BELLS OF SUNDAY ISLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 207, 1 September 1932, Page 11

BELLS OF SUNDAY ISLAND.

MOTHER DIES IN AUCKLAND. FAMILY SCATTERED. In her 86th year, Mrs. Frederica 8011, the mother of the family known as "the Sunday Island Bells," died in Auckland yesterday. She came from the heart of London, and her husband, Mr. Thomas Bell, who died in 1929, came from Yorkshire, and it seems strange that with all the world to choose from they elected to live on lonely, uninhabited Sunday Island, the largest of the Kermadec group. In the year 1879, when the Belli 3 went to the island, whaling was in full swiiig in that part of the Pacific, and 'the Bells used to trade vegetables, fruit, and fresh meat to the whalers in return for stores. After the whaling declined the Bells had that part of tlie Pacific very much to themselves, and towards the end of their stay their only caller was the New Zealand Government steamer, which went up once a year to,.tend the depot for castaways. Mrs. Bell lived on the island for 23 years, and six of her family were born there. At the end of her long life she never ceased to look back with fondness on her years on Sunday Island, and she used to say that if she could find it the paradise it was when they lived there she would willingly go back. The Bells lived a happy, care-free, Swiss Family Robinson sort of life, and the children were noted for their physical development. Some of the girls were of remarkable physique, and thought nothing of carrying a sack of flour from the landing place across rocky tracks to their home on the other side. Far from finding the life lonely, Mrs. Bell enjoyed every minute of it. When her children were little she taught them to read and write, there was the daily housework, and she used to delight in helping in the cultivation of the yams, taro, bananas, and other tropical foods. She and her husband were people of strong character, and they never allowed the family to drift, into the "beachcomber's" attitude to life, where the climate induces to slacking. The Bells were a numerous family, and by the irony of fate were in latter days just as scattered as they had been isolated in the old days. Of the survivors, one daughter lives in California, another in Vancouver, a third in Auckland, and the fourth in Pahiatua. Three sons live in the Waikato, and another, is on Norfolk Island, the only one vho remained true to the island habit of the large family of 14 children.