Ohauiti
On 3 June 1953 we shifted all our earthly possessions to our own place in Ohauiti, Tauranga. On that day, or rather that evening, as we put the lino down on the kitchen floor we listened to the radio and heard the Coronation of our young Queen, Elizabeth, and the news that Edmund Hillary and the sherpa, Tensing, had climbed to the top of Mount Everest – the first climbers to actually reach the summit. It wasn’t long before we found that rats were wanting to share our house with us, and it was only after a number of nights chasing them round the kitchen that we must have got the last one and were bothered no more. Mr. Ballard had brought our goods on his truck and another day brought our two cows which were to live in the paddock we had leased adjoining our own place. The paddock had a structure of sorts, which we used to milk the cows in, but there wasn’t a lot of grass for them, mostly gorse and blackberry. However, they did manage to keep milking for quite a time and we made a small addition to the concrete tank that was there into a dairy and had a small separator where we separated our milk and churned butter, and even managed to send some cream to the factory. At that time, Lynette was 9 months old, but I fed her until the cows had calved and their milk was acceptable for her. I don’t know how long we milked those cows for, but it was over a year, and when they did go dry we sold them and after that had to put out bottles and pay for our milk. The paddock would have taken too much time and hard work to make it into dairy land.
By this time, Dad had bought a Graveley and worked up and planted the area nearest the road in vegetables, and we never had to buy much for a meal, except meat – and the butcher came round each week and sold that from his van. When I had visited Ohauiti previously, Hairini Hall was on the corner of the road (later Una Wickham Place) but now there was a grocer shop there and Mr. Hall delivered groceries every week. We did have a phone, and electricity and an electric stove for the first time, and a hot water cylinder, so we were very comfortable with enough rooms (using a passage for one) for the children to have a bed each (having brought two sets of bunks with us).
Some time in the early days Dad had built onto the sitting room, closing in the end of the verandah and putting in a lovely big window. This not only made a bigger and warmer room, but also sheltered that end of the verandah, making it a lovely sunny place to sit and work in. Soon after we came to Ohauiti, Rewa went to the Solomon’s as a Missionary Nurse, and we all went to Sapphire Springs for the day to say farewell to her. Mother was really sad that we all left her at almost the same time. Just before that time Edith had left for a trip to Australia, and travelled there for some months.
In the meantime I had planted fruit trees and a garden, and also joined CWI and got to know the neighbours. Chappells had bought next door, but spent the first months with her parents who lived a few houses down the road. McCrackens lived on the other side, and he arrived the first morning with a marrow for us, and was a friendly and kindly neighbour – a man who had lost an arm in the First World War, but never complained or talked about it. Mrs. Taylor lived with her husband, two houses away, but her family were all grown up. The little Mission house, and Miss Birley, were to become better known to the girls when they were old enough to join Guides. The boys brought their bikes with them and eventually were able to ride them to school occasionally (usually they caught the bus at the gate) and joined Scouts. When Ian was old enough he went to Boys’ Brigade. They all went to camps sometimes and enjoyed the fun and challenge of them.
Days in Ohauiti were very full. The alarm still rang at 5.00 am, and the day started with a cup of tea and a ginger nut (or two). Pre-marriage it had been a slice of bread and golden syrup. In the winter the fire was always lit – we had an open fire in the kitchen. If I was feeding a baby I was given mine in bed, but otherwise we shared together at that time. As soon as it was light enough Dad got busy in the garden and with the sewing machine in the kitchen I was able to get an uninterrupted go at what I was doing at the time. I made all the children’s, and my own, clothes - except underclothes, which were easily bought at Mackenzies and not worth the effort of making them. Even when the boys went to College I made their uniforms and then the girls’ gym frocks, but I was very put out when Ron started Intermediate and I could not even get the material for his uniform. When Diana went there a new and expensive uniform was decreed. I was very indignant, never having paid as much for a frock for myself, and the material wasn’t available for that either.
When Dad came in from the garden we prepared for the lunches. I spread and he cut the bread (sliced bread wasn’t available then - but even if it had been it wouldn’t have been thin enough for him). He liked meat for his lunch, but the children put their own choice of filling on theirs. At one stage jelly crystals were a favourite. While I put Dad’s lunch ready, he had his breakfast, another cup of tea and a slice of bread. He started work at 7.30 am and was never late. Later on, when he had an apprentice to take, woe betide him if he kept Dad waiting.
Now it was getting the children up and ready for school and breakfast. Porridge and an egg, usually fried, was the usual fare, and not until Diana did anyone object to that. The bus picked them up at the gate at 8.15 am, the same one whether for Primary, Intermediate or either College.
I’m afraid I far preferred to be out in the garden to doing the housework, but of course that always had to be done. If I needed to go to town I had to go with Dad and bring the car home, and then go back for him at night. It was not until Diana was three that there was a bus and I could go to some other activities.
After I got my own little car I was able to go to more CWI meetings and to various ‘schools’. I went to a cake icing one, and so was able to ice the cakes for the children’s’ weddings (except Fred’s) and to millinery, making hats that I wore. Also cane work, which produced little chairs, and a doll’s pram. I was pleased to add these accomplishments to my life. I also collected for charities at that time and enjoyed visiting the different homes on the road. I was always intrigued by the different view of the area that each one had. Today there are many houses where there was one then, and where we looked across at cows and grass is now a sea of houses. Unfortunately, many good farms have been cut up for houses too, as the older settlers have retired or departed.
About the time we shifted, other things began to change too. Our monetary system changed from pounds, shillings and pence to decimal currency, with two dollars to the pound, and 100 cents to the dollar. Our 2/6 became 50 cents and florin, 20 cents; a shilling is now 10 cents and 6 pence, 5 cents. Because it was used all the time, we soon became accustomed to that and even buying material where a metre was only 4 inches more than a yard, but when it came to miles per hour and miles per gallon to kilometres and kilograms – well when I got petrol I asked them to ‘fill it up’ or for 20 dollars worth. Our pint of milk became a litre, and a quart, 2 litres, but when I went to buy potting mix it was 50 litres. No longer do we buy a 70 lb bag of sugar, or 25 lb of flour, but 3 lb of sugar is 1.5 kilos and a pound of butter, 500 grams. Dad had to learn fast as his tape was now in centimetres and metres. All length measurements were noted that way, but a 3 x 2 or a 6 x 1 was still called that way – I don’t know if they still are, but if someone tells me a plant grows 30 or 60 centimetres it means nothing to me, but if I’m told it grows a foot I can visualise what size that would be. No doubt my children now would be as puzzled the other way round, and their children completely in the dark.
When we told folk we lived in Ohauiti, their reaction was “Oh, out in the sticks” – but in reality we were only six kilometres from town and although the road was only metalled that was no different from the Hamilton one.
We were very surprised when the radio told us the degrees of frost here and in the Waikato were very often the same, but the nine o’clock temperatures here were several degrees higher. One thing Tauranga didn’t know was a black frost, and we didn’t miss the Waikato fogs. Our kitchen window faced due west, and many an evening we were treated to a lovely sunset as we enjoyed our tea. When we came to our place it boasted a well and a pump, 300 feet below, and beautiful water it provided us with.
As soon as we were settled Dad ordered timber and built a workshop up at the road with the idea that perhaps he would make gates to sell, for of course he had to get money somehow. He did make a set of gates for our own entrance with Fairview proudly displayed, but then he saw an ad in the paper for a carpenter wanted, and although he couldn’t claim to be a carpenter, he had had some experience, having helped my Father build the Sunday School Hall and the bach, Waiwauki, at Waihi Beach. Bill Stewart had just completed his apprenticeship and was intending to start out on his own. He did appreciate Dad’s willingness to learn, and thus began a friendship and working together that lasted until they both retired and Bill had trusted Dad with the finishing work on the many houses they built, ending with one for ourselves when Dad was actually ‘the boss’.
Early on Dad had built a fowl house where we kept 20 fowls that provided us with all the eggs we needed until 1982 when we went to Canada and didn’t want to leave anyone else to feed them. At that time Norman was spending his spare time working at a poultry farm and cracked eggs were cheap and available and manure was there for the taking for my garden, so we didn’t restock the fowl house again.