Mother, Grandmother Of Soldiers Addresses Rally

Northern Advocate, 9 February 1940, Page 6

Mother, Grandmother Of Soldiers Addresses Rally

[Special to “Northern Advocate ”] WELLINGTON. This Day. A MOTHER WHO HAD SIX SONS SERVING IN THE GREAT WAR, TWO OF WHOM WERE KILLED AND THE REST WOUNDED, AND WHO HAS ONE SON IN CAMP, ONE GRANDSON ON DUTY AT FORT DORSET AND ANOTHER IN THE NGARUAWAHIA CAMP, SPOKE AT A RECRUITING RALLY GIVEN IN THE WELLINGTON TOWN HALL YESTERDAY. She is .Mrs. 11. M. Barnard, of Island Bay. She "said that her sons had felt this beautiful land of New Zealand was really worth defending. All were volunteers.

Rousing Reception. Mrs. Barnard received a rousing reception from her audience, whom she told she was a direct descendant of pioneer grandparent who came to New Zealand in the Fifeshire, one of the first ships that went to Nelson. Four generations of her family had been born in New Zealand and as a child she had shared the hardships of pioneering with her parents on the West Coast of the South Island. At the outbreak of war in 1914 her three eldest sons volunteered and they were all in camp by August 12,

England Expects— Her fourth son went w.th the fourth Reinforcement, her fifth served with the Second Battalion of the Rifle Brigade and her sixth went with the 28th Reinforcement. During 1914-18 Mrs. Barnard organised a sewing bee in Eltham, where she was then living, to provide comforts for soldiers.. “I can only say that England expects that every man, and every woman, will do his and her duty respectively," said Mrs. Barnard.