fun and had a mug with a frog attached to the bottom and had much delight in giving it to a visitor or worker and waiting with a great twinkle in her eyes for the reaction. She bred Siamese cats and often had her tom chained to the clothes line where he prowled backwards and forwards yowling loudly. Fred was a much quieter person but always had a friendly twinkle in his eye as he watched on. He was a great friend and very good with farm motors which often caused problems. There was no power before this time.’
On 29th May 1929, early in the afternoon the Mangatoitoi residence was burnt to the ground. Fred and his family were shopping in Dannevirke. [Name withheld] recalled being sent by his mother, Elsie, down town to find his uncle to convey the bad news. It was rumoured that the house had been burgled at the time. A collection of household goods was found later on burnt out in the sheep yards. The local newspaper stated that the fire had started around the kitchen fireplace due to a recent earthquake, neither of which was ever proven. The residence was rebuilt, but was eventually demolished in the 1990s. A few trees still exist on the original site such as a large magnolia and plum
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tree. Mangatoitoi was sold in the 1960s. Kitty and Fred moved to Palmerston North. He died on 25th August 1971. Though they had no children of their own they adopted twin boys: Owen Arthur Palmer (1938) who married Gloria Cunningham, and Graham Ralph Palmer (1938) who married Merle Cruikshank and who have three children: Vivienne Anne Palmer (1960), Jeffrey William Palmer (1962) and Catherine Elizabeth Palmer (1967).
Photo captions –
Above: Elizabeth Palmer, daughter of William & Elizabeth.
Above: Elsie & Charles first home, Te Uri, 1910.
Above: Palmer family c. 1902.
Back Row: Elizabeth (Beth), Mary, Ruth;
Middle Row: Elizabeth & William (parents), Clarence (Ben);
Front: Charles (lying), Frederick and William Sutton.
Above: At Mangatoitoi Farm, Weber, Christmas c.1920.
William Palmer (back with stick)
Standing from left: Mavis Palmer, Glen Speedy (looking up), Enid Palmer (white dress), [Name withheld] (white tie), Elizabeth Ann Palmer (seated) holding ? Alan Speedy, Mary McRae (white dress at back), unidentified Speedy child (RT on chair), Betty Speedy (black dress), Claris Palmer, Jeanie McRae (looking away),
Front seated: unidentified Speedy child (turned away), Gordon McRae, Jack Speedy.
Above: Palmer Farm – original stables, and garage on right: Built 1910.
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CHAPTER THREE
THOMAS EZEKIEL CROSSE OF WOODLAND AND PATOKA
By Catherine Downes
Tom apparently detested his second name, that of his mother’s father, and his second son maintained that he was christened Hugh Edward to suggest that he and his father shared their second name.
Tom’s first recorded memory is of his first taste of cow’s milk when he was nearly three and his parents bought a Shorthorn cow. By then his sister Catherine and brother Samuel Grant had been born. Samuel died a few years later, reputedly poisoned by eating tutu (coriaria arborea). After him came Latima George, Catherine, Samuel Grant, Fanny, Marian (May), Clara and Charles. Another early memory was of narrowly escaping death when an earthquake brought down a large chunk of ceiling on to his bed in 1862 or 1863.
Apparently he gave a hand on the farm (Mangamaire) from an early age. His memoirs mention that he broke in a new colt at the age of ten. He made no mention of early schooling, though it is known there was a primary school at Porangahau. But in a radio broadcast in 1948 he described his ride with his father to school in Napier in 1864 which took five days across country – there were no roads – through fern, scrub and swamps. He enjoyed attending Mr Marshall’s school (now the Ormond Chapel near the old Napier cemetery). He didn’t record whether he rode home alone for the holidays or was fetched by his father, but he did record a ride to Wellington with his father when he was 12 years old, most of the way along the beach. No wonder he grew up tough.
On their father’s death in 1871 Tom and George left school to help Elizabeth run the farm, which they took over completely a couple of years later when she retired to Napier to get her other children educated. Her sons were energetic and innovative farmers who improved the land and increased their flocks and herds year by year, and took an active part in the life of the community. Tom sat on the Patangata and Waipawa County Councils, set up the Rabbit Board and initiated the rabbit-proof fence which was supposed to confine those pests to the Wairarapa. Wool was then the mainstay of farming, legs of mutton were saleable, but the rest 27 of the carcass was boiled down for tallow, not a very profitable exercise. So, when the frozen meat trade was first established in 1882, the Crosse brothers were keenly interested.
In 1884 Tom sailed over to England to have a look at the receiving end of the business. The return journey on the Rangitata changed his life forever, for among the passengers he met the Barker family from Dumfries, Scotland. In March 1886 he married the eldest daughter, Susan. Sadly Susan died in 1887 after their daughter, Amy Susie was born. In 1889 Tom married his sister-in-law, David Ann Thompson Barker, known as Dolly, which at that time was illegal! So their marriage certificate records her grandmother’s name as her mother’s. In 1896 Tom supported Mr Cargill, MP for Dunedin, and others in the same boat, in bringing about the repeal of the law against marrying one’s deceased wife’s sister.
Leaving Mangamaire
In the 1870s and 1880s the Maori leases at Porangahau were expiring and Tom acquired land at Kumeroa, near Woodville, which he cleared and turned into a highly productive farm. In 1892 Dolly’s first daughter, Jesse Dorothy, was born. About the same time Tom bought 168 acres on the outskirts of Hastings, called it ‘Woodland’ after the Barker property in Scotland, and built a house modelled on his wife’s old home. In 1893 their son, Thomas Grant, was born, Hugh Edward in 1896 and Louie Audrey in 1897. The next year Tom and Dolly paid a visit to her family in Scotland, leaving the children to be cared for by their aunt, Margaret Otto Barker, known to them as ‘At’, otherwise as Madge, and who continued to live with the Crosse’s till she died in 1942. Their youngest child, Margaret Mary, was born in 1904.
During the 1890s Tom kept a diary (of which the Hawke’s Bay Museum holds a copy) which records frequent visits by train to Kumeroa, and occasionally to his mother at Palmerston North. He also recorded purchases of small blocks of land near Woodland on which he established studs of various breeds of sheep; trips to Hastings and
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Napier by horse and trap to attend meetings of numerous councils and boards of which he was a member; and voyages by coastal steamer to judge at A & P shows from Auckland to Nelson.
In 1902 the government took over Kumeroa for closer settlement, and Tom bought Patoka Station, 30 miles inland from Napier. He took his farm manager, Harry Roil, from Kumeroa to manage it. It was poor country then – with a light coating of pumice from the great Taupo eruption, and a dense cover of scrub and fern over most of it, which was not completely cleared till the 1950s. Young stock bred there was taken down to Woodland to be fattened for market.
Establishing Schools
When the time came for his children to be educated Tom established Woodford House in Hastings, at first as a co-educational primary school for his sons as well as daughters. Later it moved to Havelock North as a secondary school for girls, where his daughters finished their education, except for Amy, who went on to Miss Swainson’s school in Wellington. Grant and Hugh went on to Heretaunga, forerunner of Hereworth preparatory school for boys, and then to Wanganui Collegiate School. The whole family made one or two trips to Scotland, where the children went to a local school and Hugh picked up a delightful Scots accent, useful much later when he was reading Walter Scott to his own children. They must have been in Britain in 1909 when Grant went to Charterhouse, thence to the British Army at Woolwich for officer-training, and so to France. Hugh attended Collegiate 1910-1914, joined the New Zealand Army and arrived in France in 1916. Both brothers ended the war as majors, each with a Military Cross and Mentioned in Despatches. An odd little sidelight records them as soldiers from Fiji because in 1911 Tom bought a sugarcane plantation there and named them (both still at school) as partners. That venture was not a success and was eventually abandoned. Tom carried on with Woodland and Patoka until 1923, when the mortgagors told him that he could either put Hugh on Patoka in the hope of making it viable or lose it. No doubt he kept a guiding hand on the enterprise, and always went up at shearing time to class the wool, which he continued to do till he was over 90 and nearly blind. In 1939 he sold Woodland and lived in Napier until Dolly died in 1943, when he moved into lodgings in Hastings, dying there in 1952 aged 97.
Mrs Humphrey Barnicoat MBE (nee Susie Amy Crosse)
Amy, born 1887, always wanted to be a nurse, and when war broke out in 1914 her father finally consented and she became a probationer at Bowen Street Hospital in Wellington. She completed her training at the Napier General Hospital.
In 1919 she married Dr Humphrey Barnicoat whom she had met at Napier. They moved to Mangonui, Northland, where he was in charge of the hospital. Their son John was born there. In 1923 Humphrey took up a private practice in Kimbolton (north of Feilding) and Amy became very involved in community affairs, church activities and the school committee. In 1931 she founded the Kimbolton Women’s Institute and was very active in that organisation for many years.
In 1940 Humphrey was appointed medical officer at Fort Dorset in Wellington. In 1943 Amy became Dominion President of the Women’s Institute, travelling widely throughout the country visiting Institutes in remote areas and cheering lonely women in out-of-the-way places. She was a great wit and wonderful raconteuse. She also worked with the St John’s Ambulance and the medical branch of the General Practitioners’ Society, the National Council of Women, the Pioneer Club, the Standards Council, the New Zealand Society for the Protection of Home and Family and the Welfare Services Distribution Committee. In the New Year’s Honours of 1955 she was awarded the MBE (Member of the British Empire). As her youngest sister used to say, ‘The family hobby is minding other people’s business’.
In 1944 Humphrey returned to private practice and he and Amy lived in Seatoun until his death in 1961. She then moved to Karori to live with John and Betty, where she died peacefully in November 1967, aged 80 years.
John Barnicoat, son of Amy and Humphrey, was born in 1923. He was educated at Kimbolton Primary school and New Plymouth Boys’ High School. Leaving High School he spent the last few years of World War 2 in the land-based forces at Trentham Camp, Wellington, but did not go overseas to fight due to a childhood medical
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condition – bronchitis. In 1948-1949 he spent time travelling and climbing in Tibet and Nepal, one of the very few ‘white’ foreigners to travel through the mountains at that time. The in the early 1950’s he worked in Melbourne at an Australian company (XX).
In 1954, while travelling on board ship to New Zealand, he met Ethel Elizabeth Shankland, usually known as Betty. Betty was a teacher of the deaf at the School for the Deaf in Melbourne. On 13 October 1956 they were married in Melbourne, with a guard of honour made up of pupils from the School for the Deaf. In the later 1950s, because of concerns about John’s aging parents, they moved back to Wellington, New Zealand. John eventually took over a small local dairy shop in the suburb of Northland. In the early 1960s he was employed at Bryant and May, Tory Street, Wellington, then going on to complete qualifications as company secretary.
In […] the twin girls, Louise Ewart and Cynthia Wallis, were born. John and Betty built a new home in Karori at 36 Croydon Street with a granny- flat underneath for Amy. The twins started school at Samuel Marsden Collegiate School in 1965. When John resigned from Bryant and May in 1973 the family moved to Napier where John began working at Williams and Kettle. The twins attended Napier Girls’ High School. Cynthia returned to Marsden for two years, 1977-1978, while Louise remained at Napier Girls’ High. Cynthia began a BA course at Auckland University in 1979, while Louise started at the Central Institute of Technology, Heretaunga, in the Hutt Valley, to study for a diploma in Hotel Management and Catering. Cynthia travelled in the UK and Europe for two years at the end of 1981. Louise followed after completing her diploma.
In 1983 John and Betty moved to St Heliers, Auckland, buying a giftware shop called Trend, and running it for a few years prior to early retirement at Taupo. In 1983 both Cynthia and Louise returned from overseas. Sadly on 7th September 1986 Betty died of cancer. In the following year Louise moved to Whanganui to take up work in the fitness industry, working in a local gym, while Cynthia established Proba Gallery and Medusa Video in Ponsonby, Auckland. Meanwhile, John married Susan Arkwright (nee Sheriff). Cynthia later moved and established the Betty Wallis Gallery in Parnell, Auckland, in 1990, then moved to Dunedin in 1992 to take up the position of Curator of Education (later Manager of Visitor Programmes) at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
On […] Louise married Desmond (Des) Healy, a pharmacist, in Whanganui, their first child Genevieve Betty being born on […]. In 1997 Cynthia moved to live with Joseph R Camacho in Berkeley, California. During this time she completed her Masters in Museum Studies (Massey University) and Certificates in Business and Marketing (UC Berkeley). Joseph Desmond Healy was born to Louise and Des on […], while Thomas Patrick Healy arrived on […].
John Barnicoat died in Taupo on 23rd July 2001. Cynthia returned to New Zealand in 2001 after the death of Joseph R Camacho and began working in 2002 as a Manager at the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington. In 2008 she took up the position of Director at Whanganui Regional Museum, Whanganui, resigning two years later and returning to Wellington.
Descendants of Thomas Ezekiel and Dolly Crosse.
1. Jessie Dorothy was born in Hastings, 2nd January 1892. She was educated at Woodford House, and later married Richard Philson Abraham on 4th August 1914. She was a great beauty with lovely golden curls, described by a friend of her youth as ‘looking like an angel and swearing like a demon’. She and Richie lived in Palmerston North and raised four children – Anthony Richard (1915), Michael Thomas (1917), Janet Philson (1921) and Mary Arnaud (1923). Richie was a partner in Abraham and Williams, seed merchants, but died untimely in 1933. So Jessie, a highly gifted needlewoman, went into business as a children’s dressmaker, making beautiful garments in her home in Broadway until her death in 1941 [1942].
Their children – Anthony, Michael, Jane and Mary:
(a) Anthony Richard Abraham (Tony) was born on 26th July 1915 in Palmerston North. Educated at Carncot School and Palmerston North Boys’ High School. He left school when his father died. To help support the family he worked for Brian Kieller, and later for his uncle Hugh Crosse at
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Patoka (1934-36). He then moved to Taihape to work for his uncle Larry Sherriff on Kowhiwhi, and married the girl next door, Joan Smith, in 1939, whose father owned Lonehand. He married just before sailing to England with the First Echelon – Cavalry Division to fight in World War 2.
He landed at Alexandria and was transferred to Greece. Retreating before the German advance into Greece he was shot, wounded and taken prisoner at Maleme airfield, Crete. He was flown by German plane to Salonika, then transferred by cattle truck to Landsdorfe [Landsdorf] POW camp on the Polish border. Later he spent time at Stalag VIIIB, Berlin, where he was involved in espionage with John Brown and Ian Rhyburn, as recounted in the book ‘Despite Captivity’. Those prisoners were released to fend for themselves ahead of the Russian advance on the Eastern Front, and walked miles across Germany, eventually reaching England in 1944.
Tony returned to New Zealand in 1945 and went into partnership with his father-in-law, farming Lonehand, 25 kms east of Taihape in the foothills of the Ruahine Ranges, on the banks of the Rangitikei River. He and Joan retired from the farm in the early 1970s, due to Tony’s ill-health, and built a house at Acacia Bay, Taupo. There he continued his enjoyment of golf and fishing, and playing the saxophone in a small jazz band, a skill that he had acquired as a POW. In 1977 he was a finalist in the TV games show, Mastermind. He died at Taupo in 1995, a few years after Joan.
The children of Tony and Joan:
Virginia (Ginty) was born at Taihape in 1946, educated at Taoroa Primary School and Nga Tawa, Marton. She trained at the Whanganui Karitane Hospital, married Geoffrey Thomas McGuire and farmed at Kaitieke, Taumarunui, and later moved to Taupo. In the family tradition she is a skilled needlewoman, whose speciality is patchwork, in which she has created many beautiful quilts. She is fond of travel, often off the beaten track, such as cycling in France with a group of friends, and of gardening. She and Geoffrey have two children and two grandchildren.
Their children are Prudence Virginia McGuire and Thomas Stronach McGuire. Prudence was born at Taihape in […], educated at Taihape and Kaitieke Primary schools and Nga Tawa, Marton. She graduated LLB from Canterbury University and practised law at Palmerston North and Wairarapa before moving to Rotorua. A partner in Davys Burton Solicitors, she was senior Crown Prosecutor, but is now a barrister in her own practice, specialising in family law, and involved in the family law section of the New Zealand Law Society. She has two children – Sophia Jessie Gallon (born […]) and Jack Aubrey James Gallon ([…]).
Thomas Stronach, born […], was educated at Kaitieke Primary school, Huntley Prep School, Marton, and St Paul’s Collegiate, Hamilton. He graduated BA and BCA at Victoria University, Wellington. He practised in Wellington, Auckland and is currently in Sydney. A member of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants, he is at present master trainer holding certificate three and four with the Australian Institute of Fitness.
Michael Richard Vivian Abraham, Tony and Joan’s second child, was born in […] and raised at Lonehand, educated at Taoroa Primary school Huntley Prep School and Wanganui Collegiate. After shepherding 1968-1970 he gained a Diploma of Agriculture and VFM at Lincoln University, and returned to Taihape in […]. He married Carol Sinclair, daughter of H R Sinclair of Ashburton in 1974. He farmed at Lonehand until 2000, when he sold the farm and moved to Westbury, Ngawaka, Taihape. He was a Rangitikei District Councillor 1989-1992, director and chairman of the Taihape Vet Club 1977-1992, and Justice of the Peace.
(b) Michael Thomas (Mick) Abraham was born in Palmerston North in 1917, educated at College Street school and Palmerston North Boys’ High School. He left school aged 14 and started work in the motor department of Abraham and Williams, ending up with a trade certificate as a motor engineer. As a territorial soldier he served for several years in the 8th Battery, NZ Field Artillery as a gunner.
In 1938 he joined the RNZAF to be trained as an initially at Trentham, then Hobsonville, after which he was posted to a aircraft engineer, bomber squadron, working on a succession of antiquated aircraft. After war broke out he served on various stations in New Zealand and in the Pacific, mainly in a Catalina flying boat squadron. He took up the bagpipes and played in various bands. On his return from overseas he married
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Doreen Souness, left the Air Force in 1948 and joined the engineering department of Tasman Empire Airways Ltd (TEAL), servicing flying boats. He was in charge of aircraft overhaul and repair, and travelled the Pacific and Australia repairing them and later repairing and assembling topdressing and other light aircraft. In the 1950’s the airline graduated to land-based aeroplanes. He spent some months in California at the Douglas training school while the DC8s were being built. At that time Mangere airport was opened and TEAL became Air New Zealand. Mick was put in charge of aircraft maintenance and repair, and of the overhaul of Air Force Orions.
In 1975 Mick was appointed Technical Assistant to the Chief Engineer. In 1977 he and Doreen retired to Kinloch, Taupo, where they had a house built on a property that they had owned for some time. He enjoyed fishing, gardening and golf, while Doreen was a keen tramper. They had three sons – Robert (born […], Bruce ([…]) and Richard ([…]). Mick died in 1990 and Doreen in 2008.
The children of Mick and Doreen:
Robert Michael Abraham was born in Auckland, educated at New Lynn Primary, Avondale Intermediate, Kelston High School and North Shore Teachers’ Training College. He taught in various schools in the North Island, many of them small sole charge schools, and retired to Tokoroa in 2004 where he enjoys a variety of activities. He married Victoria White in […], their son Robert Edward being born in […]. Robert then married Jacky Dodunsky, whose daughter Hannah Aparima Boynton was born in […], but they also have Heather ([…]), Benjamin ([…]) and May ([…]). Heather has three daughters – Anahera Abraham ([…]), Mere Green ([…]) and Aroha Green ([…]). She works as a prison officer at Waikeria Prison. Benjamin was educated at Hato Paora College, Feilding and now manages a cool store at Whakatu near Hastings. His partner, Kelly Linda Mua, is studying for a Master’s degree in early childhood education. They have a daughter, Georgia Roimata ([…]). May attends John Paul College, Rotorua.
Bruce Edward was born in Auckland in […], educated at New Lynn, Avondale Intermediate and Kelston High. He started an engineering degree, but the outdoors beckoned so he went to Australia and worked in the mines driving big machines. Returning to New Zealand’s West Coast he drove machinery for the gold mines. As a sideline he made leather coin purses and had a share in a tourist shop at Punakaiki. The proceeds from the purse sales enabled him to build a house. Eventually he moved to Turangi and became interested in his brother Richard’s profession of taxidermy, specialising in trout. He continued to drive big machines, working on the Taupo bypass, till 2010, when he and his wife Frances moved to Opotiki, where he still practices taxidermy.
Richard Warwick was educated at Arahoe, Kelston High and Taupo-nui-a-tia High Schools. While at school he took a course in taxidermy and took it up full-time when he left school. Later he worked in a timber mill, returning to taxidermy from time to time. He has been world champion taxidermist several times. The competition is intense, especially in America – he is now a judge of that demanding craft. He married Jenny in […]. They live in Taupo, and have two sons – Michael ([…]) and Callum ([…]).
(c) Janet Philson Abraham was born in Palmerston North in 1921 and probably educated at Queens. She trained as a nurse but had to leave when she contracted tuberculosis. She married Ralph Walker-Lear. They lived for some time in Fiji, but eventually divorced. They had no children. Janet moved to Wellington and worked for some years as a phlebotomist. She retired to Taupo where she died in 1994 or 1995.
(d) Mary Arnaud Abraham, later Marie, was born in Palmerston North in 1923. She joined the Air Force after schooling at Queens. In 1946 she married Flight Lieutenant Lester Castle. Lester was a solicitor practising in Wellington and later became Chief Ombudsman for New Zealand, being awarded the CMG. Mary was a gifted craftswoman and needleworker. She enjoyed bridge, and though her health was poor for the last 20 years of her life she enjoyed travelling abroad with Lester on official trips and holidays. She died in 1985, Lester in 1986.
Their eldest daughter Susan, born in Wellington in […], was educated at Marsden College. She trained and worked as a nurse till she married John Hole, lawyer, of Hawke’s Bay in […]. He practised in Taupo and was appointed a District
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Court Judge in 1985 and sat in Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and Auckland. Sue worked as a bereavement counsellor at Cranford Hospice, Hastings, and later at the Starship Children’s Hospital, Auckland. Their children: Jessica ([…]) – was educated at Taupo, Gisborne, Iona College and Canterbury University. She is an events manager based in Christchurch. Brigid ([…]) is a doctor in Nelson, having been educated at Taupo, Gisborne, Canterbury and Auckland Universities. Juliet (1975) died in 1976. Richard ([…]) was educated at Lindisfarne College and Massey University is a logistics manager in London. He married Sarah Jane Hook of London in […]. James Christopher David ([…]) was educated at Te Wharau Primary in Gisborne, Wanganui Collegiate and Canterbury University. He is a business performance manager.
Timothy John Castle ([…]), second child of Mary and Lester, married Janet Wardlaw in […]. He is a barrister in Wellington. They have three sons – Ben ([…]), Thomas ([…]) and Jack ([…]).
Sally Ruth Castle ([…]), third child of Mary and Lester, was educated at Marsden and Victoria University. She gained a BA and a Diploma of Teaching (Secondary) and NZAHPER (physical education). After teaching she worked for Sport Hawke’s Bay, Roadsafe Hawke’s Bay and is now ACC Injury Prevention Consultant. She married John Phelps, a primary school teacher in […]. He is now in business as Technology Concepts. They live in Taradale. Their children are: Matthew James ([…]) who is now a criminal lawyer in Napier; Kate Elizabeth ([…]), a fashion buyer in Sydney; and Nicholas John ([…]) who lives in Auckland, having gained a B Com and LLB.
Peter Richard ([…]) is the fourth child of Mary and Lester. He married Adele Cotterell and is a solicitor in Wellington. They have two sons, Andrew ([…]) and David ([…]).
2. Thomas Grant Crosse (1893-1961), the second child of Thomas Ezekiel and Dolly Crosse, was educated at Woodford House Primary, also at a school near Sanquar, Scotland, Heretaunga, Havelock North, Wanganui Collegiate and Charterhouse, England. He trained at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and joined the Royal Garrison Artillery as a Second Lieutenant in 1913. He served in France and Belgium 1915-1919. In 1918 he was Mentioned in Despatches, and awarded the Military Cross in 1919. That year he took leave in New Zealand. In 1920 he resigned from the army with the rank of Major and was appointed to the Reserve of Officers with the same rank. That year he and his wife, Isobel Helen Harman, known as Midge, went to India where he managed a tea plantation until he joined the Bihar Light Horse in 1925. He took leave in New Zealand in 1926 and was transferred to the Army Department in 1931. He was recalled to active service with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Field Artillery, which was apparently disbanded in 1945. In 1947 he was de-mobbed at Aldershot. In 1947 he and Isobel bought Morris Lodge, a private hotel near Farnham, Surrey, where he served with the Home Guard (1952-1956) and was a very active member of the golf club. He died in 1961.
2. Hugh Edward Crosse 1896-1962), the third child of Thomas and Dolly, was born in Hastings, educated at Woodford House primary, Heretaunga Prep school, then at a school near Sanquar on family visits to Scotland, and then Wanganui Collegiate from 1910 to 1914. He joined the New Zealand Rifle Brigade and served in France 1916 – 1918. In 1917 he was awarded the Military Cross for attacking a gun emplacement with a grenade near Gravenstafel, and also Mentioned in Despatches. He served with the army of occupation in Germany on Sir Andrew Russell’s staff with the rank of Major, the youngest in the Imperial Forces. He returned to New Zealand in 1919 and won the New Zealand Amateur Golf Championship that year.
Returning by sea from a visit to his brother Grant in India he met an English actress, Delmira Bokenham (stage name – Mira Kenham) who was travelling to Sydney under contract to J C Williamson in May 1921. They were married in June 1922 and in November 1923 Hugh took over the management of Patoka Station. He was a gifted and innovative farmer who soon saw that burning scrub and casting grass seed into the ashes would never improve the land. He began to plough it, first with horses, then from 1929 with tractors, and to sow English grasses with superphosphate. When aerial topdressing was introduced after World War 2 even the steepest hills could be sown and fertilised. Patoka soon became the most beautiful fertile property, whose stock fetched top prices in the saleyards for many decades. Mira was a woman
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of strong character and great beauty – she had been the toast of Sydney! – who made him the perfect wife and adapted to the primitive backblocks lifestyle amazingly well. They had no electricity till 1955, and she had to feed the farm staff of two or three men as well as her growing family.
Hugh and Mira had three children – Catherine (1923), Susan (1925) and Thomas (1928). Their primary schooling was by correspondence from England, Parents’ National Educational Union, based on Rudolph Steiner, as there was no school reasonably close to Patoka.
In 1939 Mira went to England to see her family and was caught by the outbreak of war, arriving home in early 1940, whereupon Hugh joined the army and sailed for Egypt via England at the end of the year. He served as Assistant Adjutant-General Quartermaster General of Maadi Camp and returned to New Zealand via Italy and England in 1944. He was awarded the OBE (Military Division) in the New Year’s Honours list of 1945. In his absence the farm was run by a neighbour, and Mira took up a job as Matron of Harvey House, Wanganui Collegiate, where she directed plays for the boys as well as caring for them like a mother.
Hugh involved himself in public life as his father had done – sitting on the Hawke’s Bay County Council, chairing the Northern Hawke’s Bay Rabbit Board, Puketapu Federated Farmers and other groups at Patoka. He excelled at cricket in his youth, and golf all his life, being Hawke’s Bay amateur champion several times. He took up squash in Egypt and was a keen member of the Nomads Golf Club until his death in 1962. Mira continued to live at Patoka until her death in 1971.
Marie Catherine Crosse, the eldest child, was born in Hastings. After correspondence schooling she attended Nga Tawa (1936-1941), gained a BA from Otago University in 1944, then Victoria University College MA in French in 1945. She worked as an archivist for the RNZAF Historical Records Section in Wellington 1946-1947. She was a keen member of University Dramatic Societies and of Unity Theatre, Wellington, acting, directing and serving on committees. She married Harold Edward Parkhurst Downes in 1948. He was a Captain in the New Zealand Army and also involved in Unity Theatre.
They went to London in 1949 where he worked in industrial psychology and she for a theatrical dressmaker. After flying visits to Scotland, France and Italy, where Harry had served after the war, they returned to Patoka, part of which was being sub-divided to settle returned servicemen. They took over a small block, Mangahina, in 1954. The family hobby soon raised its head – from running local committees Harry progressed to the National Council of Federated Farmers, chairing the Agricultural Training Council, the Environmental Council and others. He died in 1978 aged 60 years.
Catherine joined the Patoka Countrywomen’s Institute, directed and performed in one-act plays, sat on committees including the National Executive, held office in the New Zealand Theatre Federation and the Federation of University (now Graduate) Women and other groups, and is a very enthusiastic member of the Embroiderers’ Guild. She was appointed a Justice of the Peace (JP) in 1984. Harry and Catherine’s family are: Peter Edward ([…]), Alan George ([…]), Celia Jane ([…]). Catherine remained at Patoka until 2003 then moved to Taradale.
Catherine and Harry’s children:
Peter Edward Downes, born […], was educated at Patoka, Lindisfarne College, and Lincoln University, gaining a Dip Ag in 1974. He worked on Mangahina in 1975, then travelled to Britain in 1976. While travelling in Europe he met and married Elsy Jonsson of Sweden in 1978. They returned to Patoka where he worked for his mother then for his uncle Thomas until he and Elsy moved to the Waikato to take up dairying in 1981. Their son Nicholas Edward was born in […]. Peter worked as a sharemilker on a number of Waikato farms till 1995, when they sold their herd and bought a liquor shop in Morrinsville. Subsequently their marriage broke up, Elsy returning to Sweden. In […] Peter married Cara Atherton, and acquired two step children, Patricia and Michael Goodwin. Peter has been a keen hunter, fisherman, glider pilot and diver from an early age. As a sharemilker he chaired the local sharemilkers’ section of Federated Farmers. Meanwhile his son, Nicholas Edward was educated at Cambridge, Gordonton and Orini Primary Schools, St Paul’s Collegiate and the Waikato Institute of Technology, gaining a Bachelor of Information Technology. His work has
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taken him to Sydney and London – he returned to New Zealand in 2010.
Alan George Downes was born in Napier in […], educated at Patoka, Lindisfarne College and Massey University, studying for a Dip Ag. After travelling and working in England, Europe, Israel and Asia, he returned to Mangahina in 1978 where he farmed until 2000. In […] he married Vivien Currie, a secondary school teacher who continued teaching in Napier after their marriage. In 2000. they leased the farm to a neighbouring dairy farmer and went to England. There Vivien taught and Alan found work quite unconnected with farming. Returning to Patoka in 2000 they sold the farm and moved to Westshore. Vivien continued to teach while Alan renovated the house, tended gardens for friends and immersed himself in music. At Lindisfarne he had played in the pipe band and learnt the trumpet. At Patoka he had learnt the guitar and saxophone and played in the Napier Big Band. After returning from England he went back to the guitar and song writing, trained as a chef, chaired the Westshore Ratepayers’ Association and organised another group. At the end of 2010 Alan and Vivien moved to Wellington where Vivien joined the New Zealand Qualification Authority.
Celia Jane Downes was born in […], educated at Patoka and Woodford House. On leaving school she worked as a shepherd on several properties, travelled and worked in England and Ireland, and later Australia. She married Richard Hammond of Hunterville in […]. Their son Alistair was born in […], Celia and Richard divorced and she farmed on her own account at Hunterville while Alistair went to school there. In 2010 they moved to Whanganui where Alistair attends Wanganui Collegiate.
Susan Jane Crosse, the second child of Hugh and Mira was at first educated at home, then went to Nga Tawa and after schooling to the Canterbury School of Art. It was here she met and married Maxwell McGlashan, a science student, in 1974. Two years later Max went to Reading University on a scholarship, and thereafter enjoyed a distinguished career lecturing at Reading and Exeter Universities, and as Professor of Physical Chemistry at London University College. Susan and Max were enthusiastic mountaineers who spent summer holidays tramping or climbing in New Zealand and Europe. She was a skilful needle woman and loved to visit art galleries. When Max retired they moved to Sussex. After his death in 1997 she lived in Great Missenden until she died in 2006.
Thomas Hugh Crosse, the third child of Hugh and Mira, was also educated at home at first, then attended Hereworth, Havelock North, and Massey College, gaining a Dip Ag in 1949. When he returned home to work on Patoka Station the land was in bad shape after years of war-time austerity, the drought of 1945-1946 and the rabbit plague that accompanied it. He spent the next few years on a tractor crushing scrub and restoring pasture before he could devote himself to the stock work at which he excelled, following in his father’s footsteps.
Thomas married Jane Wood of Napier in 1954. Life was still hard on the home front until electricity came to the district in 1955. A school had been built on Patoka Station shortly after the war which was a help when their children reached school age. Their children are: Sarah ([…]), William ([…]), Benjamin ([…]) and Christopher ([…]). Thomas and Jane took an active part in local activities, such as Federated Farmers and Red Cross, and further afield. Thomas was particularly interested in education. He sat on boards and committees of Hereworth, Woodford House and Wanganui Collegiate from the time that Sarah was at Woodford till the end of his life, as well as farm-related groups – Meat and Wool Electoral College and the Board of Richmond Meats, among others. Aftre [After] he retired from active farming Thomas and Jane moved to Taradale, enjoyed travelling around the world, visiting Susan and other friends, and exploring New Zealand. He died in 2006.
Sarah was born in Napier, educated at Patoka, Woodford House and Christchurch Teachers’ Training College. She taught briefly in New Zealand, then went to London in 1981. It was here that she met and married Kevin Magill, a town planner. They settled in Prestwood, Buckinghamshire, where she taught a class of special needs children for many years. She now works as an adviser to teachers of special needs children, travelling to a number of schools in the county. They have two children – Chloe Jane ([…]) and Daniel Patrick ([…]). The whole family spent 1999 in New Zealand where Chloe went to Woodford House and Daniel to Puketapu Primary. Their home in Prestwood was not far from Susan
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McGlashan in Great Missenden and they enjoyed a close relationship. Chloe has a BA from Bristol University. She returned to New Zealand for a gap year and now works as a post-production assistant in a television studio in London. Daniel is still at school in Bucks.
William Hugh Crosse was schooled at Patoka, Hereworth, Wanganui Collegiate, and then gained a BB from Canterbury University. After working in London he returned to work for the Ministry of Works in Nelson and Wellington 1995-1997. Then he changed direction, buying a vineyard at Rapaura, in the Wairau Valley near Blenheim. He married Linda Stent in […]. They have three sons – Thomas ([…]), Oliver ([…]) and Hugo ([…]). From 1994 to 1999 he was President of the Marlborough Grapegrowers. When the Grapegrowers Council combined with the New Zealand Wine Institute to form the New Zealand Wine-growers, a merger in which he played a part, William was Deputy Chairman 2002-2003. He parted from Linda in 2008 and bought a second vineyard at Bannockburn, near Cromwell in Otago, which he runs from Blenheim in tandem with his Marlborough property. The eldest son, Thomas, is studying architecture at Victoria University. Oliver is studying law at Canterbury University and Hugo is currently at Wanganui Collegiate.
Peter Benjamin Crosse was educated at Patoka, Hereworth and Wanganui Collegiate. After a year in Queensland Benjamin went to Lincoln College to study for a B Ag Com (1979-1981). He joined the Rural Bank as a Registered Valuer and was posted to Te Kuiti and later to Hakataramea, Otago (1982-1985). In 1985 he returned to Patoka Station and proved to be as gifted in livestock and pasture management as his father and grandfather. He married Suzanne Jill Shearer in […]. They have three children – Lucy ([…]), Max ([…]) and Emily ([…]). True to form he serves on the Patoka School Board of trustees and the Patoka Memorial Hall Committee. Lucy attends Woodford House, Max has begun at Wanganui Collegiate, while Emily is at Patoka Primary.
Christopher Grant Crosse, after attending Patoka School, Hereworth and Wanganui Collegiate, travelled through Europe from Spain to Scandinavia and England, then returned to work on the farm until he discovered an interest in helicopters, learnt to fly them, and to circumnavigate the horrors of red tape that try to entangle the entrepreneur. Chris is now the owner/operator of East Kaweka Helicopters, with a comfortable house and hangar combined in a patch of bush at Puketitiri, close to the Kaweka Range. He flies hunters and trampers in and out to pursue their hazardous sports in the mountains.
4. Louie Audrey Crosse was educated at Woodford House and later in England. Audrey married Ralph Hewat in 1920. He was with Lowe and Charteris until he retired in 1964, except for a year spent managing his father-in-law’s sugar plantation in Fiji 1926-1927. We assume that that venture fell victim to the Great Depression. Audrey and Ralph returned to Palmerston North. In 1936 they moved to Melbourne with their elder son, David, leaving their other children at Woodland for about a year. They both became involved in World War 2 – Audrey made Bren gun carriage parts in the engineering school at Melbourne University. She then joined the AWAS, eventually driving for the American Army.
After the war she and Ralph lived at Bowral, NSW for eight years before returning to Melbourne. She was a wonderful needlewoman and exhibited her beautiful embroidery on many occasions in London, Australia and New Zealand, winning many awards. They had three children – David (1921), Ann (1922) and Timothy (1928). She died in Ballarat in 1972.
David was educated at Palmerston North and Christ’s College, then at Melbourne University where he studied medicine. He served in the army in Australia during the war then practised as a GP in Ballarat. He retired to Buninyong and died there in 1993. He and his wife Mary had a son, Graeme, and twin daughters, Fiona and Jeannette. Graeme is a town planner employed by the Bowral Shire Council NSW. He and his wife Claire have two children – Dianna and Geoffrey.
Ann was educated at Queenswood School, Hastings and St Catherine’s School, Melbourne. She went to Fiji with her parents and elder brother in 1926, then returned to Palmerston North and later Woodland, Hastings. Ann started to train as a nurse but illness put an end to that career, so she joined the Civil Service. In 1945 she married William Thomas Huntriss RNR. They settled on a poultry farm in Scotland, then returned to England where William
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became a forester. His employer sent him to South Africa to convert 9000 acres of bush into a pine plantation. Ann played a very active part in that venture, planting, cultivating and managing a pastoral and cropping farm. William went back to sea, then returned to poultry, while Ann ran the plantation and farm. He died in 1959. They had two sons – Richard ([…]) and William ([…]).
After her husband’s death Ann left the farm and had a couple of jobs in South Africa before returning to Melbourne with her sons. There she worked for various organisations in positions of responsibility, including Principal of Vercoe Business College, as well as serving on several charitable bodies. She married Don Howell in 1968, moved to his house in Adelaide, and acquired a step-daughter, Margaret. Don died in 2005 so Ann moved to Inverloch, Victoria where she died in 2008.
Richard, the eldest of Ann and William’s children, was born at Stranrae, Scotland, educated in South Africa and Melbourne, and then joined the Australian Navy as an engineer. After 12 years he retired from the Navy and went to a shipyard at Williamstown, repairing and building ships, among them several for the RNZN. He married Jewel in […]. Their daughter, Nicole ([…]) trained as a science engineer, and married Ben Jackson in […]. They have four children – Sarah ([…]), Emma ([…]), Matthew ([…]) and Hannah ([…]).
William David (Bill – though Ann called him David) was born in England, and educated in South Africa and Melbourne. He joined the Fleet Air Arm, specialising in electronics, did a plumbing course before leaving the service, which was based at Nowra, and set up a plumbing business there. He has recently retired from it. He married Judy in […], had a son, Stephen, ([…]), divorced in […] and in […] married Olga June.
Timothy Hewat was educated in Palmerston North, Hastings and Melbourne. He became a journalist, went to London and worked for what his uncle Grant called ‘the yellow press’ (Daily Mail?) He married Mary, also a journalist. She died when quite young. Tim returned to Australia where he wrote a number of books on historical and political topics, as well as writing for newspapers and magazines. He married Anne, who bore him twin daughters – Susan and Caroline. He died some years ago. Susan married David Glanville – they have a daughter, Annabell. Caroline married Neil Hunter.
Photo captions –
Above: Thomas Crosse and two generations of descendants – 1938. From left: Tom, Hugh, Dolly, Catherine, Thomas, Susan, and Dolly’s sister Margaret, known as ‘Madge’ or ‘At’.
Above: Dollie Crosse with children (clockwise) Louie Audrey, Thomas Grant, Hugh Edward, Jessie, Amy Susie (daughter of Susan Crosse (nee Barker) – 1902.
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Photo captions –
Above: Thomas Ezekiel Crosse as a young man, 1884 (taken in London).
Above: Patoka Homestead, 1951.
Above: From left – adults standing: Audrey Hewat, Mira Crosse, Hugh Crosse, Ritchie ?, Jessie ?, Ralph Hewit [Hewat], T. Grant Crosse.
From left- children standing: Janet Abraham, David Hewat, Mary Abraham, Ann Hewat.
Photo – Palmerston North, Spring 1926.
Above: Woodland – corner of Crosses Road and St George’s Road, west of Havelock North (where the Hort. Research station is now sited). The oak trees Thomas planted are still there.
Above: Standing: Margaret Otto Barker (Madge or At), Tom Crosse. Seated: Catherine, Susan and Thomas Crosse. Taken at Woodland, Hastings.
Above: 1. to r. – Catherine and Susan Crosse, Tom (granddad), Margaret Dewar, Thomas Crosse, baby David Dewar.
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CHAPTER FOUR
LATIMA GEORGE CROSSE OF KELVIN GROVE, WEBER
By Barbara Stokes and Donald Crosse
Latima George Crosse was the fourth child of Charles and Elizabeth. (Samuel Grant, his immediate elder sibling, who was born two years before him, died as an infant in 1861 and is buried in the plot where later his father was to be buried.)
Latima George, known as George, was born on 12 September 1858. He claimed to be the first Pakeha child born at Porangahau. Primary school education began at a settlers’ school at Porangahau, and later Thomas and George attended Napier Grammer [Grammar] School. [See Hilda Timms Crosse, Thomas Ezekiel – Biography from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.]
When their father Charles was killed in January 1871 both boys were summoned back to Mangamaire to help their mother, Elizabeth, run the farm. Eventually in 1883 the lease ran-out. Thomas bought land at Kumeroa (near Woodville) while George went to Waimata at Herbertville. It was from there that George began working for the Hawke’s Bay Rabbit Board and after three year years was appointed inspector. Rabbit infestation from the Wellington region had become a real problem. ‘His duty was to supervise the erection of a rabbit-proof fence from the coast at Waimata to the junction of the Manawatu and Tiraumea Rivers near Woodville, a distance of 53 miles (approx 85 kms) and taking six years to complete’. [George’s notes] This was in effect also the provincial boundary between Wellington and Hawke’s Bay.
‘In 1888 he purchased a block of land on the rabbit fence line near Weber which was to become “Kelvin Grove” [George] It would have been bush covered and would have required clearing and developing. He eventually met and married Annie Jessie Munro, the wedding taking place on 13 May 1891. He was 33 years old.
Their Family
George and Annie had six children:
1. Ethel (1892-1972), who married Neil McLean. For many years Ethel lived in Waterloo Street, Dannevirke.
2. Marion (1894-1979), who married Jim Fraser. They farmed at Kaiwaka near Lake Tutira.
3. Kate (1896 [1895] -1962) married George Sutherland.
4. Janet (1898-1985) married Jim Reisima.
5. Latima known as Lattie (1901-1969) married Myra White.
6. Grant (1905-1976) married Spencerly Walker.
[The family tree at the end of this book shows their descendants to date]
“Kelvin Grove” developed a reputation as a centre of hospitality and family life. Many a wider family gathering was held there. The billiard room was a renowned recreational activity for the men wanting to relax after hard farm work. The Vicar of the Porangahau parish inevitably made it a stopping- over place while doing his visiting rounds throughout his far-flung parish.
Community Interests
‘George was very interested in local body politics and served on the Weber County Council and the Dannevirke Hospital Board for many years. He used to travel to Dannevirke for meetings on the service car when he was over 80 years old. He helped at the Weber Dog Trials as a timekeeper until he was 80’. [George] He lent his hand also to the affairs of the North Island Dog Trial Association. He was also active in the Wairuhe Dairy Company, and the Weber-Waione Cooperative Dairy Company.
“Kelvin Grove” boasted a cricket pitch, George himself being a very good cricketer. These were community gatherings for the neighbourhood. He had a pitch laid in the hay paddock near to the
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homestead. He represented Hawke’s Bay at cricket, even to playing against Murdoch’s Australian team.
Both Annie and George were very hospitable people and often hosted tennis parties held on the courts below the house at “Kelvin Grove”. They also hosted dances in the woolshed.
Grandson George writes of those who were part of the household: ‘Nanny [Annie] was a very kind person although she had a very stern exterior. Doris MacArthur was a home-help for a long time and Tom Montgomerie was a cow/gardener for many years. He later worked at “Haunui” He was a very good and kind man and used to milk three cows as well as tend the garden. There were some characters that used to come and cook at the cookhouse – like Tom they would go on alcoholic binges every now and again. One cook I remember was George Barker – he was known as “The Horse”.
There were a lot of shepherds over the years. I remember Ewen Cameron, Charlie Fryer, Alan Young and later Hamish Fraser and John Sutherland. Hamish came during the war and left to go to camp just as the war ended. Uncle Grant had been running “Kelvin Grove” until he went to the war, then Latima (Latty) took over. We used to ride over from “Haunui” with him as the two properties shared the boundary line’.
George was an active member of the Dannevirke Agricultural and Pastoral Society. ‘He used to show sheep and there were many prize tickets on the woolshed wall. He gave a cup for the fleece wool competition which is still going’. (In 2010 it was won by a great grandson, Ross Small).
‘A prospectus of a company called “The Dannevirke-Herbertville Coaching Company Limited”, of which he was a director, dated February, 1907, has among its assets – 500 horses, 4 coaches, 4 buggies, 4 traps, 50 sets of harness, one landau, one waggonette, one spring wagon, one express wagon, one omnibus, one drag with all gear, and stable requisites and leasehold premises at Dannevirke, Weber and Herbertville’. Nieces of George, Eileen and Doris Crosse, recalled travelling from Weber the Dannevirke on this horse-drawn coach service. The places where horse teams were changed occurred at intervals, the only signs now of these sites in later years were large macrocapa [Macropcarpa] trees beside the road.
‘The first car (a Buick) was acquired about 1912 and I don’t if Grandad ever drove the car. I know he had Uncle Jim Reisima as a chauffeur, and later Uncle Grant Crosse. The last few years they were at “Kelvin Grove” Bill England drove them’.
George was a devout church-goer and supported the local Anglican Parish at both Weber and Porangahau. When land was needed he donated sections for the church and the community hall. These were situated almost a kilometre from the Weber village. The common gossip of the time was that a lady who owned much of the land in the village could not abide Anglicans or Presbyterians, so Anglicans felt obliged to build outside the village. However, the situation was resolved a few years ago when the church was re-sited opposite
Photo captions –
Above: Kelvin Grove c. 1901
Above: Kelvin Grove 1925
Above: Kelvin Grove cowbail and cowshed c. 1890
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the school, and the hall placed on the school grounds as both a school and community amenity.
A newspaper clipping described George as a very widely known and respected settler when he celebrated his 80th birthday. I remember him going for walks to the bush in the bush paddock with a spaniel dog called Shot, and still climbing the steep hill to the woolshed to see them shearing and crutching or doing cattle work. “Kelvin Grove” is farmed today by a grandson, Donald Crosse, and his sons, Grant and Hamish. The grandchildren who remember our grandfather and grandmother feel proud of the property and were shocked when the homestead was destroyed by fire in May, 1983. A new house was built in 1986.
When the woolshed was built in 1897 there was blade-shearing until about 1907 when an engine and machine was installed. The original homestead was improved over the years with a large dining room and billiard room added and the gardens were landscaped in early 1920.
The closeness of this pioneering couple is indicated by the fact that they died within three days of each other. George was aged 90. He died on 2 November 1948, three days after the death of Annie.
The Children (Notes contributed by descendants)
1. Ethel Elizabeth Catherine Crosse lived at Kelvin Grove till she went to Rewa College, Dannevirke. The family still have book inscribed: ‘Miss Edkin’s special laundry work prize awarded to Ethel Crosse December 1911.’ I presume it was here the Crosse girls all learnt to paint in oils – I have Nan’s country scene hanging in our home. Aunt Myra asked Mum and Dad to collect the painting from the billiard room at Kelvin Grove just weeks before she was to move to town, which they did, and not long after they heard Kelvin had had a fire.
Ethel married Alexander Neil McLean from Braeside on 11th July 1917 at Kelvin Grove. They had one child, Ethel (known as Ethie) Annie English McLean, born Christmas Day 1917. Alexander left for Egypt when Ethie was weeks old. He died aged 29 years in Kantara, Egypt, on 2nd November 1918 of influenza.
When Ethie was small she called grandfather “Lamlie’. Mother and daughter moved to 8 Waterloo Street, Dannevirke (see below).
Ethel was a regular churchgoer to Knox Presbyterian Church. She played bowls and supported the local RSA, being made an honorary Life Member. She died on her 80th birthday, 1972.
Ethie contracted TB and spent time at the Pukeora Sanitorium, but eventually in 1943 she married Cyril Henry Howard. Cyril, raised and schooled in Hastings, served in Greece and Crete in World War 2. After a move to Wairoa he eventually became manager of the Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Coop. Their two children are: (1) James Allan Howard (born […]) and (2) Elizabeth Ann Howard (born […]). Elizabeth writes: ‘I used to love going to stay at Waterloo Street with Nana. Catching up with her brothers and sisters – I could never work out who belonged to whom! – but constant visits, letters and phone calls kept Nana busy.’ The Crosse girls all dressed for their weddings from Waterloo Street. ‘Ethel loved celebrating every milestone. I remember New Year’s Eve at Mahia…she was not well in the 1960s – lung cancer – and it was her 80th birthday that was to be celebrated in style – we all had orders and on the day she was dressing for a luncheon with friends she died. Ethie decided the evening party was not to be cancelled; family had been instructed to attend from all over New Zealand – and there was food in every nook and cranny and enough to toast a life well-worth celebrating! ’
Ethie and Cyril lived in Wairoa till their deaths (1984 and 1994 respectively).
2. Marion Annie Munro Crosse, George and Annie’s second child, was born at Weber in 1894. A governess may have taught her during her primary
Photo caption – Above: Ethel McLean’s home, Waterloo Street
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school years. Her secondary school education was at Rewa College, Dannevirke. She married James Lawson Fraser on 4th August, 1920 at Weber. He had emigrated from Scotland as a farm cadet for the Riddifords at White Rock, Wairarapa. He fought for the New Zealand Rifle Brigade during World War 1, attaining the rank of Sergeant-Major. He was wounded in the head and a metal plate was inserted in his skull. After returning from the war he was managing Charlie Crosse’s farm, Seaforth, when he met and married Marion. In 1927 James drew a ballot farm at the Kaiwaka Soldiers’ Settlement district, north of Napier, at the top of the Devil’s Elbow. They called the farm Bourtree after James family home in Scotland.
While at Kaiwaka the family went through the traumas of the 1931 Napier earthquake, the 1937 Eskdale floods, as well as the 1930s Depression, all the while breaking in farmland covered with fern, scrub and blackberry. They retired from farming in 1961 and moved to Napier. James died on 12th June 1977. Marion died in 1979. They had three children – Eleanora Jessie (1921-2009), Hamish Crosse (1923) and Dorothy Janet (1926).
Jessie married Norman Ryder (1920-2002) who was an airman – so the family moved around: Bulls, Christchurch, Marton (where they owned their own home), Singapore, Woodbourne (near Blenheim) and eventually retiring to Napier in 1971.
They had two daughters – Robyn Elaine ([…]) and Janet Margaret ([…]. Robyn married Barry Clayton ([…]) – they have two sons: Tony Andrew ([…]) and Kevin Andrew ([…]). Janet married Alan Chambers, who tragically died in a vehicle accident at Taupo in 1987). They have two children: Paul Kris ([…]) and Diane Jodi ([…]). Robyn works for an accounting firm in Napier and lives at Taradale. Janet works and lives on an organic horticultural block known as JJs Organics in partnership with Judy Moss in Riverbend Road, Napier.
Hamish worked on the family farm at Kelvin Grove before returning to Kaiwaka after World War 2. He married Patricia Spriggs (whose father had been Napier mayor for many years). After retiring from farming they now reside at Pirimai, Napier. They have one son, Grant Hamish (1968).
Dorothy worked on Bourtree during the war years. From 1949-1955 she taught at Tareha School (formerly known as Kaiwaka School). In 1956 till 1986 she worked at Williams and Kettle, the stock and station firm based in Napier. She now lives in retirement at Tamatea, Napier.
3. Catherine Ada (Kate) Crosse was George and Annie’s third child. She married George Harvey Sutherland. George emigrated to New Zealand and saw service in World War 1.
They lived in Salisbury Street, Dannevirke, for the majority of their married life, as George suffered ill-health as a result of his war service.
They, had eight children: Donald Latima Sutherland, Annie Margaret Sutherland, George Henry Sutherland, Catherine Jessie Sutherland, John Sutherland, Grant Crosse Sutherland, Alistair Munro Sutherland and Beatrice Harvey Sutherland. Donald, Annie and George served in the armed forces in World War 2, while Grant served in the navy after the war.
Kate cared for her parents, George and Annie, in the last year of their lives, viz. 1948, in her Dannevirke house. She and husband George eventually moved to Westshore, Napier. They both died in their sixties.
4. (Material supplied by Kirsty Reisima) Janet Amy Crosse, born 1898, married James Bell Reisima (Jim), son of Wenzel, a Bohemian settler from Nyrany. Wenzel had been allotted land initially in Puhoi, north of Auckland. He had been a soldier in the Land Wars of the 1860s, was for a time known as ‘The Butcher of Thames’, and later was a cab driver in Napier. At 33 years of age Wenzel (also known as James William Reisima) met and married Jane Bell Smith aged 18 years, from Motherwell, Scotland. The couple settled in Ormondville and produced nine children, of which Jim was number six.
Janet grew up on the family farm at Kelvin Grove. Jim was not far away, at Whetukura. Jim’s parents and maternal grandmother’s graves can still be found in the Ormondville Cemetery. Jane was also known as Jean – she remarried following Wenzel’s death, so her surname reads as Adamson. Like his father, Jim spent time as a soldier with the rank of Private. He was fortunate to return from Gallipoli in 1915 aged 22 years. He was interviewed in the paper at the time under the headlines Returned Warriors and J B Reisima wounded in right leg saw his brother die. His
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address was then stated as Whetukura. Jim was discharged from the army as being medically unfit due to the wounds sustained at Gallipoli.
After the war Jim (previously a labourer) was employed for a time with the Crosse family as a driver for George. George Crosse apparently never drove, so Jim was available to get George to his meetings and appointments. We presume Jim lived at Kelvin Grove at this time and it was here that Jim and Janet’s relationship blossomed into marriage.
Jim and Janet lived at Ti Tree Point when they first married. Later they moved to their farm at Raumati (east of Dannevirke). They were proud parents of Ken, Merle and Gordon between 1923 and 1930. Jim was involved with the local bodies, serving as a Councillor on the Dannevirke County Council. Janet was a life member of the Dannevirke A & P Association, serving in the Home Industries section. She was also very involved in the Country Women’s Institute and the Dannevirke Bowling Club. Janet and Jim are remembered by the family for being fun to visit and in the community for being real characters with a great sense of humour. Some of these characteristics have also been remarked upon in their descendants. Their graves can be found in the Dannevirke Cemetery. James died on 16th October 1965 and Janet on 28th October 1985.
Ken (Kenneth) grew up on the family farm on Maunga Road just out of Dannevirke. He boarded at McDonald House at Dannevirke High School and came home to farm (J B Reisima & Sons) with his father and Gordon at Maunga Road, while also doing some droving work in the district. He remained on the property after he married but eventually moved to town, to Ransom Street, Dannevirke.
Ken married Eileen Patricia Andrews in Dannevirke in November 1949 and had a daughter Susan. He was involved with the Dannevirke A & P Association, the Dannevirke Dog Trials Club and, along with Susan, the Dannevirke Pony Club. Ken and Eileen were renowned for their hospitality: you were always made welcome if you popped in to visit. Ken died in 2001 and Eileen just four weeks later.
Susan married Alan Trevor Castles and has four children – Anna, Philipa, Nigel and Caroline. They farmed at Te Uri when first married and later sold the farm and bought a trucking business ‘Dannevirke Carriers’ which they continue to operate in conjunction with their family today. All boarded at McDonald House at Dannevirke High School like their grandfather. They have been involved with the A & P Association and all children rode at A & P shows throughout New Zealand when growing up. Many a social evening was spent in the back of a horse truck at A & P shows, growing up!
Eldest daughter Anna Leigh is a primary school teacher. She married Phil Peffers who works for the family business. They have two children, Sally and Rhys.
Philipa Jane works as a Practice Manager at Plus Rehab in Hawke’s Bay. She has New Zealand Netball Umpiring qualifications. Nigel Robert also works in the farm business. He married Ailsa Treacy, an early childhood teacher and they have a daughter, Bayly.
Caroline Marie, after leaving school, went to Waikato University to study sports science and psychology. She has her secondary school teaching qualifications and relief teaches back at Dannevirke High School as well as having been a lecturer at Massey University. Lately she has been travelling the world as a tourism guide and is currently back home in New Zealand.
Merle, or Janet Merle (nicknamed ‘Boo’ by the family) was born five years after Ken, in 1928. Merle loved her knitting, rugby, church and charity. She married Richard Trevor Dockary in Dannevirke and they spent their married lives together in Clive. Merle supported Trevor in his involvement in music and performance in ‘The Frivs’, and the pair of them were well known for their community spirit helping in the Clive community as well as supporting their three sons, Allan, Bruce and Warren, with their rowing and rugby.
Growing up the Reisima cousins all enjoyed getting together and many a game of cricket was played in the Dockary backyard, or Gordon and Trevor would entertain with their self-styled music. Merle sadly passed away at just 52 in 1981. Trevor continued to live in Clive, later marrying Cheryl Whyte. Cheryl died in 2003 and Trevor in 2010. Eldest son Allan married Donna Maude and they have two daughters, Brooke and Abbey. Allan separated from Donna and is to marry June Dittmer in […]. June and Allan live in Waikanae, where Allan works in a private business consultancy. He has always been a passionate golfer.
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Bruce was born in […] in Hastings. He married Stephanie Lindsay in […]. They live in Havelock North with their son, Brendon, and daughter, Sarah. Bruce is well-known in Hawke’s Bay for his commitment to rugby refereeing and his service in the Havelock North Volunteer Fire Brigade. He currently works for McCains Foods in Hastings.
Warren also lives in Havelock North with his family. He married Shelly Harris. They have three sons – Cameron, Nicholas and Matthew. Warren works for Tumu Timbers and serves alongside Bruce at the Havelock North Volunteer Fire Brigade. He has the sporting gene like his brothers and has been coaching soccer for over 10 years with good success.
Gordon James Crosse Reisima was born in Dannevirke, went to the local high school, and grew up on the family farm at Raumati. Gordon and Ken farmed there together, while also doing some shearing work in the district. Gordon stayed on in his parents’ house when he married Celia Carlson. Janet and Jim then moved to town, to Guy Street in Dannevirke.
Gordon and Celia moved to their farm in Te Awa Road, Waipukurau in 1965. Their youngest son, Simon, still lives there with his family today. Gordon was involved with the AMP Association in Dannevirke, enjoyed his tennis and rugby, and was a stalwart of the Dannevirke Old Boys Rugby Club. At about aged 30 he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which curtailed his sporting life somewhat. He continued to support and encourage his sons and their sports as they grew up as well as be very involved in the Waipukurau Lions Club. Gordon died in 1998 while on a fishing trip with friends. Sadly, Celia predeceased him in 1983 aged 47 due to cancer.
Their eldest son Graeme James Crosse (Reis) went to Police College soon after leaving school. He married Frances Margaret Mooney in 1987 and they lived in Wellington, Turangi and latterly Masterton where Graeme was a well-respected police detective. On finishing with the police force he and Franky now own and run a general freight business ‘Reisima Haulage’. Their three sons, Gordon, Martin and Donald are at school in Masterton. They have been big sponsors of their sons’ schools and sports while Graeme continues to be Chairman of the Wairarapa Rugby Union, a rugby referee and enjoys fishing in the rivers around the family bach in Turangi.
Ian David (Reisy), like his elder brother, was born in Dannevirke and went to school like the others at Oueroa Primary School, then Central Hawke’s Bay College. Following an AFS high school exchange year in Montana, USA, Ian went to Massey University and studied Agricultural Science. He had a short stint at IBM (NZ) and latterly has been involved in the fresh fruit and produce industry in Wellington, Auckland and now Hawke’s Bay. After an OE Ian married Kirsty McFetridge, a physiotherapist, and they now live in Puketapu with their three sons – Luke, Jamie and Zac, where Ian helped to set up and run a blueberry farm in Hastings. Ian continues to play a variety of sports as well as coach his sons’ teams. He is a rugby referee and as a family they have been involved with Guide Dog Services for many years, helping raise or be guardians of Guide Dogs.
John Brent (Rez) was born in Waipukurau in […]. John has largely stayed in Central Hawke’s Bay doing casual farm work and rural haulage, with several stints overseas playing polo. He married Suzanne Elizabeth Hogan Cholmondeley, England, and together have three children – Ben, Sam and Katie. They have attended their local primary school at Flemington and Central Hawke’s Bay College. John continues with his interest in polo and the Wanstead Polo Club alongside his casual farm work in the district.
Simon Charles (Rez) grew up on the family farm on Te Awa Road and continues to live there today. He enjoyed an OE after finishing school but has always returned home to the farm. Simon married local girl, Nicola Fleming, at Blackhead Beach in […] and now they have three daughters – Abi, Clara and Zoe. Nicky works for her father at Central Hawke’s Bay Funeral Services, while Simon has been involved in many farm-related jobs and is currently employed by New Zealand Grazing Co., covering the North Island East Coast. Simon continues to play rugby, ride motorbikes and enjoy the family bach at Porangahau beach.
5. Latima (Lattie) George Crosse, born 1901, was the older son of George and Annie Crosse. He married Myra White, daughter of Ernest and Fanny White of ‘Braeburn’, Porangahau, in 1927. They began married life farming at ‘Hartfield’, Ti Tree Point. Two years later, with children Margaret and George, they moved to the newly built house at ‘Haunui’. George has previously bought the
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‘Hartfield’ property from Mr McLeod to add to ‘Haunui’.
Consistent with the tradition of large families Lattie and Myra went on to have nine children. They were born at Dannevirke except Myra (Muff), who was born at Porangahau. Pregnant Myra stayed with Ethel McLean, her sister-in-law, while awaiting the births. She employed a housekeeper at ‘Haunui’, or else asked her other sister-in-law, Spencely to help out with the children.
The children all went to Ti Tree Point school by service car of bus until 1949. In that year they moved to ‘Kelvin Grove’. Thereafter, Elizabeth, Catherine, Barbara and Keith all attended Weber School. An army hut stood near the back door at ‘Haunui’ to house the boys of the family. It now stands by the woolshed at ‘Kelvin grove’ and serves as a morning tea room.
Life was always busy for Myra at ‘Kelvin Grove’ – neighbours popping in, guests and family friends staying over, feeding her own large family along with other staff if a cook was not employed. She was a great letter-writer. She did not drive a car and seldom went to town – but she was never still.
Lattie, like his father, had a great sense of humour and rarely lost his temper. It is said he never sacked an employee – however, he did ask his son, Donald, to sack one young man who had become quite a whisky drinker and so helped himself to the supplies kept in the family ‘cellar’, an office/study with easy low window access. Lattie welcomed visitors joining him for a game of snooker or billiards. A family friend, George Fox (Foxy) who often stayed maintained the billiard table in tiptop order as well as checking the cues. Foxy used to peel the potatoes for Myra and always washed the dishes. The family knew these were his tasks!
Lattie enjoyed shearing time when the Edwards gang arrived from Hawke’s Bay. The wool-classer was always hosted by Lattie and Myra.
Like his father, he had a strong involvement in local body affairs, serving on the Weber County Council and the Weber Dog Trial Club. He loved and supported rugby, cricket and horse sports. He served on the Dannevirke Hospital Board till his death. In fact he died suddenly at Athletic Park, Wellington, while watching an All Black-Wales Test, in the presence of his old friend John Farquharson in 1969.
Myra loved her involvement with the local Anglican church. The vicars from Porangahau, and their families, often lunched at ‘Kelvin Grove’ on church days or when they came to Weber school for religious instruction. After Lattie’s death she lived alone at ‘Kelvin Grove’ until 1983, moving then to Dannevirke. She never returned to the homestead after it burnt down. She died in 1987. Their children and descendants are: Margaret, George, Myra (Muff), John, Donald (Doog), Elizabeth, Catherine, Barbara and Keith.
Thelma Margaret Crosse, who married John Stuart Small at St John the Baptist church, Dannevirke on 3rd September 1952 – on a very wet day! John was raised and educated at Dannevirke, later going to the family farm at Weber. Margaret had lived at ‘Haunui’ and attended Ti Tree Point school and Iona College. They have had five children – Susan Margaret Small, Brian John Small, Alison Myra Small, Gary William Small and Ross Latima Small.
Susan attended Weber Primary, Iona College and Wellington Girls’ College. After leaving school she worked as a Subscription Clerk for the Government Printing Office. She married Stanley Campbell Wallace in 1972. Stan, a qualified plumber – drainlayer, took his wife and family to Tuai (Lake Waikaremoana) and worked for the New Zealand Electricity Department. Eventually they moved back to Dannevirke where he continued his trade. Sue gained qualifications in teaching, spending 18 years with First Years Pre-school, the last eight as Manager. She continued this work, travelling twice weekly to the Cornerstone Christian Pre-school, Palmerston North. Both Sue and Stan are active members of the Dannevirke Christian Fellowship church.
Their children are: (1) Karina who married Stuart James in […], he having arrived from England as an immigrant. They have had a variety of occupations. Stuart is currently branch manager for Courier Post. (2) Brian attended Weber Primary, then boarded at Dannevirke High School. He admits that his keenest interest were cricket and rugby, representing Hawke’s Bay in rugby. Farming is in his blood. In 1978 he went to Canada on and agricultural exchange, enjoying fully its life and the family who hosted him. He also spent a season playing for Rugby Nocete, Italy. He met Jose Koot on a blind date at the Royal Oak Tavern, Weber, in 1984. They were married in […] at Sint Nicholaas Kerk, Schalkhaar, The Netherlands,
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returning to the family farm, ‘Strathnashalloch’, Weber. Their daughter, Sophie, is currently attending Iona College. (3) Alison also went to Iona College, then trained as a hairdresser in Palmerston North. Moving to Hastings she married Donald Breakwell in […]. They have had five children – Hayden Peter (who died after four months), Darryn John, Ricky Donald, Mark Hayden and Abby Louise. (4) Gary, born with special needs has had sheltered care at both Palmerston North and Christchurch and has since returned to Dannevirke. (5) Ross has had a farm upbringing, mixed with sport especially cricket and rugby. He worked in local shearing gangs after leaving Napier Boys’ High School. It was in a woolshed he met Sandra Gollan, and whom he married in […]. Brian, with Ross and their parents, bought 1500 acres on the Waipatiki Road in 1989. Only 12 paddocks were stock-proof. Ross and pregnant Sandra moved into the old 1886 farmhouse. So began the start in farm ownership Ross had always worked towards. Much hard work was put into that first year to get the farm up and running. The farmhouse was quite run down, but the ‘Mothers’ Day Earthquake’ in May 1989 damaged it further – broken windows, ruptured septic line, broken chimneys, disconnected power and the house virtually off its piles, with contents thrown from their cupboards. Fortunately no one was at home at the time. Over the years the house has been renovated. Their children are Kate, Emma and John, all educated at Weber and Napier. Kate is now a teacher at Hastings, Emma is studying nursing and John hopes to attend Smedley.
Latima George Crosse, educated at Ti Tree Point and Dannevirke, worked as a shepherd at ‘Haunui’ for Lattie, as well as ‘Kelvin Grove’. In 1955 he took over ‘Haunui’ but continued living at ‘Kelvin Grove’. In 1955 he married Margaret Herbert. Their children are – Anne, Caroline and Bob, all of whom attended Ti Tree Point school. In 1997 George and Margaret retired to Dannevirke, while Bob and his wife Sharyn settled at ‘Haunui’. George was for many years associated with the Weber and Dannevirke Dog Trials Clubs, also playing rugby for Weber and Puketoi.
Myra Annie (Muff) Crosse was born at ‘Braeburn’, Porangahau. She was schooled at Ti Tree Point. In 1952 she married Arthur Poole. They moved to the Poole family Estate at Motea where Arthur was manager. With Returned Services Land Settlement assistance they purchased in 1983 ‘Pekanui’ station, a 500 acre farm opposite the family farm. Living quarters were a small cottage that had been shepherds’ accommodation. But in 1963 they moved to a new house at the other end of the block.
Both Myra and Arthur have continued the Crosse tradition of involvement in community affairs – Myra with the WDFF, now Rural Women, 30 years with Meals on Wheels, as well as Red Cross. Arthur has been active with the Motea School Committee, the Dannevirke A & P Association, Federated Farmers and the Hearing Association. He was appointed a JP and served on the Smedley Station Advisory Board for 12 years. In 1987 they moved to Dannevirke but continued their active interest as committee members and presidents of the Bowling Club. The farm was divided and two of their sons now farm there. Their children are – Graeme, Colin, Eion, Catherine and David. All are married with children of their own.
John Ernest Crosse went to Ti Tree Point school and Dannevirke High School. John loved the farming life and at weekends loved catching his pony and riding around the farm, ‘Haunui’, and later at ‘Kelvin Grove’ when the family moved there. He married Aileen Churchouse in 1957. Aileen had been a fellow pupil at Ti Tree Point. Lattie built a cottage at ‘Kelvin Grove’ for the newly married couple. With coming of electric power to the district it meant guests could offer electrical appliances as wedding gifts!
John needed good working dogs, so began breeding very good heading dogs. By 1964, helped by his father, he bought his first farm at Waione. Then in early 1969, with the purchase of the neighbouring farm, they moved a mile down the road. From 1962-1976 John was chairman of the Weber School Committee, during which time swimming baths, extra room and a new school house were built. In May 1976 he purchased a 500 acre farm at Crownthorpe, west of Hastings. Their children, Neil and Jocelyn, came back to help on the farm. When the farm was eventually sold John and Aileen settled in Taradale. From there they made two trips to Cremona, Alberta, Canada where Jocelyn now farms. Sadly, in 2009, John suddenly died, but peacefully aged 76 years.
Donald Grant (Doog) Crosse like the others educated at Ti Tree Point and Dannevirke. He
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began working for Lattie on ‘Kelvin Grove’ in 1953. Compulsory Military Training (CMT) intervened in 1955. He played rugby and cricket for Weber and Puketoi. In 1969 he purchased from Grant Crosse ‘Linside’, farming it with Grant and Hamish, his sons, till he purchased ‘Kelvin Grove’ in 1986.
Donald married Anne Galyer. Their two boys were schooled at Weber and Palmerston North Boys’ High School. Anne died in 2007. Of their grandchildren, Thomas is in forestry in Canterbury, while Nicholas works in economics in Wellington. Hamish and Jo’s children, Sarah, Daniel and Hannah, are at Iona College, Lindisfarne and Weber respectively.
Fanny Elizabeth Crosse married Max Bailey. She had trained as a Karitane nurse and had done secretarial work. Max worked as a plumber. After their marriage their first lived at Lower Hutt, then moved to Tauranga in 1977. Their first child, Christine, born in 1970, died aged five years. Their two other children are (1) Raymond, who married Jacqueline Burnett – they have one child Xavier Max. (2) Pamela, who married Sean Daynard. They have two children – Tuli Kereru Chetana and Leo. Max died in 1985 aged 47 years. Elizabeth continues to live at Tauranga.
Catherine Phyllis Crosse married Colin Hutching. They farmed at Maharahara, west of Dannevirke, first in dairying till 1980, then switching to stud beef. They now farm at Makotuku. Their children – Marianne, Nigel, Sonya and Louise – are all married. Colin and Catherine have seven grandchildren.
Barbara Janet Crosse was schooled at Ti Tree Point, Weber and Iona College. She later trained as a Cooking and Sewing Teacher in Dunedin. In 1964 she married Lloyd Stokes who, in 1947, had migrated to New Zealand from Halifax. The next five years were spent share-milking Waiaruhe (south of Dannevirke). Then they purchased a dairy farm at Te Rehunga. After four years and a short spell in Hastings they purchased ‘Wahanui’ Station, a sheep/beef farm on the Cricklewood Road near Wairoa. Here, for 27 years, they farmed and also raised a family (Simon and Nicola). Their interest in deer saw Lloyd become Chairman of the Wairoa Committee of the Deer Farmers’ Association. Barbara became coordinator of the Wairoa Cancer Support Group, receiving local and national awards for her work.
Eventually they sold the farm and moved to a vineyard near Mangateretere, Hastings, specialising in table grapes. For eight years they operated a roadside shop and sold grapes at the Farmers’ market. In 2009 they retired to Westshore. Barbara was appointed a JP in 1990, and was a Marriage Celebrant for 10 years. In 2008 she was made a Life Member of the Hawke’s Bay Cancer Society. Both their children went to university and gained their degrees. Simon and his wife Kirsten and family live at Ohope, while Nicola, husband Paul, and family live in the Ohariu Valley, Wellington.
Keith Charles Crosse. Keith writes: ‘They say, “practice makes perfect”, and I’m living proof of that or was at the time of writing!’ Like many of the Crosse’s he went to Weber School, then Dannevirke High School, later beginning his working life as a shepherd at ‘Kelvin Grove’. ‘My sister Elizabeth bought a young Auckland Karitane nurse friend down to Kelvin on one of her holidays. I felt it my duty to do the usual country hospitality, showing her the finer points of farming, i.e. picture theatres, coffee bars, etc., which resulted in Pamela Deidre Curnow Smith and I getting married in Auckland in 1977, our first home being ‘Te Arawhata’, close to ‘Kelvin Grove” Their three children, Kimberly, Craig and Hilary are all married and live at Dannevirke.
Keith managed ‘Bryant Station’ on the Kawhia-Raglan road, farmed at Whitehall, Cambridge, then returned to ‘Kelvin Grove’, then later purchased the Royal Oak Tavern, Weber, in 1980.
His second marriage to Glenda Marion Fraser saw him farming dairy beef at Norsewood, starting a video business in Napier, building and running ‘Autumn Lodge’ rest home in Dannevirke, buying a motel in Palmerston North and then Jasons Travel business in Napier. Glenda died in 2005.
6. Donald Grant Crosse, born in 1905, married Spencely Walker. They farmed at ‘Linside’, Ti Tree Point. He also managed ‘Kelvin Grove’ before he went overseas to serve in the armed forces in World War 2. While he was away Spencely (Spen) helped Myra her sister-in-law with the children and drove the car for George and Annie Crosse. Grant returned from overseas, but had to spend time at the Pukeora Sanitorium, not an uncommon
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occurrence for returning servicemen. Meantime ‘Linside’ was run by a farm manager. Grant and Spen then moved to a small property, ‘Acacia Farm’, at Tipapakuku, near Dannevirke. For many years they owned a bach at Akitio Beach, ‘Sunshine Cottage’. It was here that many relatives enjoyed staying for their holidays, particularly the children of ‘Kelvin Grove’. Grant was also a very keen bowler.
In 1969 Donald (Grant’s nephew) bought ‘Linside’. Spencely died in 1975 and Grant in 1976.
Photo captions –
Above: Electric power comes to Kelvin Grove 1956.
Above: Picnic time at Kelvin Grove.
Above: L. George Crosse and young Gordon Reisima.
Above L. George Crosse with-the shearing gang.
Above: Golden Wedding of George and Annie Crosse 1941.
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CHAPTER FIVE
CATHERINE AMELIA MCKENZIE (NEE CROSSE)
OF RANGIWAHIA, RANGITIKEI
[The following information has been gathered from various sources]
Catherine (or Kate as she was called) was the second daughter and fifth child of Charles Grant and Elizabeth Crosse. She was born in 1861 at Porangahau. Her mother ensured she had a good education, sending her to a private school in Napier. She was a gifted singer and was trained by Madam (sic) Beggs, a talent that she often exercised in later years, reputedly till she was well over 80 years old.
She married Kenneth McKenzie, the service being conducted by Revd (later Archdeacon) Samuel Williams who established Te Aute College. The service was taken at her mother’s home at Whakaruatapu, now known as Matamau, about 5 kms north of Dannevirke. Elizabeth had moved there after the lease on Mangamaire had run out, and she was beginning her long years of widowhood. After their marriage they lived at Otane where Kenneth carried on his butchering business. While here four of her children were born – Alexander, George, Kenneth and Herbert. However, Kenneth was intent on taking up farming. So he took up a block of land at Mangarimu, ‘Silverstream’, north of Kimbolton. The family made their way south by horse and coach from Otane, through the then hazardous Manawatu Gorge, and then by horseback to Mangarimu. They lived for a time in a slab hut and it was here that their fifth child, Frank, was born. Mangarimu, about 38 kms north of Feilding in the Kiwitea County, was remote, though it did boast a post office at Pemberton about 5 kms away. Sited on the Oroua River, it was formerly known as Beef Creek.
A press cutting of her obituary states: ‘Taking her full share in pioneering with her husband, Mrs McKenzie helped in church work, the country children’s education and the social part of country life. Many dances were held in the spacious woolshed, bachelors’ balls and other gay occasions, the highlight of these being Mr and Mrs McKenzie’s silver wedding ball, when Mrs McKenzie wore her wedding dress and dancing continued till 4.30 am.’
The newspaper, the Feilding Star, described the event in its 30 April 1907 edition: ‘On Friday, 26th inst., two of our earliest settlers Mr and Mrs K McKenzie of Mangarimu received in their woolshed a large company of their friends to celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of their wedding, and also the coming of age of their third son Kenneth. Over one hundred guests were assembled and several handsome presents of silverware testified to the popularity of the host and hostess. Mr J Rentoul proposed their health in a speech that evoked loud applause, and appealed to each unmarried person present to imitate the worthy examples before them. Mr McKenzie, who seemed deeply moved by the goodwill displayed, replied on behalf of himself and his wife, who was wearing her wedding dress. At the same time she took the opportunity to make a presentation in the name of the settlers to Miss Roache, late teacher at Mangarimu school, who is leaving the district. After supper Miss Edney sang, and later Miss Cameron obliged with both song and dance. Mr “Scotty” McDonald recited at Mr McKenzie’s special request the “Pipes of Lucknow”. Miss E Jamieson on the violin and Mr Rankin at the piano provided excellent music.
It is interesting to see how the early settlers created their own fun, enjoying socialising as work and weather allowed. The Feilding Star edition of 20 December 1904 describes such an event in the McKenzie’s new woolshed: ‘Although the weather was stormy, a large assemblage gathered together from all parts of the district, intent on enjoying a light fantastic. The decorations were in excellent taste, and gave proof of the artistic skill of the McKenzie Bros. Dancing was the order of the evening, and was kept up until “the wee sma’ hours”. First class music was provided by a band consisting of Mrs Perry (piano), Messrs Perry and A McKenzie (violins). The wants of the inner man were provided by an excellent sit down supper, presided over by Mrs McKenzie, who was untiring in her efforts to please her numerous guests’. The
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evening also featured sung items, readings as well as a card room. The report ends: ‘It is to be hoped that this gathering will be the forerunner of many similar evenings, as nothing is more calculated to foster good fellowship than an evening spent at a social’. The McKenzies helped fulfil this hope.
Kate was an excellent horsewoman: ‘she rode side saddle to community occasions in the early days to keep in touch with district affairs. The McKenzie home was always a centre of hospitality and [Kate] was a member of women’s organisations and a worker in the Anglican Church Guild, also giving valued and appreciated help to the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches’.
Kenneth died in 1924. Kate lived on for another 29 years till her death at aged 92 years in 1953. However, she was pre-deceased by a few months by her unmarried daughter, Alice. The children of Kenneth and Kate were: Alexander (1885-?), George (1886-1916), Kenneth (1888-1918), Herbert (Bertie), Frank, Alice (1893-1953), Dora and Charles.
Sons at War
Five of Kenneth and Kate’s sons served on the battle-front. Alexander served in the Boer War in South Africa, though mention is made that he also served in World War 1. The next four sons served in World War 1. It must have been hard on the rest of the family to learn that two did not return from battle. George died from wounds in 1916. He had fought in the abortive Gallipoli campaign, and then was killed at Flers in the first Somme battle. Kenneth, a gunner in the 12th Reinforcements, 2nd Brigade New Zealand Field Artillery, served continuously in France for two and half years. He was wounded at Le Quesnoy and died of wounds three weeks later. A report of the time states that both Herbert and Frank survived.
Frank rose to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. He previously was working for solicitors, Jackson Russell Tunks and Ostler, in Auckland before enlisting. He joined the Mounted Brigade and was wounded at Gallipoli and the Somme. A military report states: ‘He has seen a great deal of service with the Expeditionary Force, having been in action on the Suez Canal, in the Gallipoli landing and through the “Daisy Patch” charge at Cape Helles. He was in some exciting work later at Quinn’s Post, having been the companion there of Sergeant Tilsley when the latter won the DCM. He was slightly wounded but remained with his unit to take part in the August advance. He was sent to Malta for a rest but returned to ANZAC in time to be one of the evacuation party. Thence he proceeded to France with his unit, winning his commission on the field for gallantry in leading a trench raid in July last year’. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1917.
The home front
The known details of family descendants are recorded in the Family Tree at the end of this book. We do have a copy of an obituary for Alice McKenzie from a local newspaper. It mentions that she was born at Silverstream [Station], Mangarimu in 1903, the sixth child and elder daughter of Kate and Ken. ‘Always interested in the beautiful things of life she was widely known for her artistic floral work and over the years most of the bridal bouquets in the district were made by her clever hands, and for many years too she took prizes at flower shows. She was convenor of the Women’s Institute Garden Circle and floral steward for many years, and also served for a time as floral steward of the WDFF.’ Alice lived all her life at Silverstream, where she suddenly died while caring for her mother who was then 92 years old. The vicar conducted a short service at the homestead for the benefit of Kate, who was unable to attend the church service. Kate died shortly afterwards.
We deduce from the article that Dora, a younger sister, also unmarried, was present at Alice’s funeral, as was Charles. Alex was living at Paraparaumu, Bertie (Herbert) at Otorohanga and Frank in Auckland.
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CHAPTER SIX
SAMUEL GRANT CROSSE
By Eileen Bennett
[Eileen Bennett, nee Crosse, was the eldest of Charles and Hilda Crosse’s three daughters. She with her sisters Doris and Phyllis, were brought up on ‘Te Toki ’ station on the remote Birch Road East Road in the district of Weber. The following is a short but fond recollection of Samuel Grant Crosse, the sixth child of Charles Grant and Elizabeth Crosse, written by Eileen in the early 1990s. The first child named ‘Samuel Grant Crosse’ died in infancy and is buried in the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels’ church, Porangahau. Eileen died in 2002]
I would like to call to mind those presently belonging to the third generation of the Crosse family – our Uncle Sam. To the younger generations he would be a name only on the family tree, but to those who remember him he was what the Readers Digest would call an unforgettable character. He was the second son named Samuel Grant by Charles Grant and Elizabeth Crosse. The first Samuel Grant has died in infancy.
Uncle Sam was of stocky build, very blue-eyed, and as I remember him, quite bald. He must have married before my birth [1909] as he and his wife, who was Elizabeth Gell, were my godparents. Elizabeth Gell came, I think, to Ti Tree Point as a governess to the Franklin family at ‘Bloomfield’. Sadly her life with Uncle Sam was not very long as she contracted a chest illness that ended her life very prematurely. I understand Uncle Sam managed the Franklin property, ‘Bloomfield’, at one time. Later he had a farm of his own adjoining ‘Mangatoitoi’, the home of the Palmers. Later he managed ‘Gurteen’ for Uncle George at Ti Tree Point. When he was older he retired from farming and became quite a wanderer. I suppose that he had many horses but the one I remember was a sturdy little horse called ‘Roan’ which he always kept very well groomed and in good condition. I do not know whether he helped with any seasonal work for his many friends, but he spent his time in visiting many homes, often staying to work – I recall mention of ‘Burnview’, ‘Pipi Bank’ and ‘Woodbank’ (all of which were Speedy homes at Herbertville), ‘Kelvin Grove’ and ‘Mangatoitoi’ (the home of the Palmers), Franklin homes at Ti Tree Point, especially that of Fred Franklin, the Ellinghams at Whetukura, and also the Stewarts at Ti Tree Point.
At least once a year he came to spend a week with his brother, Charlie, my father. What a hilarious few days it was for we children as he was full of practical jokes, quite a contrast to our father who inclined to think children should be seen but not heard. If we went near Uncle Sam the curve of his walking stick would grab us around the ankles. Perhaps he was quite fond of us but you would not have thought so by the sound of his critical remarks. Although always gentlemanly his descriptions of people and events was certainly colourful. I recall one of his favourite ways of expressing how he would like to deal with anyone he did not admire, which was to ‘carve out his liver and hang it on a tree to dry’.
Uncle Sam had one hobby I know of – from totara wood he carved many dolls which he decorated with Maori carvings, and for eyes he used paua shell. The two that we had as children were greatly treasured and played with. He seemed always to dress in riding clothes, complete with brown polished leggings. He carried his belongings in a brown valise strapped in front of him when riding his horse. He could be very cantankerous at times (almost boisterous) but this was probably his way of covering the fact that he was a very lonely man.
Uncle Sam was part of our young lives and all who knew and cared for him were saddened when he died suddenly at the age of sixty five – found dead beside his faithful old horse ‘Roan’. His grave is in the Terrace End cemetery at Palmerston North with that of his wife Elizabeth, and beside his mother’s and Auntie Clara’s graves.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
MARIAN (MAY) BARKER
By Robin Barker
[The text of this chapter has been generally uplifted rom Robin Barker’s account in ‘Barker Bears and Forebears’ August 1991, and is used with permission. Sadly Robin died in October 2010. Updated corrections are in square brackets in the text.]
May was born in 1866 at Porangahau. James Otto Barker, brother to Susie and Dolly, married May on 3rd November 1896, a marriage that prompted an energetic response from David Barker: ‘Crosse and Blackwell, Crosse and Blackwell, bloody pickles, pickles….’! [They had five children – David, Fanny, John Otto (Jack), Margaret and James Otto (Jim)] They were at Opoutama or Mahia when their son, John Otto, was born. This child was christened in Dannevirke where the Crosse family lived at that stage, but they moved to a property at Argyll near Waipawa and Otane about 1903 where their daughter Margaret was born at the end of 1905. The family moved yet again to Ardmore near Papakura, where James purchased 65 acres which was covered with ‘Ti Tree and Kahikateas’. He built a house here that he added to considerably over the years.
In 1939 he sold the farm to his son John, known as ‘Jack’ for the princely sum of £3000. A venturesome soul, James rode a pushbike up to the age of 80, until the family confiscated it after a particularly bad crash. After selling the farm to his son he moved to Wellington Road in Papakura. James Otto had a colostomy in 1940, a major operation then, and lived a further 11 years and died in Kingseat in April 1951. His wife, May, had predeceased him and had died in 1942. After her death he lived with his daughters.
Of their family, David, the eldest child born in 1900 died at the early age of 18, and is buried at Papakura, a victim of the flu epidemic that raged throughout the country following the First World War. Fanny, the second child was unmarried, and spent time nursing, and no doubt helped look after her father after the death of her mother. She had a passion for planting flowers and in particular daffodils. John continued this practice even to the extent of planting bulbs along the fence lines. During the Second World War airmen jumped the fence and picked bunches for their girlfriends to take to the Saturday night dances.
John Otto, known as Jack, was born in 1902, and also went dairying like his father. He married twice, firstly to Ivy Palmer and had a child but they both died in childbirth. In 1935 he married again, this time to Evelyn Taylor, nee Cossey. They were very happy together and produced two sons, Roy John in May 1937, and Keith James in June of 1940. In the early fifties they built a new house, and turned the old house into a hayshed. The farm was sold in 1972, and the new owners pulled down the hayshed, and built a new house on this site. No doubt, they were inspired to do so with the remnants of the old garden.
After the sale Jack and Evelyn moved to Grove Road in Papakura, where Jack died of cancer in 1981. [Evelyn died in 1995.] Their two boys went to school in Papakura, and Roy travelled to Pukekohe to attend the Pukekohe High School. Leaving school he apprenticed himself to the local Ford garage (Lees Bros) where he remained for the next 13 years. It was here that he met and married Pixie Harrison in July 1958. His parents gave him a quarter acre section, surveyed off the edge of the farm and here they built a house and had four children, [Natalie, John, Delwyn and Anthony]. This marriage ended in divorce at the end of 1973. Their eldest child, Natalie, and her husband Graeme, together with their three children, live at Waeranga [Waerenga], where Graeme manages a dairy farm. [Roy and his new wife Elaine managed Roselands Trading Company in Papakura. They have since retired to Orewa]. Keith became a carpenter after finishing his apprenticeship and subsequently married Lyn Geraghty. They had four children and built their own house on five acres of land that John and Evelyn provided on the Takanini-Clevedon Road. They sold their land and emigrated to Canada in
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approximately 1964-1965. Things did not go well for them, so they split up and Lyn returned to New Zealand with the children in 1968. Lyn died the following year. Keith met and married Linda Woolf in Canada and the children returned to Canada, where they now all live at Bragg Creek, not far from Calgary, with their families.
Margaret, born near Otane in 1905, who after schooling left home and worked in Cambridge where she met and married Fred Jamieson. They moved to their own farm at Mercer about 1938, and back to the Jamieson farm to manage that for a while. Following this they tried share-milking at Putararu [Putaruru] and later moved to Papakura where Fred leased 14 acres, milked 10 cows and worked for the Public Works Department. In 1949 the family moved to a farm near Mercer, and later purchased a house at Mercer. Fred worked for some time at Meremere, and then semi-retired as barman at the Mercer Hotel, where he suffered a heart attack and died in February 1967. Margaret then returned to look after an old lady in Papakura. (In fact it was the same person she had worked for before her marriage to Fred). After her death Margaret was once more on her own. She tried living by herself until she suffered a mild stroke and then spent a short time with her daughter Margaret Cox, near Mercer, and died in January 1978. She is survived by her two daughters, Margaret, and Evelyn [who] married John Groen and lives in Carterton, and two sons, Alan, and Harry Jamieson who now lives in the Solomon Islands.
James Otto Jnr, born in 1909 (known also as Jim), married later in life and acquired two stepchildren, one of which Meryll is alive in Australia today.
Of Robert, the one in family folklore referred to as ‘The one that went wrong’, very little is known. All that is known is he left Christchurch as a very young man after being at Christ’s College for one year, worked on farms in Hawke’s Bay and probably the Mahia Ormond’s farm, and subsequently farmed sheep at Helensville. He married Peggy someone, but this ended in divorce without any children. He is listed in the electoral roll of 1938 as sheep farm manager at South Head. John Barker, his eldest brother, was the principal shareholder in a company called South Head Limited which farmed land on the south head of the Kaipara Harbour, and Robert may well have been the farm manager there. This company sold it shortly after Robert died. Robert was an alcoholic in later life. He contracted mumps at the age of 64, followed by septic pneumonia which finished him off on 31 December 1938, when he died in Bellevue Road, Mt Eden. He is buried at the Waikumete Cemetery.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
CHARLES CROSSE OF TI TOKI
By Marie Johnston
Charles, better known as Charlie, was born on the 6th July 1870 at Porangahau when the family were living at Mangamaire Station. He was the 10th child of Charles Grant and Elizabeth Crosse. Charlie was only 6 months old when his father was killed in a fall from a horse. Elizabeth moved to Napier in 1874 to provide better education for the children and after several moves, in 1881 she settled in the Whakaruatapu district now known as Matamau just north of Dannevirke. As there was no school there until 1887, Charlie rode a horse to attend the Makotuku School. Elizabeth shifted to Napier again where Charlie, in 1885, was enrolled and attended Napier Boys’ High School. This school was situated where the Napier Girls’ High School is now located in Clyde Rd on Bluff Hill. Charlie only attended this school for one year where it seems he was more interested in sport than schoolwork. His reason for leaving was to go into business. Elizabeth Crosse at this time was living in Cobden Rd on the Napier Hill.
In Charlie’s younger days he worked on farms in the Wallingford area, which included doing a lot of bush clearing and fencing. There is a story about the day he narrowly escaped being shot by a man on the run from having murdered someone in the Wairarapa. Charlie was riding his horse in the area where he was clearing bush. This man, who was hiding behind a tree, said later when he was finally caught, that he almost had to commit another murder to escape detection. He said he saw this man riding up to the tree where he was hiding. If he had gone one way round it on his horse Charlie would have been shot. But, as fortune would have it, he went the other way and Charlie didn’t disturb him – he survived!
Apart from being a foundation member of the Dannevirke Club and a member of the Dannevirke Racing Club, he had little interest in public life. Horses were one of his great interests. When Charlie was 18 years old he inherited some money from England and bought a racehorse. Unfortunately throughout his life when things were going well, racehorses became important to him, but did not always bring benefits.
Photo captions –
Napier Boys’ High School. 1874
Above: Charlie Crosse, 18 years old, and a member of the Dannevirke Racing Club.
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On June the 24th 1908 he married Hilda Violet Herbert, a day after her 19th birthday. Hilda was the 9th child of William and Emma Herbert from Wimbledon.
The wedding reported in the Dannevirke Advocate read –
‘A very pretty wedding was celebrated at St John’s Church at 12 noon today by the Rev. F. Robertshawe B A, the contracting parties being Mr Charles Crosse of Mangatuna, a son of Mrs Crosse of Princess St, Dannevirke and, Hilda Violet Herbert, daughter of Mr W.J. Herbert of Tipapakuku.
Photo captions –
With love from Hilda Crosse
Above: Hilda Crosse (nee Herbert)
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The bride, given away by her father, was charmingly attired in a cream silk taffeta dress, with a wreath of orange blossoms and veil. She was attended by Miss Gertrude Herbert, sister of the bride and Miss Ruth Palmer, niece of the bridegroom both of whom were attired in cream delaine dresses.
The bridegroom was attended by Mr M.G. Speedy as best man and Mr W.J. Herbert as groomsman. After the ceremony the party adjourned to the residence of the bride’s parents at Tipapakuku where a sumptuous wedding breakfast was partaken of. The bridegroom’s gifts to the bridesmaids were a gold locket and chain and a turquoise and pearl brooch. After the breakfast the happy couple left by the Express train for Napier where the honeymoon will be spent. The brides travelling dress was of a navy blue cloth with hat to match.
The young couple were recipients of a very large number of costly presents.’
They started married life on a ballot farm Charlie had at Ngapaeruru, a farming area about 18 miles east of Dannevirke. Charlie and Hilda’s two eldest daughters were born while living here: Violet Eileen Elizabeth, always known as Eileen, on the 22nd April 1909, and Doris Gertrude, on the 24th August 1910. Family members said if Charlie had of stayed on this farm he would have been well off, but in 1912 he sold at Ngapaeruru and bought a farm, Titoki, situated on Birch Road East, a road that branched from the Weber Road through to the Wimbledon-Porangahau Road, a truly backblocks area.
The home on this property was a rather run down two-roomed totara house. A couple of rooms were added in time and Hilda made it as comfortable as she could. It was a very steep hill area. Eileen’s memories of this remote farm were of hills wherever you went, terrific gale force winds and endless mud in the winter.
During spring and autumn a bullock dray would arrive bringing the stores. These would include numerous bags of flour and sugar, other groceries, sacks of wheat and pollard, farm supplies such as sheep-dip powder, wool sacks, cases of kerosene, some benzene for the shearing engine, large coils of fencing wire, boxes of nails and staples, string for sewing wool packs, seed potatoes, packets of garden seeds and nicest of all, a large tin of boiled sweets, probably a gift from the firm they dealt with.
The bullock dray with its team of six or eight bullocks was an institution and a real necessity as the backcountry roads were un-metalled and when the winter rains fell they became deeply muddy and very difficult to plod through either on foot or on horseback, as the soil formation in the area was clay on papa. When the shearing was over the bullock drays would be back to take the bales of wool away to Porangahau and then by ship to Napier.
Photo captions –
Above: Charles Crosse
Above: Hilda and daughter Eileen standing and Doris sitting on her knee
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The neighbours on either side were at least two miles away, so when the family went visiting, they had to walk, so Hilda and Charlie’s daughters grew into quite hardy little girls. Although they were removed from contact with others Hilda and Charlie were exacting about their behaviour, and even though their home was primitive by today’s standards, their table manners were strictly enforced. It seems their lives were very much bound up with the strict Victorian values Charlie upheld – that children were to be seen but not heard.
Pioneering life did not suit Hilda. Being an asthmatic and suffering from depression, she was quite often unable to cope. Eileen and Doris remember spending a lot of time at Kelvin Grove being looked after by their many Crosse cousins when their mother was unwell.
A letter written in 1912 to Hilda from her mother Emma Herbert states, “How are you getting on? You do not say whether you like it but you are at home and home is wherever you are”. It would appear that Hilda just had to get on with things, as there were no other options in those days.
Their only way of connecting with transport from Titoki was either by foot or horse so all through those early years Eileen and Doris were carried on horseback by their parents, each carrying a child on the front of the saddle. It was a ride of approximately 8 miles to Wimbledon to the nearest Post Office and store. This was also the stopping place for the horse-drawn coach, later a service car, going to and from Dannevirke. The trips to Dannevirke occurred only three or four times a year. No wonder the Herbert letters made reference as to how Hilda coped being a young and not very strong mother. The arrival of their third daughter, Phyllis Emma, on the 23rd July 1916 meant an extra problem when riding, and she was carried in a sling tied to Hilda’s back.
In 1919 after the First World War there must have been a time of prosperity, as Charlie bought a house in Millers Road in Dannevirke. A manager, Jim Fraser, who was married to Marion Crosse, was looking after Titoki. Being town dwellers only lasted about 18 months, as a farming recession, aided by a severe drought in the coastal area saw Charlie buy a small farm situated at the foot of the Ruahine Ranges at Kiritaki. This was to provide feed for cattle that were starving on Titoki. His brother in law, Bob Holmes, managed Kiritaki for a while but due to the sudden death of his wife he left, so Charlie, Hilda and the girls moved out to Kiritaki. Eileen said “yet another school” for her and Doris. The school was three miles away so they had the choice of walking to school, often battling howling gales, or riding a horse which most of the time refused to be caught. It was tough going for 10 and 11 year old girls.
In 1922 as the recession continued, Charlie and Hilda went back to farm Titoki and Jim and Marion Fraser went to live at Te Arawhata, a cottage that was part of Kelvin Grove. They took Eileen and
Photo caption – Above: Phyllis Crosse
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Doris to live with them so they could attend the Weber School.
The following year Eileen went on to Dannevirke High School. She lived in town with Annie (Hilda’s sister) and Bob Grant. Doris went to Wimbledon School for a year then she also went to Dannevirke High School, and lived with another of Hilda’s sisters, Rose Chote. From the age of five, Phyllis lived at Tipapakuku at her grandfather William Herbert’s home, where she was cared for by her Aunty Lil, Lillian Maria Herbert, Hilda’s sister. Unlike her two sisters, Phyllis only went to the one primary school, Tipapakuku, staying there until Standard 6 and then doing her secondary schooling at Dannevirke High School. For nine years Phyllis was only home for holidays, which made her quite detached from her family. As Eileen and Doris were also away with different families a lot during their school years they seemed well-adjusted children considering their background.
A farm, called Tawanui, owned by a Herbert relative came up for sale. It was situated on the Tahuokaretu Road, which branches off the main Dannevirke-Herbertville Road about one mile east of Weber. About this time a brother-in-law of Charlie, Bob Grant, had inherited some money, so on the 6th September 1924 Hilda Violet Crosse of Weber and Robert Grant of Dannevirke became the new owners of Tawanui. William Herbert, Hilda’s father, had an interest in this property, hence the title being in Hilda’s name. It was a rough farm and it needed a lot of hard work. Charlie had the capabilities to carry out the tasks as he was an extremely hard worker, but as he was managing Titoki, Bob was to manage Tawanui. It turned out that Bob was a shepherd – in Eileen’s words “he had never cut a bit of scrub in his life”, and the farm wasn’t paying, so the Crosse’s extended their mortgage and paid him out. On the 28th November, 1928 Hilda Violet Crosse was the new owner of Tawanui. Ivor Morgans in his book “Tahuokaretu Road” notes the Grant family moved to Fielding and the Crosse family moved to Tawanui. He remembers seeing Charlie Crosse riding around the corner and down the hill past his road gate on his chestnut mare called Jane with his two dogs, Dick and Tip.
Ivor remembers the Crosses when they were neighbours but unfortunately he didn’t have too many good memories of Charlie. He remembers when he was still at Titoki and it was time to shear the hoggets, Charlie was pressing the wool but he only put about half as much wool as should have gone into each bale, so there were 14 bales. Then he went to his bank manager to get an advance on the wool and told him that there were 14 bales when really there were only 7. The bank manager was not amused.
Charlie got into a lot of trouble because of his gambling. He was known to pay riders to ‘pull’ their mounts and let his horse win. He would then put a large bet on his horse. It must have worked for him sometimes! [The extracts from ‘The Truth’ newspaper at the end of this chapter refer to a protracted court case he became embroiled in over this whole issue. It is understandable that Hilda ensured that her husband did not have access to Herbert capital which had been sunk into farm purchases!] He also spent a lot of time gambling at cards, a game called coon-can or colonel. He would be away for days or sometimes weeks. Hilda would have to round up some sheep and kill one to feed the family and the dogs. These were not the actions of a considerate man.
When Charlie was working he did not have a lazy bone in his body. He was a good fencer and could cut scrub for days on end. He was an expert at cutting firewood. He must have learnt this from his mother as she was still cutting her own wood at age 100, Ivor states Charlie could cut as much in a couple of days as most people could cut in a week. Mr Morgans gave him a job to cut their winter supply of 12 cords of firewood, and he had it done in next to no time. He was a very good axeman and it was said of him that so long as he had an axe he was happy.
The depression affected the family severely for several years. Charlie still owned the three properties: Kiritaki, Titoki and Tawanui. Titoki was a 99 year lease but the government needed finance which meant during the depression the rental went up eight times, and with buying out Robert Grant for Tawanui, times were very hard and they began to find the banks were going to foreclose on them. Charlie’s brother Latima George Crosse took over the mortgage of Tawanui in November 1930. The mortgagor was the Cawthron Institute. They employed Charlie for two pounds a week, after he had lost everything.
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Latima George Crosse also took over Kiritaki and William Herbert, Titoki, as he had been the guarantor. It appears that the Cawthron Institute decided to sell Tawanui. Ivor said just before the family left, Charlie seemed to be under a lot of stress. He would come to their house at anytime of the day and walk in and sit down without speaking. Then after a short time he would jump up and walk out without saying good-bye. This could happen several times a day. They found out later that he had been asked to move on by the Trust. The family moved into a vacant home further down the road, which used to belong to the Harvey family.
Charlie was now 62, and in Eileen’s words – “My father – my god, he had to work, he split wood and did wood work for Uncle George. He also did , fencing or any work he could get as they were very lean times.”
While the family were still at Tawanui they acquired a car, Eileen thought her father won it in a snooker match. She always said he never drank but he gambled on anything. Charlie was not mechanically minded at all and he never got a drivers licence. The girls had vivid memories of a very nervous Hilda driving the Buick, sometimes getting stuck or running out of petrol, and occasionally having to spend the rest of the night in the car.
Both Eileen and Doris were married while they were living at the Harvey home. Eileen married Cyril Bennett in January 1937. Cyril had moved into the area in 1935, managing the Bassett Estate in Birch Road. Doris married Lesley Seatter in 1936. Lesley was working for the Speedy’s at Woodbank, then the Franklins at Ti Tree Point. After their marriage they went on to manage a dairy farm at Kiritaki. Both weddings took place at the Weber Church. Phyllis married Ken Houston. Ken was a good friend of Cyril Bennett and Phyllis and Ken met at Eileen and Cyril’s wedding, as they were both in the bridal party. They married in April 1938 at St John’s Church in Dannevirke.
Charlie and Hilda’s next move was to Te Arawhata, when at some stage the old Weber jail came up for sale so Charlie purchased it and had it moved up to Hastings. Charlies Aunt Clara died in 1941 and left him some money with which he bought a section in Nottingley Road near where Eileen and Cyril were living. He placed the jail, which was a small two-roomed building, on the section and he lived there while Hilda stayed with the Bennetts. Bill used to take breakfast and morning tea round to him and Charlie would come round for tea. Bill recalls when all the children were young (the Bennetts, Seatters and Houstons), they would be sitting at the table, and because Charlie was so taciturn, they would burst into uncontrollable giggles, and they couldn’t stop. It got worse because he kept his stern eye on them, but never really conversed with them. Bill comments, “I don’t think he knew how. He would then sit down by the Shacklock stove, pull out the racing page, put on his pince-nez, which were eyeglasses clipped to the nose by a spring, and study the form. The children would all circulate
Photo captions –
Above: Charlie and Hilda.
Above: (from left) Cyril and Eileen Bennett, Leslie and Doris Seatter, Ken and Phyllis Houston.
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around him, not knowing what to say, but be getting on with what they had to do.”
Charlie dug over the whole section with a shovel – it must have been a quarter acre section in those days, and he planted it in vegetables etc. As he had always been a hard worker he would have thought nothing of it, but at 75 years of age, doing this and then carrying a strainer post, proved to be, one day, too much for him. After a life- time of good health, his health started to suffer.
Hilda and Charlie decided to move back to Dannevirke and bought a section in Alma Street, where they built their own home. As Hilda had jealously safeguarded her family inheritance so that Charlie would not be tempted to try another venture on the land, Herbert money probably helped buy 23 Alma Street. Eileen said at last her father was happy. Hilda also was much happier as she loved the comforts and style of town living. She wore the latest fashions, nearly always in the colour of navy blue.
The Crosses were a hardy breed and Charlie only consulted a doctor when he became ill in the last 12 months before his death. He died on the 8th January 1953 in his 83rd year.
Hilda lived on at Alma Street where a flat was added to the existing house for her sister Lillian to occupy. Lillian lived there until her death.
In 1971 with her health failing, Hilda moved to a bedsit at her eldest daughter Eileen’s home in Havelock North. Her grandson, David Seatter, bought her Alma Street home in 1973. Hilda lived at Iona Road, Havelock North, until her death on May 27th, 1974 in her 85th year. Both Hilda and Charlie’s funerals were held at St. John’s Anglican Church Dannevirke and both are buried at the Mangatera Cemetery.
They were survived by their children and their 16 grandchildren. Eileen and Cyril had Bill, Alan, Lyndon, Moira and Aileen – Bill married Wendy Barnett, Alan married Jeanette Gilmore, Lyndon married Bill Thomson, Moira married Michael Brewer and Aileen married Stephen Long.
Doris and Lesley had four children: David, George, Rosalie and Cedric. David married June Hodgson, George married Judith Harris, Rosalie married John McCullough and Cedric married Valerie Broomfield. Phyllis and Ken had seven children: Ian, Jack, Graeme, Ken, Marie, Bruce and Murray. Ian married Patricia Eivers, Jack married Gladys Sergeant, Graeme married June Halpin, Ken married Barbara Beamsley. Marie married twice, to Tony Williams and to Alf Johnson. Bruce was killed in an accident in 1960. Murray also married twice, to Heather Williamson and to Jan-Wendy Smith.
Photo captions –
Above: (from left) Leslie and Doris, Eileen with Bill Bennett, Charlie, Hilda holding George Seatter, Ken, Phyllis holding Ian Houston and David Seatter in the wheelbarrow.
Above. Hilda with her grandchildren at a Christmas gathering c. 1956.
Back row from L. Ian Houston, George and David Seatter, Bill Bennett.
Middle row: Jack Houston, Moira and Lyndon Bennett, Hilda, Rosalie Seatter, Alan Bennett.
Front row: Graeme Houston, Cedric Seatter, Bruce Houston, Aileen Bennett, Marie and Ken Houston.
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Charlie’s brush with the law.
The following extracts from ‘Truth’ newspaper reports (1926) of an unsuccessful court case Charlie Crosse was involved in.
NZ Truth, Issue 1069, 20 May 1926, page 9:
A BOOKIE AND HIS BUSINESS
WHY CROSSE BECAME CROSS WITH HIS “TEA PARTNER”
(From “Truth’s” Palmerston North Rep.)
A plaintiff who claimed to recover a considerable sum of money which he held had been lent to float a tea business, and a defendant who said that the other knew perfectly well that he handed over the cash to back a bookmaking business, occupied the attention of the Supreme Court at Palmerston North last week.
The defendant, Alfred G. Shearsby. commission agent, of Palmerston North admitted quite freely that he had been a bookmaker, and cheerfully applied through Solicitor Ongley for a non-suit on the ground that the recovery of the money was barred by statute.
The plaintiff, Charles Crosse, who farms woolly-backs in Wimbledon when he is not seeking to recover greenbacks amounting to £555, was wroth.
His contention was that in 1918 he lent Shearsby £130, which had never been repaid, while the following year at defendant’s request, he signed a guarantee of defendant’s account at the bank for £250, under which he had paid several sums at the insurance or the bank amounting to £214 5s. To this was added interest totalling £161 16s 11d.
BANKING ACCOUNT
The defence was that these moneys had been paid to defendant as a contribution to the capital of the partnership between the two, and had been used by Shearsby for the purpose of that business.
It was admitted that the guarantee had been signed by plaintiff, but in rebuttal it was stated that the banking account was that of the partnership, which was in defendant’s name.
Shearsby had entered into the guarantee in lieu of paying cash into the account, and it was agreed, he said, that Crosse should be responsible for the amount of the guarantee without recourse to Shearsby.
It was stated that if the sum of £180 had been lent it was barred by statute, and if £214 5s had been paid on the guarantee, then it was money lent knowingly for the illegal purpose of betting on horse races at totalisator odds.
In evidence, plaintiff denied that he had been with Shearsby in any partnership, of which he knew nothing.
Under cross-examination, witness said he lent £180 to defendant to start a business as a tea merchant, but witness knew when he guaranteed Shearsby’s bank account that defendant had entered into the bookmaking business.
TOTALISATOR v. TEA
To Mr. Justice Alpers witness said he had never exhibited any curiosity about defendant’s tea business or its situation; neither had he asked whether that business was whoelsale [wholesale] or retail.
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William Christie, manager of the Bank of New South Wales’ branch at Palmerston North, said he did not think a bank would let anyone guarantee another’s account were the guarantor unaware of, or had any misapprehension concerning the other’s business.
This concluded the case for plaintiff, and his Honor reserved the point submitted by counsel for the defence regarding the bar by statute.
Mr. Ongley stated that from June, 1918, until six months ago, when he was convicted, plaintiff was in business a bookmaker, having been financially assisted by Crosse.
A tea business had never been mentioned between the two, and Shearsby had never filled the role of a tea merchant.
Judgment was reserved.
NZ Truth, Issue 1093, 11 November 1926, page 10:
BACKING THE BOOKIE
Shepherd Says He Was Shorn By Alfred Shearsby
SELLING TEA AT TOTE ODDS
(From “N.Z. Truth’s” Palmerston North Representative.)
TIRED of backing certainties which abused the faith reposed in them, Charles Crosse, shepherd from the downs of Dannevirke, thought he would put his money into something promising a greater return.
SO he gave financial backing to a young man named Alfred Shearsby, then of Palmerston North, who was setting up in the business of a bookmaker – although Crosse swore later that he thought it was the mundane business of selling tea.
HOWEVER, the wrong side of, the ledger received the lion‘s share of the contents of the ink-pot, so that the shepherd from the downs found that his bank account was down to the tune of about £400.
He went to the Supreme Court in an endeavor to recover the amount, but the statute of limitations saved Shearsby. except for a more £30.
Nevertheless, Mr. Justice Alpers Spiritedly called Shearsby a waster, and indulged in some strong comments, describing the whole transaction as “tainted with illegality.”
The action which was heard in the Supreme Court in May last, was one in which Charles Crosse, sheepfarmer, of Dannevirke, proceeded against Alfred G. Shearsby, described as a commission agent, of Palmerston North, claiming £180 and interest being money lent to defendant at different dates in 1918, and further claimed £214 5s. and interest, being money paid to the Bank of New South Wales on December 13, 1922, and on March 22, 1923, for defendant under the terms of a guarantee entered into by plaintiff at defendant’s request on March 24, 1919.
Defendant admitted the amounts, but said that the £180 was paid by plaintiff to defendant as a contribution to the capital of a partnership existing between them, and that the guarantee given to the bank was a guarantee of the partnership account.
The “business” of the partnership did not succeed and the capital was lost.
TALK ABOUT TEA
As to the first cause of action – the claim for £180 – defendant further pleaded the statute of limitations.
And as to both causes of action, he said that if it be proved that plaintiff lent him the sum or £180 and paid, on his behalf the sums alleged under the guarantee to the bank, then such moneys were loans knowingly made by plaintiff for the illegal purpose of betting on horse races at totalisator odds.
“There is, as might be expected in such case, a sharp conflict of evidence,” said Mr. Justice Alpers in his reserved judgment, which has just been delivered.
“I do not propose to review the evidence at length, but to content myself with the observation, not that I believe defendant in preference to plaintiff, but that find it less difficult to disbelieve plaintiff than defendant.
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“Plaintiff at the time of the loan was a man in a responsible position, a sheepfarmer who dabbled in horse-racing and betting as a side-line.
“On the whole he seems to have found betting unprofitable, and it occurred to him that the bookmaker’s was the better part.
“In 1922 defendant was a lad of 22 – a hanger-on of stables and a waster of sorts.
“Plaintiff lent him various sums of money amounting in all to £180, and says this was done to enable the young man to set up in business as a ‘tea-merchant.’
“Plaintiff did not inquire as to defendant’s experience in the tea trade, as to the situation, or, indeed the existence of the business premises, or even as to the brands or blends he proposed to sell.
“I can hardly think plaintiff intended the court to take the ‘tea-merchant’ story seriously; at any rate, I must be excused for not believing a word of it.
“Defendant’s story is much more probable in itself, although, in the circumstances, its credibility is not fortified by the character of the narrator.
“It does, however, receive some corroboration from another ‘turf commission agent’ – for what that is worth
“As to the second cause of action – the bank guarantee – plaintiff frankly admits that, by the time this was signed, he was completely undeceived as to the tea myth.
“‘The banking account,’ he says, “I guaranteed purely for bookmaking business; the previous moneys that I advanced were for the tea business.’
SHABBY DEFENCE
“On plaintiff’s own admission, therefore, from the time he guaranteed the bank account he was fully aware or the character of the business in which he was partner or in which he was merely a ‘backer.’
“Plaintiff expected to be repaid out of the profits of bookmaking and knew that unless defendant carried on the business of bookmaking successfully, he would not be able to repay the advances.
“The whole transaction was tainted with illegality, and this part of the claim fails on plaintiff’s own admission.
“One is reluctant to believe any of the evidence given by a man like defendant” says his honor, in continuing.
“But this much of his story, at least, is entitled to credit.
“Speaking of the first loan of £100 on June 30, 1918, he says: ‘It was understood when Crosse gave me the £100 in Hastings that I was to pay my debts in Palmerston North (£30 odd) so that I could start with a clean sheet I expect they were tradesmen’s debts.’
“This amount, then, on defendant’s own showing, was not tainted with illegality; it was, on the contrary, devoted to a very meritorious purpose.
“But the rest of the loan of £180, is, I find, to be applied with plaintiff’s full knowledge to the business of betting at totalisator odds, and is, therefore irrecoverable”
After reviewing the evidence on the point as to whether the sum of £30 was statute-barred, Judge Alpers stated that the case did not come within the Statute and he accordingly gave judgment for that amount with costs.
“Defendant succeeds as to the second cause of action,” his honor concluded, “but in view of the shabby defence pleaded by him I allow him no costs.”
Shearsby, who has been convicted for bookmaking, did not wait for the Supreme Court decision to come to hand.
After his house and furniture had been placed under the auctioneer’s hammer he departed for fresh fields and pastures new.
Page 69
CHAPTER NINE
THE CROSSE FAMILY TREE
(The committee is grateful to members of the wider family who have contributed the following information. We have tried to ensure the details are correct, and apologise for any inaccuracies. Please let us know of any updates. Only dates of births and deaths have been included.)
Joshua Crosse
[of Newark. Buried 13.3.1664 at Beckingham, Lincolnshire]
m. (21.4.1611) Anne Lifford at Buckingham [buried Buckingham 18.5.1647]
Their son Joshua Crosse
[baptised at Beckenham, London 17.11.1614; Buried April 1676]
m. Rachael ?
Their son Thomas Crosse
[baptised & buried at St Martin’s, Outchurch, London 27.1.1708]
m. Mary Phelps
Their son Thomas Crosse
[baptised St Giles, Crippelgate, 23.11.1702; Buried 21.4.1795 at Kintbury, Berkshire]
m. (28.11.1742) Jane Wright Wislow at St Mary’s, Whitechapel, London in NE. Choir
Their son Joshua Shaw Crosse
[baptised 19.7.1748 at St Andrew’s, Undershaft, Buried 13.2.1826 at St Peter’s, Bath]
m. (20.7.1775) Elizabeth Norris at Brushford, Somerset
Their son Thomas Crosse
[baptised 6.3.1779, Wootton, Courtenay; Buried 14.6.1845 St Melton cemetery]
m. Elizabeth Ann Grant
Their son Charles Grant Crosse
[baptised 1827 at St Giles, Camberwell]
m. (26.1.1853) Elizabeth Thorby
CHILDREN AND DESCENDANTS OF CHARLES GRANT CROSSE (1827-71) AND ELIZABETH CROSSE (1830-1931)
I Elizabeth Ann Crosse (1853-1933)
II Thomas Ezekiel Crosse (1855-1952)
III Samuel Grant Crosse (1856-1861) died as infant
IV Latima George Crosse (1858-1948)
V Catherine Amelia Crosse (1861-1953)
VI Samuel Grant Crosse (1863-1927)
VII Fanny Crosse (1864-1951)
VIII Marian Crosse (1866-1942)
IX Clara Jane Crosse ((1868-1941)
X Charles Crosse (1870-1953) 69
Page 70
I Elizabeth Ann Crosse (1853-1933) m. William Palmer (1846-1929)
Their children and descendants:
1. Mary Ethel Palmer (1880-1956) m. Peter McRae (1868-1955)
A) Mary McRae (1913-1995) m. Gerald Akers Ackhurst (1900-1976) No issue
B) Colin McRae (1914 -86) m. Eleanor Betsy Bygrave (1918 – 2003)
Heather Catherine McRae ([…]) m. Cornelius Doelman
Pieter Colin McRae Doelman ([…]) m. Barbara Kelly
Cara Beverley Doelman ([…])
Beth Lea Doelman ([…])
Elizabeth Anne Doelman (1973-74)
Catherine Nicola Doelman ([…]) m. Mike Rose (dec.)
Rachael Andrea Doelman ([…])
Peter Charles McRae ([…]) m. Maureen Jean Mather
Lance McCrae [McRae] ([…])
Ciara McCrae ([…])
C) Gordon Palmer McCrae (1916 – 2002) m. Jean Matilda Currie (1920-2006) No issue
D) Jeanie Clarice McCrae (1918) Unmarried
2. Charles Palmer (1881-1954) m. Elsie Carman
A) Mavis Mary Palmer (1911 -1989) Unmarried
B) [Names withheld]
C) Florence Enid Palmer (1916 -19 75) m. George Mandeno (1916-2009)
Bruce Crawford Mandeno ([…]) m. Patricia Joy Harris ([…])
David Bruce Mandeno ([…])
Richard Keith Mandeno ([…])
Max Crawford Mandeno ([…]) m. Diana Victoria Barrett
Ruth Cynthia Mandeno ([…])
Erin Phillipa Mandeno ([…])
Mark Mandeno ([…])
D) Clarice Elizabeth Palmer (1918-1984) m. Bernard (Mac) Sargent
Alan MacGregor Sargent (1945) m. Raymin Barbara Thomas
Sean Michael Sargent ([…])
Michael Alan Sargent ([…])
Page 71
Judith Sargent m. Peter Davis No issue
3. William Sutton Palmer (1883-1973) m. Caroline Lawson No issue
4. Elizabeth Marion Palmer (1885-1978) Unmarried
5. Clarence (Ben) Crosse Palmer (1887-1916 WW1) Unmarried
6. Ruth Eveline Palmer (1889-1943) m. Graeme (Max) Speedy (1882-1945)
A) Glen Ashton Speedy (1914 – ) m. Juanita Margaret Gawith
Juanita Helen Speedy (1941) m. Leslie Arthur Smith (1941)
Nicola Helen Smith ([…])
Phyllis Margaret Speedy (1942) m. Moustafa Rizls
Mohammed Glen (Michael) Rizls ([…])
Tareki Peter Rizls ([…])
Jock McRae Speedy (1944) 1st marriage Pamela Caldwell
Paul McCrae Speedy ([…])
2nd marriage Julie Patricia Silverton ([…])
Adrienne Patricia Speedy ([…])
Philippa Justine Speedy
Janine Louise Speedy
B) John Palmer Speedy (1916 – ) Unmarried
C) Graham Speedy (1917 – ) m. Lucy Rasmussen
Peter Graham Speedy ([…]) m. Joylene Ross
Sonia Jane Speedy ([…])
Duncan Peter Speedy ([…])
Gina Clare Speedy ([…])
Andrew Charles Speedy ([…]) m. Kerry Phillips
Kim Andrew Speedy ([…])
Alice Rosalind Speedy ([…])
Rachel Lucy Speedy
Simon Maurice Speedy ([…]) m. Susan Stevenson
Christopher Charles Speedy ([…])
Hamish William Speedy ([…])
D) Emily Elizabeth Speedy (1918 – ) m. Peter Balfour (1918)
Elizabeth Ruth Balfour ([…]) m. Paul Barbey
Ian David Balfour ([…])
Juliet Helen Balfour ([…]) m. Murray Schofield
Rachel Helen Schofield ([…]
Rebecca Schofield
Daniel Schofield
E) Alan McCutcheon Speedy (1921 – ) m. Marie Moana Hales
Their children:
Judy Gay Speedy ([…]) m. Allan James Swenson Their children:
Hans Joseph Swenson ([…])
Karl Michael Swenson ([…]) m. Danika Marie ?
Pamela Marie Speedy ([…])
F) Phil Speedy (1923) m. Leila Thorburn
Their children:
Judith Maud Speedy ([…]) m. Peter Feakin
Kylie Sharee Feakin ([…])
Andrea Jane Feakin ([…])
Gregory Feakin ([…])
Alistair Feakin ([…])
Donald Phil Speedy ([…]) m. Denice Jackson
Stephanie Speedy ([…])
Amanda Speedy ([…])
Page 72
Holly Speedy ([…])
Stuart John Speedy ([…]) m. Kay Marshall
Ben Marshall Speedy ([…])
Douglas Speedy ([…])
Claire Speedy ([…])
G) Hugh Grove Speedy (1926) m. Nancy McSporran
Ruth Margaret Speedy ([…])
Hamish McCutcheon Speedy ([…])
Marion Elizabeth Speedy ([…]) m. Miles Marton
Blair Marton
Graham Hugh Speedy ([…])
7. Frederick Clifford Palmer (1892 – 1971) m. Catherine (Kitty) Jessie Cameron (1903-1994)
A) Owen Arthur Palmer (1938) m. Gloria Cunningham
B) Graham Ralph Palmer (1938) m. Meryl Cruickshank
Vivienne Anne Palmer ([…])
Jeffrey William Palmer ([…])
Catherine Elizabeth Palmer ([…]) –
II Thomas Ezekiel Crosse (1855-1952) m.
1st Marriage Susan Barker (1864-1887)
Their child and descendants:
1. Amy Susan Crosse (1887-1967) m. Humphrey Barnicoat (d. 1961) Their child:
A) John Barnicoat (1923-2001) m. 1st Marr. Betty Shankland (1927 -1986)
Louise Ewart Barnicoat (twin) ([…]) m. Desmond Healy
Genevieve Betty Healy ([…])
Joseph Desmond Healy ([…])
Thomas Patrick Healy ([…])
Cynthia Wallis Barnicoat (twin) ([…])
2nd Marr. Susan Arkwright (nee Sheriff)
2nd marriage David Anne Thompson (Dolly) Barker (1869-1943)
Their children and descendants:
2. Jessie Dorothy Crosse (1892-1941[1942]) m. Richard (Richie) Philson Abraham (d.1933)
A) Anthony (Tony) Richard Abraham (1915) m. Joan Smith
Dorothy Virginia (Ginty) Abraham ([…]) m. Geoffrey McGuire
Prudence Virginia McGuire ([…]) m. ? Gallon
Sophie Jessie Gallon ([…])
Jack Aubrey James Gallon ([…])
Thomas Stronach McGuire ([…])
Michael Richard Vivian Abraham ([…]) m Carol Sinclair
B) Michael (Mick) Thomas Abraham (1917-1997) m. Doreen Elizabeth Souness
Robert Michael Abraham ([…]) 1st marriage Victoria White
Robert Edward Abraham ([…]) m. Rachael ?
Zahn Abraham ([…])
Rylee Abraham ([…])
2nd marriage Jacqueline Dodunski
Hannah Aperima Boynton ([…])
Heather Abraham ([…]) m. Simon Green
Anne-Hera Abraham ([…])
Mere Green ([…])
Page 73
Aroha Green ([…])
Benjamin Thomas Abraham ([…]) m. Kelly Mica
Georgia Abraham ([…])
May Abraham ([…])
Bruce Edward Abraham ([…]) m Frances Dolan
Richard Warwick Abraham ([…]) m. Jenny ?
Michael Abraham ([…])
Callum Abraham ([…])
C) Janet Philson Abraham (1921-1994) m. Ralph Walker-Lear
D) Mary (Marie) Arnaud Abraham (1923-1985) m. Lester Castle (d. 1986)
Susan Janet Castle ([…]) m. John Hole
Jessica Hole ([…]) m. Karl Eastwood
Brigid Hole ([…])
Juliet Hole (1975-1976)
Richard James Hole ([…]) m. Sarah Jane Hook
James Christopher David Hole ([…])
Timothy John Castle ([…]) m. Janet Wardlaw
Ben Castle ([…])
Thomas Castle ([…])
Jack Castle ([…])
Sally Ruth Castle ([…]) m. John Phelps
Matthew James Phelps ([…])
Kate Elizabeth Phelps ([…])
Nicholas John Phelps ([…])
Peter Richard Castle ([…]) m. Adele Cotterell
Andrew Castle ([…])
David Castle ([…])
3. Thomas Grant Crosse (1893-1961) m. Isobel (Midge) Harman (no issue – lived in India)
4. Hugh Edward Crosse (1896-1962) m. Delmira Bockenham [Bokenham] (d. 1971)
Marie Catherine Crosse (1923) m. Harold E P Downes (1918-1978)
Peter Edward Downes ([…]) m. 1st marriage Elsy Jonsson
Nicholas Edward Downes ([…])
2nd marriage Cara Atherton (previously Goodwin)
Patricia Goodwin
Michael Goodwin
Alan George Downes ([…]) m. Vivien Currie
Celia Jane Downes ([…]) m. Richard Hammond
Alistair Hammond ([…])
Susan Jane Crosse (1928-2008) [2006 according to page 34] m. Maxwell McGlashan (d. 1997)
Thomas Hugh Crosse (1928 – 2006) m. Jane L Wood
Sarah Anne Crosse ([…]) m. Kevin Magill
Chloe Jane Magill ([…])
Daniel Patrick James Magill ([…])
William Hugh Crosse ([…]) m. Linda Stent
Thomas Richard Crosse ([…])
Oliver Max Crosse ([…]
Hugo William Crosse ([…])
Peter Benjamin Crosse ([…]) m. Suzie Jill Shearer
Lucy Jill Crosse ([…])
Max Hamish Crosse ([…])
Emily Jane Crosse ([…])
Christopher Grant Crosse ([…])
Page 74
5. Louie Audrey Crosse (1897-1972) m. Ralph Hewat
David John Hewat (1921-1993) m. Mary Sault
Graeme John Hewat ([…]) m. Claire ?
Dianna Hewat
Geoffrey Hewat
Fiona Margaret Hewat ([…])
Jeanette Louise Hewat ([…])
Ann Isabel Hewat (1922-2008) m. 1st marriage William Thomas Huntriss (d. 1959)
Richard Thomas Huntriss ([…]) m. Jewell Reiter
Nicole Lesley Huntriss ([…]) m. Ben Jackson
Sarah Jackson ([…])
Emma Jackson ([…])
Matthew Jackson ([…])
Hannah Jackson ([…])
William David Huntriss ([…]) m. (a) Judith ?
Stephen Huntriss ([…])
(b) Olga June
2nd marriage Donald Howell
Timothy Edward Hewat (1928) m. (1) Mary ? (dec.)
(2) Anne ?
Caroline Hewat ([…]) m. Neil Hunter
Susan Hewat ([…]) m. David Glanville
Annabell Glanville
6. Margaret Mary Crosse (1904-1971) m. 1st marriage John Neilson Dewar
A) Margaret Dewar (d. 2011) m. 1st marriage to Leon Piper
Susan Margaret Piper ([…]) m. Peter Franks
Michael David Piper ([…]) m. Andrea Farquhar
Claire Middleton Piper ([…])
Emily Farquhar Piper ([…])
2nd marriage William Marsh
James Connolly Marsh ([…])
John Dewar Marsh ([…]) m Bridget Foley
Lily Marie Marsh ([…])
Rose Grace Foley Marsh ([…])
3rd marriage Jack Hunter
B) John Dewar
C) David Dewar m. Joan O’Regan
David (Gerrard) Dewar ([…]) m. Jane Robinson
David Dewar ([…]
James Joseph Dewar ([…])
Annabel ([…])
Timothy Dewar ([…]) m Leanne ?
Regan Dewar
Rebecca Dewar
Mark Edward Dewar ([…]) Julie Vickers
Toni Dewar
Amelia Dewar
Maureen ([…])
Caren
Beth
Page 75
Margaret May Crosse 2nd marriage Walter Wightwick
III Samuel Grant Crosse (1856-1861) Died in infancy, buried at Porangahau
IV Latima George Crosse (1858 – 1948) m. Annie Jesse Munro (1866-1948)
Their children and descendants:
1. Ethel Elizabeth Catherine Crosse (1892-1972 m. Alexander Neil McLean (1899-1918)
A) Ethel Annie English McLean (1917-1984) m. Cyril Henry Howard (1915-1994)
James Allan Howard ([…]) m. Christine Bronwyn Jensen
Nicola Bronwyn Howard ([…]) m. Nicholas Hugh Porter
Lucy Porter ([…])
Rodney James Howard ([…])
Elizabeth Ann Howard ([…]) m. Blenddyn Sterling ([…])
2. Marion Annie Munro Crosse (1894-1979) m. James Lawson Fraser (1890-1977)
Eleanora Jessie Fraser (1921-2009) m. Norman Ryder (1920-2002)
Robyn Elaine Ryder ([…]) m. Barry Clayton ([…])
Tony David Clayton ([…])
Kevin Andrew Clayton ([…]) m. Rebecca Edina Light
Janet Margarette Ryder ([…]) m. Allan Chambers (1954-1987)
Paul Kris Chambers ([…]) + Karli Young
Eleanora (Ella) Ottilie Chambers ([…])
Diane Jodi Chambers ([…])
Hamish Crosse Fraser (1923) m. Marjorie Patricia Spriggs (1926)
Grant Hamish Fraser ([…]) m. Kristen May Reesby
James Donald Fraser ([…])
Mark Hamish Fraser ([…])
Dorothy Janet Fraser (1926) unmarried
3. Catherine Ada (Kate) Crosse (1896[1895]-1962) m. George Harvey Sutherland (1891-1956)
A) Donald Latima Sutherland (1920-1978) 1st marriage Prudence Green
Alistair Sutherland m. 1st marriage Sandra ?
Janine Sutherland
2nd marriage Denise ?
Bruce Sutherland m. 1st marriage Trish ?
Eve Sutherland
Holly Sutherland
2nd marriage Lyn Terry
B) Annie Margaret Sutherland (1922- ) m. Lionel Frederickson
Jennifer Ann Frederickson (1945) m. Robert Scott
Craig Robert Scott ([…])
Christopher John Scott ([…])
Carolyn Scott ([…])
Marcus Scott ([…])
Eion David Frederickson ([…]) m. 1st marriage Lyn Chisholm
Page 76
2nd marriage Victoria Joiner
Cherie Frederickson ([…])
Justin Frederickson ([…])
C) George Henry Sutherland (1924-2002) m. Maureen Travers
Catherine Bridget Sutherland ([…]) m. Roy Gunn
Charles Henry Sutherland ([…]) m. Lee Kelly
Katherine Kelly Sutherland ([…]) m. Simon ?
Billie
Joseph William Sutherland ([…])
George Robert Sutherland ([…]) m. Bridget Launder
Rebecca Judith Sutherland ([…])
James George Sutherland ([…])
Maria Phyllis Sutherland ([…]) m. Brendan Treacy
D) Catherine Jessie Sutherland (1926- ) m. Linton Bond
David Linton Bond ([…]) m. Jennifer Moss
Graeme David Bond ([…])
Colin Derek Bond ([…])
Graeme Bond (dec. As infant)
Ann Margaret Bond ([…]) m. Cyril Martin
Gretchen Jane Martin ([…])
Bridget Leigh Martin ([…])
Sally Erena Martin ([…])
Janice Catherine Bond ([…]) Vincent Sydall
Jarrad Roy Sydall ([…])
Trent Richard Sydall ([…])
Kylie Anne Sydall ([…])
E) John Sutherland (1928- ) m. Lila Annette Murrow
Russell Sutherland ([…]) m. Laureen Ansell
Jessica Kate Sutherland
Adam John Sutherland
Lynne Sutherland ([…]) m. Stephen Shuker
Catherine Ivy Shuker m. Greg Gidden
Ella Lyn
Charlotte Amy Shuker
Jill Sutherland ([…]) m. William Kenneth McKenzie Hamlin
Ellen Alexandra McKenzie Hamlin
Joanna Elizabeth Marie Hamlin
Victoria Janet Mary Hamlin
Bart Sutherland ([…]) m. Kay Kennedy
F) Grant Crosse Sutherland (1930) m. Pauline Body
Sharyn Robin Sutherland ([…]) m. 1st marriage Benjamin Paniora
Michelle (Mohini) Paniora ([…])
2nd marriage Glen Wills
Mukunoa Wills ([…])
Jivana Wills ([…])
Sita Wills ([…])
Judy Sutherland ( ) m. Kerry Welsh
Sama Wel Welsh ([…])
Kaushalya Welsh ([…])
Yasoda Welsh ([…])
Page 77
Jarnava Welsh ([…])
Neil Sutherland ( ) m. Angela Nelson
Samara Daisy Sutherland ([…])
Tim
Georgia
Lulea
G) Alister [Alistair] Munro Sutherland (1934 [1933] -2011) m. Lorraine Bodley
Sheraton Suntherland
Rex Sutherland
H) Beatrice Harvey Sutherland (1936) m. Norman Harper (1936-1999)
Donald Sutherland Harper ([…]) m. Fiona Beckett
Lauren Kate Harper ([…])
Ryan Nicholas Harper ([…])
Rachael Ann Harper ([…]) m. Malcolm Vernon
Adam Richard Vernon ([…])
Calum Nicholas Vernon ([…] twin)
Blair Thomas Vernon ([…] twin)
Michelle Leigh Harper ([…]) m. Gary Schroder
Kelsey Leigh Schroder ([…])
Nicole Schroder ([…])
Kurt Schroder ([…])
4. Janet Amy Crosse (1898-1985) m. James Bell Reisma (1892-1965)
A) Kenneth Robert Reisma (1924 -2001) m. Eileen Patricia Andrews (1927-2001)
Susan Leigh Reisma ([…]) m. Alan Castles ([…])
Anna Leigh Castles ([…]) m. Phillip Peffers
Rhys Peffers ([…])
Sally Peffers ([…])
Phillipa Jane Castles ([…])
Nigel Robert Castles ([…]) m. Ailsa Treacy
Bayly Castles ([…])
Caroline Maree Castles ([…])
B) Janet Merle Reisma (1928-1981) m. Trevor Dockary (1927-2010)
Allan Trevor Dockary ([…]) m. Donna Maude
James Dockary (1983-dec.)
Brooke Janet Dockary ([…])
Abbey Dockary ([…])
Bruce James Dockary ([…]) m. Stephanie Lindsay
Brendan Richard Dockary ([…])
Sarah Phillipa Dockary ([…])
Warren Thomas Dockary ([…]) m. Shelly Harris
Cameron Mark Dockary ([…])
Nicholas Paul Dockary ([…])
Matthew David Dockary ([…])
C) Gordon James Bell Reisma [Reisima] (1930- ) m. Celia Carlson (1935-1983)
Graeme James Reisma ([…]) m. Frances Mooney
Gordon James Reisima ([…])
Martin Reisima ([…])
Donald John Reisima ([…])
Ian David Reisma ([…]) m. Kirsty McFetridge
Luke Ian Reisima ([…])
James Carlson Reisima ([…])
Zac Cameron Reisima ([…])
Page 78
John Brent Reisma ([…]) m. Susan Hogan
Benjamin Reisima ([…])
Samuel Patrick Reisima ([…])
Kate Anne Reisima ([…])
Simon Charles Reisma ([…]) m. Nicola Jane Fleming
Abigail Celia Reisima ([…])
Clara Jane Reisima ([…])
Zoe Petra Reisima ([…])
5. Latima George Crosse (1901-1969) m. Myra White (1905-1987)
A) Thelma Margaret Crosse (1928-2004) m. John Stuart Small (1929)
Susan Margaret Small ([…]) m. Stanley Campbell Wallace ([…])
Karina Margaret Wallace ([…]) m. Stuart Williams James ([…])
Rose Margaret James ([…])
Brent Campbell Wallace ([…]) m. Pirjo Savilaht
Pirjo
Peter Stanley Wallace ([…]) m. Amoa Teiria Wehi ([…])
Aallyah Isabel Tiramea Wallace ([…])
Harlan Hoani Wallace ([…])
Brian John Small ([…]) m. Johanna (Jose) Koot ([…])
Sophia Johanna Maria Small ([…])
Alison Myra Small ([…]) m. Donald Breakwell ([…])
Hayden Breakwell (1978-dec.)
Darryn John Breakwell ([…])
Ricky Donald Breakwell ([…])
Mark Hayden Breakwell ([…])
Abbey Louise Breakwell ([…])
Garry William Small ([…])
Ross Latima Small ([…]) m. Sandra Gollan ([…])
Kate Jane Small ([…])
Emma Nicole Small ([…])
John William Small ([…])
B) Latima George Crosse (1929) m. Margaret Rose Herbert (1932)
Judith Anne Crosse ([…]) 1st marriage John West ([…])
Melissa Aroha West ([…])
Jai West ([…])
Vanessa Pine West ([…]) m. Graeme Owen
Jamie Owen
Katie Owen
Gordon Owen ([…])
Maycee Maggie-Anne Grace Owen ([…])
Dylan Peter West ([…]) m. Helena Christensen
Lucian Dylan West (2010)
2nd marriage Phillip Garland
Jody Garland ([…])
Chrissie Garland ([…])
Caroline Mary Crosse ([…]) m. David Parker ([…])
Daniel Parker
Madeline Rosemary Parker
Owen Latima (Bob) Crosse ([…]) m. Sharyn Margaret Tretheway
Hayley Margaret Crosse ([…])
George John Latima Crosse ([…])
Page 79
C) Myra Annie (Muff) Crosse (1930) m. Arthur James Poole (1925)
Graeme Arthur Poole ([…]) m. 1st marriage Patricia May Martina ([…])
Michelle Elizabeth Poole ([…])
Christine Rose Poole ([…])
Valerie Anne Poole ([…])
2nd marriage Helen Drysdale
Colin John Poole ([…]) m. Sandra Beryl Maude King ([…])
Daniel Robert Poole ([…])
Nathan John Poole ([…])
Sarah Rachel Poole ([…])
Eion Grant Poole ([…]) m. Lynne Margaret McFarland ([…])
Nicola Louise Poole ([…])
Callum Grant Poole ([…])
Aaron David Poole ([…])
Catherine Margaret Poole ([…]) m. Stephen John Andrew Excell ([…])
Paul Excell (dec)
Andrew Jonathon Excell ([…])
Matthew Graham Excell ([…])
Pauline Myra Excell ([…])
Charles McNair Excell ([…])
David Kenneth Poole ([…]) m. Debbie Marie Whibley ([…])
Samuel David Poole ([…])
Hannah Marie Poole ([…])
Kate Ellie Poole ([…])
D) John Ernest Crosse (1932-2009) m. Aileen Margaret Churchouse (1936)
Ian Latima Crosse ([…]) m. 1st marriage Elizabeth Jane Paterson ([…])
Jeremy Latima Crosse ([…])
Benjamin John Crosse ([…])
2nd marriage Hayley Hill
Ashleigh Louise Hill ([…])
Samuel Robert Crosse ([…])
Bianca Rose Hill ([…])
Neil John Crosse ([…]) m. Lisa Joan Flavell ([…])
Caleb John Mita Crosse ([…])
Nathaniel Paul Oliver Crosse ([…])
Bethaney-Rose Myra Crosse ([…])
Melody-Dawn Elizabeth Crosse ([…])
Zoe Grace Margaret Crosse ([…])
Solomon Josiah Rangatira Crosse ([…])
Jocelyn Doris Crosse ([…]) m. David Neilson (1949-2007)
Ryan John Thomas Neilson ([…])
Michelle Catherine Neilson ([…])
Barry Richard Crosse ([…])
E) Donald Grant Crosse (1935) m. Anne Janette Galyer (1938-2007)
Grant Keith Crosse ([…]) m Margaret Diana Bukholt ([…])
Thomas Grant Crosse ([…])
Nicholas George Crosse ([…])
Hamish Raymond Crosse ([…]) m. Joanne Clare (Jo) Speedy ([…])
Sarah Margaret Crosse ([…])
Daniel James Crosse ([…])
Hannah Christine Crosse ([…])
Page 80
F) Fanny Elizabeth Crosse (1938) m. Max Raymond Bailey (1938-1985)
Christine Myra Bailey (1970-1975)
Raymond Francis Bailey ([…]) m. Jacqueline Burnett ([…])
Xavier Max Bailey ([…])
Pamela Bailey ([…]) m. Sean Daynard
Tuli Kereru Chetana Daynard ([…])
Leonardo Daynard ([…])
G) Catherine Phyllis Crosse (1942) m. Colin Ross Hutching (1940)
Marianne Hutching ([…]) m. Robin Richard Farrell ([…])
Christa Louise Farrell ([…])
Karl Richard Farrell ([…])
Mark Jackson Farrell ([…])
Nigel Colin Hutching ([…]) m. Lisa Ann Jennings ([…])
Oscar Thomas Hutching ([…])
Sloane Myra Hutching ([…])
Sonya Maree Hutching ([…]) m. Arthur Charles Perkin ([…])
Hannah Catherin Perkin ([…])
Riley Cosmo Perkin ([…])
Catherine Louise Hutching ([…]) m. Karl James Humphreys ([…])
H) Barbara Janet Crosse (1943) m. Lloyd Wood Stokes (1941)
Simon John Stokes ([…]) m. Kirsten Bourke ([…])
Lachlan George Stokes ([…])
Abigail Myra Stokes ([…])
Nicola Jane Stokes ([…]) m. Paul Plummer
Samuel Wallace Plummer ([…])
Hugo James Plummer ([…])
I) Keith Charles Crosse (1944) m. 1st marriage Pamela Deidre Curnow Smith ([…])
Kimberley Patricia Crosse ([…]) m. Mark Spooner
James Matene (1988-1988)
Brandon Matene ([…])
Myra-Dawn Spooner ([…])
Craig John Crosse ([…])
Hilary Jane Crosse ([…]) m. Patrick Hetariki ([…])
Benji James Hetariki ([…]
2nd marriage Glenda Marion Fraser
6. Donald Grant Crosse (1905-1976) m. Margaret Spencerly Walker (1906-1974) No issue
V Catherine Amelia Crosse (1861-1953) m. Kenneth McKenzie (1849-1924)
Their children and descendants:
1. Alexander Frederick McKenzie (1885) m. Eileen Winks Their children:
A) Keith McKenzie (1915 – ) m. Dorothy Lawrence
Craig McKenzie (1945) m. Olive Rutherford
Kathryn McKenzie ([…])
Stuart McKenzie ([…])
Susan McKenzie ([…])
B) Ian McKenzie (1919 – ) m. Gladys Vance
John McKenzie ([…]) m. Denise Purton
Calum McKenzie ([…])
Hamish McKenzie ([…])
Page 81
Katherine McKenzie ([…])
Richard McKenzie ([…])
Stephen McKenzie ([…])
2. George McKenzie (? – 1916) Died Western Front WW1
3. Kenneth McKenzie (1888-1918) Died Western Front WW1
4. Herbert McKenzie (Bertie) ( ) m. Gladys Hibberd
A) Kathryn McKenzie
5. Frank Ezekiel McKenzie ( ) m. Joyce (Jo) ?
A) Kenneth McKenzie
B) Jean McKenzie m. Arthur Hughes
Wayne Hughes
Joanne Hughes m. Robert Wills
Dinah
C) John Wallace McKenzie ( – 1989) m. Jill Archey
Ian McKenzie
Jane
Margaret
Jocelyn
6. Alice Mabel McKenzie (1893-1953)
7. Dora McKenzie ( )
8. Charles McKenzie ( )
VI Samuel Grant Crosse (1862-1927 2 m. Elizabeth Gell (1867-1913)
No issue
VII Fanny Crosse (1864-1951) m. David Davis (1864-1938)
Their children and descendants:
1. Robert Davis (1892-1981) m. Cecilia Florence Elizabeth Margaret Smith (1892-1951)
A) Richard [Dick] David Davis (1916-1981) m. Nola Jessie Freeman (1920 – )
John Richard Davis ([…]) m. 1st marriage Jayne Claire Kyle
2nd marriage Janet Lois Barker
Richard Allan Davis ([…])
Robert John Davis ([…])
Judith Ann Davis ([…]) m. Seton Marcus Thomsen ([…])
Adam Robert Thomsen ([…])
Elizabeth Ann (Lisa) Thomsen ([…])
Kathryn Elizabeth Mary Davis ([…]) m. Kevin Smith ([…])
Claire Elizabeth Smith ([…])
Mark Davis Smith ([…])
B) Dorothy Katherine Davis (1918- ) m. Lloyd Carlisle (1918)
Christine Dorothy Carlisle ([…]) m. Roger Vivian Metcalfe ([…])
Simon Edward Metcalfe ([…]) m. Kana Shimizullsig
Noah Carlisle ([…])
Risa Carlisle ([…])
Alexander Lomas Carlisle ([…])
Lloyd Paul Carlisle ([…])
Page 82
2. Llewellyn Thomas (Dick) Davis (1893-1915) died WW1 – Gallipoli
3. Latima James Davis (1896-1936) m. Catherine (Kit) Walters
Beverly Davis
4. Catherine Elizabeth Davis (1899? -1900)
5. David Grant (Barney) Davis (1902-1995) m. Kathleen McIntosh Wright (1901- 1982)
A) Joy Wright Davis (1931) m. Selwyn Atkinson (1928)
David Selwyn Atkinson ([…]) m. Gabriel Marie Mangan ([…])
Olivia Rose Atkinson ([…])
Campbell David Mangan Atkinson ([…])
Phillippa Joy Atkinson ([…]) m. Alan Dean Percival Wills ([…])
Ashley Marie Wills ([…])
Francis Alana Wills ([…])
Timothy James Alan Wills ([…])
VIII Marian Crosse (1866-1942) m. James Otto Barker (1868-1952 [1951])
Their children and descendants:
1. David Barker (1900-1918 [1897-1916])
2. Fanny Barker (1901 -1955 [1899-1964]) Unmarried
3. John Otto Barker (1902-1981) m.
1st marriage Ivy Palmer (She and child dec.)
2nd marriage Evelyn Cossey (1908-1995)
A) Roy John Barker (1937) m. 1st marriage Pixie Harrison
2nd marriage Elaine Thompson-Rhodes
Natalie Barker ([…]) m. Graeme Chapman
John Owen Barker ([…]) m. Susan Gaylor
Delwyn Barker ([…]) m. Roelle Van de Burgh
Anthony Andrew Barker ([…]) m. Paula Chapman
B) Keith James Barker (1940) m. 1st marriage Lynette Geraghty (1924-1971)
Carl Anthony Barker ([…]) m. Dallas Rasmussen ([…])
Cody Lee James Carlson Barker ([…])
Chantel Victoria Barker ([…])
Jenna Bailey Barker ([…])
Amanda Kristy Barker (1988-2009)
Aiden David Barker ([…])
Lance Michael Barker ([…])
Leanne Michelle Barker ([…]) m. James MacKay ([…])
Layla Evelyn Barker ([…])
Jack Aden Barker ([…])
Logan James Quinn MacKay ([…])
Rodney Paul Barker ([…]) m. Sheila Albert ([…])
Michael Darryl Barker ([…])
Catherine Nicole Barker ([…])
Tyler James Barker ([…])
2nd marriage Lynda Woolf
4. Margaret Barker (1905 [1904]-1978 ) m. Harold (Harry) Jamieson
A) Evelyn Jamieson (1933) m. John Green
Margaret Green ([…])
Robynne Green ([…])
Page 83
Kaye Green ([…])
Lane Green ([…])
John Green
B) Margaret Jamieson (1935) m. Norman Cox
Norman Cox ([…])
Sheryl Cox […])
Lynette Cox ([…])
Brian Cox ([…])
C) Alan Jamieson (1938) m. Ann Godfrey
Rowena Jamieson ([…])
Alan Jamieson Jnr ([…])
D) Harry Jamieson (1940) m. Judy Costello
Larry Jamieson
Tony Jamieson
James Jamieson
Karen Jamieson
5. James Otto Jnr Barker (1909-1985 [1986]) m. Kay Connor
IX Clara Jane Crosse (1868-1941) (Unmarried)
X Charles Crosse (1870-1953) m. Hilda Violet Herbert (1889-1974)
Their children and descendants:
1. Violet Eileen Elizabeth Crosse (1909-2002) m. Cyril Dacre Bennett (1906-1982)
A) Charles William Bennett (1938) m. Wendy Katharine Barnett (1941)
Gregory William Bennett ([…])
Simon Guy Bennett ([…])
Nicola Jane Bennett ([…]) m. David Kelly
Sam Nikolas Bennett ([…])
Mayan Holly Kelly ([…])
B) Alan Dacre Bennett (1940) m. Jeanette Gilmore
Jeffrey Alan Bennett ([…]) m. Tania Galloway
Abigail Bennett
Angus Bennett
Diane Elizabeth Bennett ([…]) m. Laurence Christopher Burkin ([…])
Jaimie Eileen Burkin ([…])
Caitlin Jorge Burkin ([…])
Forne Kristen Burkin ([…])
Liam Laurence Alan Burkin ([…])
Stephen John Dacre Bennett ([…]) m. Kerin McKee
John Alan Dacre Bennett
Emma Kate Bennett
Laura May Bennett
Benjamin James Kristen Bennett
Peter Raymond Bennett ([…]) m. Shona Newland ([…])
Katie Elizabeth Bennett
Matthew George Bennett
Charlie Alan Dacre Bennett
Page 84
Phillip William Bennett ([…]) m. Korine Mooney
Lucy Jean Bennett
William Thomas Bennett
Georgia May Bennett
C) Lyndon Doris Bennett (1943) m. William Thomson
Michael Charles Thomson ([…]) m. Christina Mary Duffy ([…])
Gene Michael Thomson ([…])
Tania Marie Thomson ([…])
Elizabeth Kate Thomson ([…]) 1st marriage Christopher Smyth
Ryan James Smyth ([…])
Stacy Adam Smyth ([…])
2nd marriage Gregory William Cave
James William Thomson ([…]) m. Trina Moore
Kade William James Thomson ([…])
D) Moira Elizabeth Bennett (1944) m.- Michael Brewer (1937)
Timothy Hayes Brewer ([…]) m. Lara Sharon Reiwana Murphy ([…])
Talia Isabelle Hana Brewer ([…])
Colton Hayes Winara Brewer ([…])
Robert John Brewer ([…]) 1st marriage Teresa Fay Anderson ([…])
Jeffrey Barry John Brewer ([…])
Sasha Louise Elizabeth Brewer ([…])
Joshua Michael James Brewer ([…])
2nd marriage Katrina Payne
E) Aileen Alys Herbert Bennett ([…]) m. Stephen Long ([…])
Christopher James Long ([…])
Andrew Robert Cyril Long […])
2. Gertrude Doris Crosse (1910- 2003 ) m. Leslie Scatter (1901-1980)
A) David Charles Seatter (1937) m. Norah June Hodgson
Carolyn June Seatter ([…]) m. Frank Sullervan Scott
Wendy Lyn Seatter ([…]) m. Delwyn Richard Paewai
Jade Kura Paewai ([…]) + Moses Whareaitu
Paige Moki-Kiwa Whareaitu (2009)
Renee Mavis Paewai ([…]) + Clint Glen Rautahi
Tawera Ihaka Rautahi ([…])
Te Tahi Lofty Rautahi ([…])
Jared David Paewai ([…]) m. Moana Robinson
Rafe Whirimu Ringa Paewai ([…])
Isaac Nepia Paewai ([…])
B) George Cyril Seatter (1939) m. Judith Harris
Deborah Kay Seatter ([…]) m. Tony Mansill
Cody Ryan Mansill ([…])
Kellie Brooke Mansill ([…])
Michael Guy Seatter ([…]) M. Dobson
Clare Megan Seatter ([…])
Amy Kay Seatter ([…])
Gail Louise Seatter ([…]) m. A. Butterfield
C) Rosalie Ann Scatter (1941) m. John McCullough (1938)
Susan Janne McCullough ([…]) m. Christopher John Redman ([…])
Emily Rose Theresa Redman ([…])
Annabel Clare Redman ([…])
Page 85
Andrew John McCullough ([…]) m. Sandy Lord-Bacher ([…])
Jennifer Ruth McCullough ([…]) m. Brian Murray Northern ([…])
Grace Emma Northern ([…])
Madeline Jane Northern ([…])
Peter Robert Leslie McCullough ([…]) m.
1st marriage Anna Fitzherbert ([…])
2nd Kylie Welton ([…])
Rory John McCullough ([…])
Aria Ada McCullough (2010-2010)
D) Cedric Crosse Seatter ([…]) m. Valerie Broomfield ([…])
Mark Cedric Seatter ([…])
Jill Irene Seatter ([…]) m. Dale Allan Brider ([…])
Jake Allan Brider ([…])
Jimi Lawrence Brider ([…])
Jeffrey Nigel Seatter ([…]) m. Annette Thrasher ([…])
3. Phyllis Crosse (1916-2002) m. Kenneth Houston (1904-1984)
A) Ian Houston ([…]) m. Patricia (Pat) Eivers ([…])
Stuart Ian Houston ([…]) 1st marriage Vera Manely
Jessica ([…])
Ryan ([…])
Adam ([…])
2nd marriage Sue Devlin (dec.)
Annette ([…])
Samantha ([…])
3rd marriage Karleen Ferguson
Barry Patrick Houston ([…]) + Kere Heperi
Jamie Patrick Heperi-Houston ([…]
Noel Kenneth Houston ([…]) m. Carol Puddy
Ruby Elizabeth Houston ([…])
Nina Mae Houston ([…])
B) Jack Douglas Houston (1941) m. Gladys Sergeant
Darren Kenneth Houston ([…]) m. Angela Stevens
Anna Houston
Alicia Houston
Benjamin Houston
Julie Cynthia Houston ([…]) m. Stephen Boyd
Jacob Boyd Emma Boyd
C) Graeme Charles Houston (1943) m. June Halpin
Rebecca Houston ([…])
Sarah Jane Houston ([…])
Emma Joy Houston ([…])
D) Kenneth William Houston ([…]) m. Barbara Mehi Beamsley ([…])
Lee-Ann Houston ([…]) m. Andrew Simon Duligall ([…])
Paige Alexandra Duligall ([…])
Hunter Houston Duligall ([…])
Cameron Arman Duligall ([…])
Daniel Peter Houston ([…]) m. Joanne Christine Miles ([…])
Page 86
Taylor John William Houston ([…])
Kendall Grace Houston ([…])
Lewis Daniel Houston ([…])
Aimee Joy Houston ([…]) m. Daniel Feck
Hannah Elizabeth Feck ([…])
Greer Aimee Feck ([…])
E) Marie Houston ([…]) m. 1st marriage Anthony Alan Williams ([…])
Bruce Allan Williams ([…])
Richard John Williams ([…]) m. Angela Doreen Harris ([…])
Benjamin Alan Williams ([…])
Mason John Williams ([…])
Kelly Marie Williams ([…]) m. Timothy Jason Dineen ([…])
Meg Emma Dineen ([…])
Lochie John David Dineen ([…])
2nd marriage Alfred Johnston ([…])
F) Bruce Houston (1951-1960)
G) Murray Houston ([…]) m. 1st marriage Heather Williamson
2nd marriage Jan-Wendy McGuire (nee Smith) ([…])
APPENDIX ONE LOCATIONS IN HAWKE’S BAY OF FAMILY FARMS
STATIONS & LOCALITIES ASSOCIATED WITH THE CROSSE FAMILY IN SOUTHERN HAWKE’S BAY
TAKAPAU
WAIPUKURAU
Tr Uri
DANNEVIRKE
PORANGAHAU
Tawanui
Ti Toki
Mangatoitoi
Mangamaire
Kumeroa
WEBER
Lindside
WOODVILLE
Kelvin Grove
Ti Tree Pt
Haunui
HERBERTVILLE
0 10kms
PROPERTIES OF THOMAS EZEKIEL CROSSE IN NORTHERN HAWKE’S BAY
Patoka Station
NAPIER
TARADALE
HASTINGS
Woodland
HAVELOCK NORTH
0 20kms
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Description
Family surnames in this book –
Abraham, Ackhurst, Adams, Albert, Anderson, Andrews, Ansell, Archey, Arkwright, Atherton, Bailey, Balfour, Barbey, Barker, Barnicoat, Barrett, Beamsley, Beckett, Beets, Bell, Bennett, Bodley, Body, Bokenham, Bond, Bourke, Boyd, Breakwell, Brewer, Brider, Broomfield, Bukholt, Burkin, Burnett, Butterfield, Bygrave, Caldwell, Cameron, Carlisle, Carlson, Castle, Castles, Cave, Chambers, Chapman, Chisholm, Christensen, Churchouse, Clayton, Connor, Cossey, Costello, Cotterell, Cox, Crosse, Cruickshank, Cunningham, Currie, Davis, Daynard, Devlin, Dewar, Dineen, Dobson, Dockary, Dodunski, Doelman, Dolan, Downes, Drysdale, Duffy, Duligall, Eastwood, Eivers, Excell, Farquhar, Farrell, Feakin, Feck, Ferguson, Fitzherbert, Flavell, Fleming, Foley, Franks, Fraser, Frederickson, Freeman, Gallon, Galloway, Garland, Gawith, Gaylor, Gell, Geraghty, Gidden, Gilmore, Glanville, Godfrey, Gollan, Goodwin, Grant, Green, Gunn, Hales, Halpin, Hamlin, Hammond, Harman, Harper, Harris, Harrison, Healy, Herbert, Hetariki, Hewat, Hibberd, Hill, Hodgson, Hogan, Hole, Hook, Houston, Howard, Howell, Hughes, Humphreys, Hunter, Huntriss, Jackson, James, Jamieson, Jennings, Jensen, Johnston, Joiner, Jonsson, June, Kavanagh, Kelly, Kennedy, Koot, Kyle, Launder, Lawrence, Lawson, Lifford, Light, Lindsay, Long, Lord-Bacher, MacKay, Magill, Mandeno, Manely [Manley?], Mangan, Mansill, Marsh, Marshall, Martin, Martina, Marton, Mather, Maude, McCrae, McCullough, McFarland, McFetridge, McGlashan, McGuire, McKee, McKenzie, McLean, McRae, McSporran, Metcalfe, Mica, Miles, Mooney, Moore, Moss, Munro, Murphy, Murrow, Neilson, Nelson, Newland, Norris, Northern, Owen, Paewai, Palmer, Paniora, Parker, Paterson, Payne, Peffers, Perkin, Phelps, Phillips, Piper, Plummer, Poole, Porter, Puddy, Purton, Rasmussen, Rautahi, Redman, Reesby, Reisima, Reiter, Rizls, Robinson, Rose, Ross, Rutherford, Ryder, Sargent, Sault, Savilaht, Schroder, Scott, Sergeant, Shankland, Shearer, Shimizullsig, Shuker, Silverton, Sinclair, Small, Smith, Smyth, Souness, Speedy, Spencer, Spooner, Spriggs, Stent, Sterling, Stevenson, Stokes, Sutherland, Swenson, Sydall, Terry, Thomas, Thompson, Thompson-Rhodes, Thomsen, Thomson, Thorburn, Thorby, Thrasher, Travers, Treacy, Tretheway, Van de Burgh, Vance, Vernon, Vickers, Walker, Walker-Lear, Wallace, Walters, Wardlaw, Wehi, Welsh, Welton, West, Whareaitu, Whibley, White, Wightwick, Williams, Williamson, Wills, Wilson, Winks, Wislow, Woolf, Wright
NB – birth dates later than 1945 and marriage dates later than 1971 are withheld and are indicated by “[…]” in the transcript
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BookDate published
2010Accession number
471079Supporters and sponsors
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