Daddy

On 8 September 1957 Daddy came inside after spending time in the garden, and said to his wife “I think I’ll just have a wee rest before I have smoko”. Imagine Mothers shock when she went to tell him it was ready to find his life gone from him.  Though Mother would rather have gone with Daddy on his last journey she felt it would be too hard for Rewa to come home from Bougainville to neither of them, so she gamely kept on for another 16 years. 

Edith applied for Gordonton School and came home to live with her and later took early retirement so she could help her more, but also to write a book on their early life on the farm.  She spent much time reading diaries and school committee and drainage board minutes and other historical information, and eventually did write three books, the last one just before she died, and was about our Grandfather, his B.A. and his life.  Her funeral, September 18 2003, was a tribute and a celebration and was attended by all the family possible and many friends.  She will be sadly missed and as one grandson put it sadly “I only know that who-ever I marry will never get to know Auntie Edith”.  Edith’s passing meant the end of an era as far as the old home was concerned, and the big task of sorting and disposing of all that was in it was left mainly to Ruth- an unenviable task and a daunting one. Silverfish and borer had also made it their home, and the remains of over 80 years of treasures, useful and otherwise, were still there.

 

In those sixteen years Mother not only welcomed Rewa home after her six years nursing in the missionary hospital in Buka, but also saw her married to Gordon Miller and then the birth of their two daughters, and was able to visit them in their home in Campbell Bay.  Though she was very deaf, she otherwise kept good health till she passed away peacefully, just after her 80th birthday.  Rewa lived to see her daughter, Christine, married to David Fuller, but unfortunately her husband did not.