The Raetihi Museum

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 2, Issue 30, 15 January 1985, Page 8

The Raetihi Museum

That little old Raetihi railway station is a museum piece in itself, but the artifacts it contains take us far further back than its birth date of 1917 and offer a glimpse of the lives of the men and women who laid the foundations of the Waimarino district we know today. These were the people who, from 1982 onwards, carr.e mostly via the Wanganui River and the Pipiriki track to take up their allotments of standing bush and make of them green pasture lands Hardy pioneers that they were, they pitched their tents amongst the tall trees and set to with axe and saw to clear a space and build themselves a slab whare before our

rigorous winter clapped down upon them. In time the crude whares were replaced by houses, shops appeared in the small township with its ever muddy main street and life became a trifle less hard Step back in time, about ninety years, and imagine doing a weekly wash in a galvanised iron tub with a scrubbing board. Should your imagination baulk, there are hosts of photographs at the museum to illustrate how tough life really was at the turn of the century. The 'fashions' are also interesting — ankle length frocks for women, frilly pinafores for little girls, small boys had knickerbockers and their fathers wore shirt, trousers and braces — always braces, belts were just an extra and to hold the sheath knife. Those old photos tell one more than anything else, and the museum has a fine collection donated by the generations which have built on the foundations laid by their hard-working, never-give-in grandparents who

came early to the Waimarino. There is more to be seen than one can absorb in one visit, for the collection spans ninety years of history. There is a room of interesting tools of all kinds and some of the gigantic saws which cut their way through the boles of the great trees of the Waimarino forest; and there are reminders of the district's sawmilling era. At a recent meeting of the Waimarino Society members were privileged to hear a delightful talk given by Mrs Keith who has recently returned from a visit to her homeland in the Lakes District of England. Here, of course, is history back to the Stone Age and far more than the mind can hold. By comparison with that our New Zealand history is scarcely even a second of time; but it is ours, and mercifully,. we have people prepared to preserve it so that those who come after may know what manner of men and women their ancestors were. fry

Mrs

E.

C.

Allen of Raetihi