VON TEMPSKY’S DAUGHTER

Patea Mail, 20 April 1938, Page 4

VON TEMPSKY’S DAUGHTER

GOLD.DIGGINGS AND WARPATH

The only daughter of Major von Tempsky, Mrs. Lima Kettle, who died at Napier recently, was born in a tent on the Bendigo goldfields, Vkitoria, 78 years ago. That fact is a waymark on the roving career of the soldier of fortune who made suqh a name for himself Jin New Zealand's military history, in spite of the fact that he was never given an important position of command.

There were two calls that G. F. von Tempsky was never able to resist, the sound of .battle, and the clamour of new gold-diggings. He was a Forty, ninor in California, and although he had married and voyaged from Central America to Scotland with his young wife, the news of the great discover, ies in Australia took Mm round the world again. His wife was Amelia Bell, daughter of Stanilaus Bell, who had an official position on the Mosquito coast (now part of Nicaragua). By the time the eager gold hunter and his Amelia had taken to the tent life amidst the roaring life of tnff dig. gings, there were two small boys. Amelia, born in. 1860, was the third 'Ohild. Then camp was struck again, and the tent went up on the Coromau. del diggings, where von Tempsky was working No. 8 claim with a mate when the Waikato war began in 1863. He settled his little family in Auckland; the cottage in which they were living when lie was killed in Taranaki in 1868 is still standing in Grafton Road. Lina von Tempsky married, Mr. N. Kettle ('of the firm of Williams and Kettle), Napier; and one of her child, ren is Mr. F. von Tempsky Kettle, who carried on the military traditions of the family in his service as a young officer in the Great War. Randal, the eldest son of the (major, a wealthy cattle rancher in Hawaii, and a mem. ber of the third generation, Robert, son of Randal, visited New Zealand a few years ago. He, too, in turn has two sons to carry on the name.

THE LOST SWOED OF ‘MANUEAU' When I met the late Mrs. Kettle in her home on Scinde Island, Napier, sonle* 30 years ago, ffhe showed me many relics of her father, in particular his water-colour sketches, and the scabbard of his missing sword, the ‘‘Mexican blade’ ; of which ho in his diary so often wrote, and which he carried unsheathed on expeditions. When ho marched on his last warpath he was killed at Te Ngutu o te manu, and the Maoris took his sword, the scabbard was left in the tent at Waihi camp, and that is how the family poss. ess it to.day without the famous weapon. The sword became a tapu relic among his old antagonists; it lies now buried deep in Maori soil, at a place shown to me by one of those who fought him in the Taranaki bush. Sometimes, as Mrs. Kettle and her son told me, claims have been made that Von Tcmpsky’s sword has been discovered, but, when these wore in. quired into it was found that none of the swords either would lit the scab, bard or correspond with the remembered curved blade of Spanish manu. faeturc.

The Hawaii representatives of the family, too, made visits to some of the old battle scenes and made inquiries about the sword, but it is not at all likely that they would have succeeded where the New Zealand descendants failed. “Manur; r.’s” sword remains a traditional sacred “ taumahatanga, ” a tapu offering to the gods of battle.