Chapter 11

Reasons for going to Parkdale and preparations for starting

Nell explains the reason for making a shift from Harveys Flat where they had been

living for eight years prior to the move to Heriot.

Father was doing well enough and carrying, and Alf was provided for, but there

were a big lot of children coming on and he and mother were determined not to

let boys or girls go from home to make a living, for that was not why they left the

homeland where the little holdings had to be divided for each generation, compared

to such large spaces over the seas.

Also Mr Donald Reid's deferred payment system of land settlement made it

possible to acquire land on easy terms, and to allow the little man to get

onto the land.

Fan now supplies reasons why Harvey's Flat was not satisfactory and gives

information about the section of Parkdale.

Harveys Flat, part of it anyway, was rough land covered with flax, tree tutu,

fern, fuschias, speargrass, etcetera. Only a few acres of it were fit for the plough.

We had a few milking cows and some stores cattle and could run the young

ones and the stores on the Crown land at the back for two shillings per head

per year.

There was word of this Crown Land being sold. It was not suitable for mixed
farming and father and some other men were talking about some good land
they had heard of in the Tapanui district or Heriot Hundreds as it was called
at that time. You had to go to Lawrence to draw a section or get someone
to draw it for you.

This was in January 1876. Father borrowed a cobby little hack and rode to

Lawrence via Waipori, and got maps etc, and rode on to Dunrobin and

Heriot to pick a section.

He left one pound deposit per section with a Mr Thompson of Lawrence

with authority to draw for him and came back home within a week.

One of the sections he picked was Parkdale.

In time we heard we had a section and mother began to pack.

Nell says the following:

I have heard that father was very downhearted when he came to

Swift Creek (a.k.a. Heriot) first, and really it was a big undertaking to leave what

he was more or less a steady job and go out back, where there was no

church or school. At that time our father though not old in years,

was feeling the strain, and his family the large was small in years and size

and again he was 51 years of age, a broken man in health, with a family

of ten, the oldest only 16, a girl and one boy 15 and one boy of 12. He had

600 Pounds, a small fortune in those days. A small holding for such a family

and that was yet to be paid for built on, and fenced and ploughed.

They were giants in those days, giants of self-denial and persistent effort.

Carrying in those days was a comparatively lucrative business, but the calls

of the needs of the family, had to be the first consideration.

It is a matter for thought to as to how much influence was exerted by the

older children of the family who it is reasonable to assume were imbued

with a pioneering instinct and may have influenced the decision of the

parents, by the youthful outlook and aspirations which may have been

communicated to their elders.

In those days the breaking up of land into small holdings for close settlement

was very unpopular with the holders of the land or run holders who grazed sheep

and cattle over large areas of the country. At no time however did this feeling go

to such thing as we are led to believe it did in Western America where the "Nestor"

actually took his life into his hands when making a selection on the ranges of

the cattle kings.

Fan and Nell mentioned this undercurrent of hostility:

Donald Reid met with a lot of opposition from the big men who ran their sheep

on the Heriot Hundreds and even an our own case tried to frighten the small

farmers or cockatoos as they are called, away.

So when coming to a town or township when we all wanted to do to get out,

father said to keep out of sight as they pass such remarks about these cockies

Fan has this to say:

Mother began to pack. She made jam of all the fruits she had and packed it into

boxes. She had all the bees smoked except one box, and put the honey in

kerosene tins. She made clothes for the boys and dresses for the girls, and

knitted stockings for everyone and made us wear our old clothes. She gathered

flower seeds and at the last dug up the roots of all the flowers she had, and put

them with a few strawberry plants and a raspberry cane and roots for the of

rhubarb. There were also a dozen or more young trees that she had grafted

herself from Joe Cookston, and a cutting from this and a cutting from that.

She gathered up hundreds of young Hawthorns, she had grown from pips

that the boys had gathered out on the road from school, the year before.

Bess says:

The dresses mother made for us before we left Harvey's flat I thought most

beautiful and they did last.

Nell says:

I remember the black and red woman dresses that mother made for us just

before we left Harveys Flat.

The box of bees that was not smoked, a tarpaulin was wrapped around it and

it was placed on the bottom of the wagon and it provided the nucleus of the the

flock that thrived and multiplied for many years, until foul brood or some bee

disease got into them and ended their career. It was this box of bees, when

seen by Alex Ritchie after it's arrival and unpacking that caused him to run home

and tell his mother the new people have brought a box of flies with them.

Mother was a great knitter of stockings and kept the whole family supplied

throughout a period of 30 years at least and during that time must have knitted

hundreds of pairs of them, if not thousands. She could knit without looking

at the wool, and could talk away and do other things at the same time,

while still carrying on with the knitting.

The new young trees and seeds started the vegetable and fruit garden that

was always a feature of Parkdale, while the young Hawthorns provided

a shelter when made into a hedge around the house.

Fan says:

When they heard we were leaving some of the older children schoolmates

came to visit us and say goodbye, and we thought it was great fun showing

them around our place and romping in the Supple Jack's that grew on the

flax bushes. Then they invited us to go and see them before we left and

the younger ones went as well. Then came the last days. Things were

looking wintry, the house empty, the calves an the lambs gone, and even the

little coloured lizards that we played with on the sunny side of the hedge

had gone to the hide for the winter.

Our good neighbour, Joe Cookston, came to help father to load.

First, the bees in a box with the heaviest things. Then came the furniture

and on top of that the bedding. We were on top of that again.

The cat was in the box on the tail board and the branches of the young

trees were sticking out behind. I don't remember getting any meals

in those last days I think we must have only had pieces and drinks.