“GOOD OLD DAYS”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6243, 17 June 1946, Page 7

“GOOD OLD DAYS”

LIFE IN WILD BUSH COUNTRY | I > /j q EXPERIENCES OF PIONEER I . WOMAN The early life of a Wairarapa pioneer, Mrs E. M. Algie, who celebrated. her ninety-second birthday recently at the residence of her daughter, Mrs J. Sounders, Palmerston North, is typical of the experiences of those who took up land in the first days of settlement. Mrs Algie is a native of Ireland. She was born at Edenray, County Tyrone, in the north, where she was married, and at the age of 23, in 1878, she accompanied her husband, the late Mr W. S. Algie, with her infant son aboard the sailing ship Zealandia for New Zealand. After a trip of 90 {lays they landed at Wellington and went into barracks pending arrangements for the employment of her husband. After three weeks this came in the form of a farm job, and they set off in a small coastal vessel for Castlepoint, which was reached at nightfall. With her infant son she wasi carried ashore by Maoris to find her husband’s employer waiting with horses. They set out in the darkness for their first colonial home over razor-back hills and through steep, winding, bushclad gullies. For the next three months they lived with their employer in a whare in this then wild and inhospitable district; then, to add to their discomfort, and loneliness, in a strange and desolate land, their employer announced his bankruptcy and they were thrown on their own resources without any payment for their services. Not daunted, Mr Algie obtained employment at Waihoke. It was there, unattended, that Mrs Algie superintended the birth of her second son.

About this time Mr Algie obtained the position of shepherd on the £B,-000-acre Maunsell estate, and the family was installed in a log and clay whare on the edge of a huge tract of bush at “The edge of the Morepork,” nine miles from Tinui and three miles from, the nearest settler. Access to this outback home was by horseback or bullock dray, and living conditions were primitive. There were no such things as tanks, and all water for household purposes was carried daily from a nearby, creek in the bush. Floor coverings were made from sacks ripped down, stretched and stitched, while deft hands converted sacking into mattress covers which were filled with the fluff of the toitoi which abounded on the clearings. Cooking was done in a camp oven set in an open fire, and illumination was provided by the manufacture of candles. With her husband often away for days at a time, Mrs Algie had to tend all household duties herself, and frequently went into the bush alone and shot pigeons to supplement the meagre larder. Seventeen years were spent in this outpost, during which time the remaining members of the family were born; three more sons and three daughters, to whom Mrs Algie had to be nurse physician and surgeon. When a son sustained serious injuries as a result of an accident with a horse, she had to insert 11 stitches in the wound, and this she did successfully with a household needle and cotton. Whenever Mrs Algie paid a visit to Tinui or to some friend, she travelled! on horseback, taking her three youngest children, the baby in her arms and one child on each side of the horse in a saddle bag constructed from, two sacks sewn together. An opportunity came to Mr Algie' to acquire a small bush holding at Hillside, near Alfredton, and as soon as a house was built the family moved there and the boys set about clearing the bush. Another section was taken up and later more land acquired, until the Hillside property became well established and consolidated. In all, on their own and neighbouring properties, the boys cleared 1100 acres of standing bush. Reading, schools and the various amentities of life came to the district, and Mrs Algie settled down to the more comfortable life of the homestead.