FIVE GENERATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19832, 30 December 1927, Page 10

FIVE GENERATIONS.

AN AUCKLAND FAMILY.

OLD LADY'S PROUD RECORD.

CAME TO THE COLONY ALONE

ONLY TWO HOLIDAYS IN LIFE

Even in so healthy a land as Now Zealand, where the span of life is long, few women and still fewer men live to be great-great grandparents. One Auckland lady. Mrs. Elizabeth Havill, has this honour. She will be 90 years old next February, but although bent by what she admits to have been a hard life, she is still active about her little house in Sackville Street, Grey Lynn. In actual fact, Mrs. Havill does not know the precise number of her descendants; she has never troubled to keep tally of them. All told, they must form a company running into the hundreds. The* three human links between her and her great-great-grandchild, little Miss Joyce Lamb, whose home is at Onehunga, are all alive. They are her daughter, Mrs. Bernard McDonald, her grandson, Mr. Edward McDonald, and her greatgrandaudghter, Mrs. Thelma Lamb. Their ages are 64, 45 and 20 respectively. The young woman of to-day is supposed to have a monopoly of emancipa- ; tion, but Mrs. Havill is a living witness that this is not the case. She set out for New Zealand 67 years ago, all by herself, to try her luck in what was then - a very untried country. Born in Hertfordshire, she lived there to the age of 22, and then decided to take ship for the antipodes. A Female Venturer. " It was more of a trip than anything," she explains, with a chuckle. " I had some friends in Auckland, that was all no relations here. I had an idea that I might make my fortune and go back to England in 20 years or so. Well, I'm ctiil here, but I didn't make my fortune." The ship in which she came was the Caduceus, a 1000-ton vessel which made four or five voyages between London and Auckland in the 'sixties and 'seventies. This particular trip took 112 days. Mrs. Havill has kindly memories of the master, Captain Cass. "We had a good time on the whole," she says. " I remember that we sailed very close to Madeira, so close that we could see tho people walking about. Some of the sailors wanted to land, but the captain would not put in. He knew that if he did he would never get them all back again. Oil the Three Kings she was becalmed, while a current slowly took her inshore. The captain told his passengers that unless a breeze sprang up during the night there would be trouble. "Most of them stayed on deck," says Mrs. Hayill, "but I went to bed. I told them, ' If I am going to be drowned, it will be between blankets.' Sure enough a breeze came up, and we were soon in Auckland." This was iu October, 1860.

Early Hardships.

Not long after her arrival the young colonist married Mr. William Havill, a carpenter. She showed her independence again by declaring against a wedding in church. Accordingly the ceremony was held at the house where she lived. The 'sixties in Auckland were often hard times for working men. When her husband was out of employment, as often happened, Mrs. tlavill turned her hand to \v*>rk of all® kinds. She reared six children, all of whom are alive today. Except for seven years in the Dargaville district, all her married life was spent in the city. "I have only had two holidays," she says, with some pride. "There was so much to do, and not, much money to go holiday-making with. Why, I have never ♦ been to the pictures. When people ask me about it I always say that I learn - all I want to know about them from those who go. I like to use my imagination." A widow for the past quarter of a century, Mr 3. Havill declines to prajse the delights of old age. "I don't think* it would (lave been any harm if I had been taken 20 years ago," she says, but the sardonic humour of her tone belies her words. There is no doubt that she takes a keen interest in life. She would not he without her newspaper for anything, and contrives to read a great deal of fiction. The modern kind does not appeal to her, she declares; its language is too free and she cannot imagine what her mother would have said about it. ,:.t is the'same with modern girls' dress. " I don't care for these skirts up to the 'knees," is her comment. "Give me the old ways. Why, some of these girls 1 see going up the street, with their short hair and the jackets they wear, you can't tell whether they are men or women."