HERMIT DEAD

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21201, 26 August 1940, Page 4

HERMIT DEAD

LIFE OF ADVERSITY EARLY DAYS IN CANTERBURY (By Telegraph.—Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH, Saturday The death is announced of Rose Langer, old age pensioner, at the age of 82. Known to Oxford residents as one of the “Rampaddock Hill Hermits,” she had lived for 40 years with her brother Joe in a rough clay whare, thatched with rushes, and had endured extraordinary hardship and adversity. Three brothers and three sisters, the Langer family arrived at Lyttelton in 1874, migrants from Moravia. They purchased 20 acres of land in the vicinity of Rampaddock Hill; but were misled into building their home on another man’s land. At his behest, the local constable burned the house over their heads and evicted them. Believing their section to be about a mile away, they again made themselves a home, only to be again evicted. A neighbour offered them the use of a plot of land, but when he sold the property his successor once more evicted them. Sold Up For Rates When finally, discouraged and embittered, they built on their own land in a bleak and sterile gully, the road board sold them up for 5s 3d arrears of rates. A public subscription was raised by the people of Oxford, who repurchased their humble abode for them. Here Rose and Joe Langer lived for 40 years. Their brothers and sisters left in search of better fortune. They remained at Rampaddock Hill, however, in the crude whare furnished with home-made chattels. They clothed themselves in sackcloth, and lived on such vegetables and QK-seals as they could raise, rabbits

snared in the hedges, and the milk of their single cow. Their sole pleasure was music; Rose played the concertina, Joe the violin. Joe worked on farms in the vicinity, and cut firewood. Eventually, in 1934. Rose Langer was given the old age pension.