Alice Churned, Kathleen Washed, Hugh Milked1

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 33, 1 January 2000, Page 63

Pamela Riney-Kehrberg

Alice Churned, Kathleen Washed, Hugh Milked 1

daughters and sons on New Zealand’s turn-of-the-century farms

In 1905 the New Zealand official yearbook made this claim for a settler’s prospects on the colony’s small farms:

Owing to her humid climate and fertile soil New Zealand is peculiarly well adapted for small holdings. Men of slender means can easily make homes for themselves and their families, always provided they know something of the work they undertake, and are, with their families, willing to work hard and live frugally for a few years. 2

While it may have been questionable just how ‘easily’ families and men of ‘slender means’ could make a home and a farm, the writer’s other words were certainly true: to make that farm would require hard work on the part of all of the family’s members, including its children. For a family to succeed in agriculture generally required a commitment by all of its members to the farming enterprise, men, women and children. Labour in New Zealand was both scarce and expensive, so only the most firmly-established farming families could afford to hire labour. Instead of hiring labour, most families trained their children from an early age to assume the work of the farm. In so doing, work often became the centre of those daughters’ and sons’ lives.

Scholars have disagreed about the impact this would have had on the quality of life of New Zealand’s rural young people. In 1992, historian Jeanine Graham raised several questions, the answers to which implied that New Zealand’s

farm children lived lives of toil and hardship:

The fatigue which made a mother irritable and a father short-tempered, the economic worries which drove parents to work both themselves and their children nearly to the limits of endurance, and the work ethic that could rationalise hard work as being good for character formation; did these lead to a situation in which parents rarely took the time to enjoy their children’s company? And how did the children view their parents as friends, authority figures or hard taskmasters/mistresses? Again I must stress the tentativeness of my conclusions but much of the evidence that I have collected so far seems to indicate that mothers were always too busy, fathers were feared rather than revered, and the youngest children in the family had a much closer relationship with their older siblings than ever they had with their parents. 3

Graham essentially argued that children’s work made them old before their time, and deprived them of the opportunities for play and education that would have made their lives full and rewarding. Rollo Arnold’s 1997 book, Settler Kaponga, uses a different standard to judge the deprivation, or lack thereof, of New Zealand’s agrarian children, particularly those involved in dairying:

The rural child milkers would in general have been well fed, well housed and well clothed. They were sharing in a family enterprise in which most members willingly paid the price of a more hopeful future. Such work, enriched with social meaning, provides experience that contributes to the development of a sense of social worth. 4

Arnold put this experience of work and family into perspective by contrasting the lot of farm children in New Zealand with that of children in England. In 1884 an official English report found that many school children there were hungry, and appeared ‘half-starved’. 5 New Zealand’s parents might work their children hard, but that work, Arnold argued, allowed them a better life than that available to many children in England, the place so many New Zealanders called ‘Home’.

It is difficult to know how to characterise the experience of New Zealand’s farm daughters and sons. Most assuredly, they worked, and often this work deprived them of formal schooling as well as the opportunity for play. This, according to early-21 st-century standards of child welfare, as well as the standards of tum-of-the-century reformers, was wrong and detrimental to a child’s well-being. But Arnold is also right. By English standards, and in comparison with much of the rest of the world, New Zealand’s children, working or not, experienced a far higher standard of living than most children could hope to experience. Infant mortality for European

children was quite low, life expectancy was high, and New Zealand’s standard of living was among the best in the world. In gambling on life in a new land, the parents and grandparents of New Zealand’s turn-of-the-century European farm children had provided those children with the opportunity for a better life one that would be the envy of many of the world’s children. One could say that New Zealand’s agricultural sons and daughters were privileged, but that privilege did not come without its cost in churning, washing, milking, haying, and all the other chores associated with farm life.

Before proceeding any further, it is important to define some of the terms and assumptions that are used in this article. Firstly, it is a discussion of European childhood; it does not include Maori material. This is the result of the focus of my Fulbright research, which has been to compare the New Zealand experience with that of the American Midwest. Given the ethnic composition of this comparative population, a focus upon European populations was more appropriate. Secondly, the term ‘daughters and sons’ are used in the title, rather than ‘childhood’ and ‘children’. Although all of these terms are used in the text, in many homes and farms, the line between childhood and adulthood was not firmly drawn. A young person might be doing an adult’s work, and be an adult developmentally, but still be subject to her or his parents’ authority in just the same way as when she or he was truly a child. Use of the term ‘daughters and sons’ denotes this continuing relationship to the parents’ authority within the home. And finally, the term ‘turn-of-the-century’ is used in a broad sense, encompassing twenty years on either side of 1900, roughly 1880 to 1920.

I believe it is safe to say that, in most families, work was the fundamental, defining characteristic of a daughter’s or son’s role. The children’s pages of the publications of the day are full of discussions by young people of their own work. The New Zealand farmer, one of the country’s leading agricultural publications, featured a regular children’s column. For many years the children themselves essentially shaped the content of the column, writing to its editor ‘Uncle Ned’ about their work, their pets, their schooling, and all the concerns that made up life in rural communities. 6 A quick perusal of the page’s contents highlights the centrality of work to these young people’s lives. Many boys wrote in to Uncle Ned, explaining their role on their parents’ farms. Their work included a variety of chores, from helping harvest field crops, to milking, to herding. In February of 1889, Robert Salmon wrote to Uncle Ned about many topics, including his labour on his father’s farm:

We have finished all our harvest but six acres. Father had the wheat and oats cut with a reaper and binder, and it had a sheaf carrier attached to it. It is a great help for stooking. My brother and I stayed from school to help. My two sisters . . . and my brother . . . and I go to

school. It is a mile and a half away and we ride there. We like it much more than living in the city. 7

Robert discussed his work in a matter-of-fact tone, and ended with words that Uncle Ned loved to hear: that his young correspondent appreciated country life. During the October holidays, thirteen-year-old Jack, of Springston, wrote explaining that school holidays were only holidays from educational pursuits:

We had a week’s holiday, and we cut a lot of sticks for mother to bake bread, and then we dug a hole in the garden, six feet deep, and we are going to put a pump down to water the garden, and after that I helped my father to put a wire fence up to make a fold for the sheep on the turnips, and my father wished they would eat up the stones as well as the turnips. My brother was helping father to cart some straw for the sheep and he fell off the top of the load. 8

Jack’s tone was as matter-of-fact as Robert’s and, like Robert, he apparently enjoyed his work, something that could not be said for all children living on farms. Young Master M. McLennan, of Okaihau, found that milking could become overwhelming during the summer months:

I am attending school daily excepting when it is very wet. The school is about three miles away. I got a pass on the last exam. My home duties are to get the cattle home to the milking yards in the evenings, and send them back again in the mornings before going to school. I have only now seven cows to attend to, but last summer I had eighteen. Don’t you think that was enough work for a boy of twelve years? 9

Interestingly, Uncle Ned had nothing to say about the boy’s complaining tone. In reply to a similar letter written by a younger child to her column in the Otago witness, children’s editor Dot replied: ‘No. ... I don’t. It is only right that you should assist your parents in every way possible. —Dot.’ lo Uncle Ned was also fairly sympathetic to young Harold of Stratford, who catalogued the hours of work facing boys of his age:

Dear Uncle Ned, lazy in not writing oftener, but if you knew how much we have to do I think you would not say so. We have to get up early in the morning and get cows in and milk them, then drive them back into the paddock; then come into breakfast and prepare for school. When we come home from school we have to go and milk the cows again and drive them back into the paddock; then we come in and get our tea and do our home lessons, which occupy us nearly to bedtime. In the holidays we have more time, but then we have a great deal more outdoor work to do, besides riding and fishing.

Uncle Ned sought to set the record straight, and to acknowledge the heavy burden that Harold and his brother shouldered: ‘I did not say that boys who had as much to do as you have were lazy, Harold. But you know that all boys do not have their time taken up as you tell me you and your brother have.... It is very good of you to write while you have so much work to do, but I don’t think a short letter once a month will add to your burdens. —Uncle Ned.’"

In some families, women and children carried on most of the labour on the farm, while fathers worked away from home, raising the cash necessary to the continuation of the family enterprise. Arthur C. Russ, a young man from Waimea West, explained his place in the structure of his family’s farm:

My father has a nice little farm of 135 acres. I have to do all the work at home at present, as my father is away, and only comes home once a week. We have five cows in milk, and I have to milk three of them, and we have eleven pigs. We have lots of fowls, ducks, geese and turkeys. Last year I had to help father to plough, harrow, and roll, and I have driven the reaping machine ever since I was seven years of age. I have five sisters and one brother, and he is 15 months old, and lam twelve years old now.

Uncle Ned appreciated the work that this represented, writing in reply: ‘A seven-year-old driver of a reaping machine would be a curiosity to behold, and I expect you didn’t do it all yourself, Arthur. You seem to be a great man on the farm, and I hope you will always stick to it, my boy. —Uncle Ned.’ I 'What Uncle Ned did not write, of course, was that boys who were expected to be ‘great men’ on the farm at twelve might tire of that role at fifteen or sixteen and pursue a future outside of agriculture.

The same variety, although with more emphasis on work inside the home, can easily be found in the work of New Zealand’s farm girls. Many girls experienced the same long hours in the milking sheds as boys. Mercy Bachelor of Western Valley, Little River, wrote to Uncle Ned about her responsibilities: ‘I am eleven years old, and I am in the Second Standard. ... We have twelve cows to milk now, and I milk six of them night and morning.’ Uncle Ned applauded her hard work, writing ‘You are a little girl to have so many cows to milk. Don’t your wrists get tired sometimes? Write again, little Mercy. —Uncle Ned.’ 1 ' Mercy’s next letter explained more fully the type of work that might be expected of girls, particularly if a mother was ill or absent: ‘My mother has been very ill and confined to her bed. I was housekeeper for a week, and I will tell you some of the things I did. I was cooking, washing, ironing, and butter-making. I had to milk three cows at night. My mother is away now for a holiday to recruit her health, and I am keeping house again.’ 14 Eleven-year old Mercy had assumed most of her mother’s duties, and might continue to do so for an indefinite period of time.

For some daughters, the type of work that Mercy did while her mother was ill was their regular assignment. Nine-year-old Eleanor Horsburgh of Otaki regularly worked around the house, rather than going to school. She wrote, ‘I am nine years of age ... I am in the Third Standard. Mother teaches me when she can. If I did go to school it is about six miles and a half away. . . I help mother such a lot, she says I am her little right hand. There are six of us in the house and the baby he is beginning to walk. Bessie helps mother, too. She and I do all the housework on washingdays.’

While Uncle Ned approved of industrious girls, it is clear that this child’s absence from school worried him. He replied, ‘to be mother’s “little right hand” is better

than even to gain a district school scholarship I think. But good mothers will always try to manage so that the “little right hand” does not grow up without an educated head to guide it and its owner in the after trials of life. No doubt when you are nearer a school you will go to one, and Bessie too.’ 1 " Unfortunately, Eleanor and Bessie had a great deal of company among New Zealand’s daughters. Reports to the Minister of Education regularly showed that girls began school later than boys, attended in lower numbers, and finished school at an earlier age. 1(1 This was apparent as early as 1878, and continued well into the 20th century. 17 In 1910, the minister’s report chastised parents: ‘Apparently there are a certain number of parents who think that it is sufficient for a girl to have little more than half the amount of schooling that a boy receives Home reasons no doubt account for some cases, but probably the chief cause is the thoughtlessness of parents who consider education less important for girls than for boys. ,ls Many of those girls spent their days cooking

and cleaning for their families, and caring for their siblings, rather than attending school.

The children’s own words indicate that there was some sexual division of labour on New Zealand’s farms. Very few boys mention gardening, cleaning, and helping their mothers indoors. Very few girls wrote that they ploughed and harrowed. Boys and girls alike shared in the chore of milking, although an 1898 Department of Labour study indicated that in one district 30 percent of girls of school age milked, while 41 percent of boys did so. 19 Most families would have used their young daughters’ and sons’ labour where it was necessary, not always paying great attention to the perceived gender-appropriateness of tasks. As young people matured, however, the lines between boys’ and girls’ work hardened. Fathers expected their sons to help in the fields; girls took over greater responsibilities in the home. 20 This is particularly evident in the diaries of unmarried older daughters, writing about their work in their late teens and early twenties.

Alice McKenzie grew up at Martins Bay, an extremely isolated settlement on the west coast of the South Island. Her diaries, kept in her fifteenth and sixteenth year, provide a detailed inventory of the kinds of work that might be expected of a daughter of her age. The men and boys planted potatoes, cleared bush, and herded cattle. The youngest son, Hugh, helped Alice with the milking, while Alice also attended to other chores with the cows, such as herding and caring for calves. Alice also performed a number of chores within the home. After her older sister’s marriage, Alice took over the churning and, in a normal week, she would churn several times. On Monday 14 October 1889 she wrote: ‘Churned about 6 or 7 lbs of butter 5 put in ajar & the last jar filled it has 14 lbs in it’. On Tuesday, she ‘washed some things’. Late in the week, her mother left the farm for an extended period, and Alice’s work accelerated. She continued with milking and churning, as well as regular scrubbing of clothes and floors, but added baking as well. As she wrote on Friday 25 October, ‘I am very busy lately’. 21

Added to her chores was the supervision of her younger brother, Hugh, aged ten. This included his home schooling. As Alice wrote on 4 December, he was a very reluctant pupil. ‘I dont think I will be able to learn Hugh his lesson we have had a great row every day he was at his lesson .. . when he spells a word wrong he wont be told that it is wrong, no matter what I say & he wont learn them after he says he knows them. . . . Ironing in afternoon.’ Lessons were not the only area in which Hugh was reluctant. As the youngest, it was his job to aid his older sister with the milking, and any other household chores that might be required. Obtaining Hugh’s assistance with the washing could be as big a problem as trying to teach him to spell. Friday 20 December found Alice attempting the washing. ‘I washing & got Hugh to help me he had to dance in a big tub he washed counterpanes & blankets, very much against his will after the first water.’" 2 Young Alice McKenzie’s hands and hours were quite full, between the demands of home, cows, and siblings.

Alice McKenzie’s chores were much like those of other older daughters. The diaries of similar young women, such as Anna Dierks or a young person known to the historian only by her later, married name ‘Mrs McKinney’ indicate similar involvement in the work of the home. 2 ' As older daughters, it was their responsibility to assist their mothers in women’s work and, in the case of illness or absence, to carry out all of their chores. Necessity and inclination, however, did not drive all females toward domesticity. Other young women embraced what was traditionally thought of as men’s work. ‘Stan’ wrote to tell Uncle Ned how much she enjoyed working with the men in the fields:

I went to stay with my cousins. They live about six miles from here, and they have a large run. I stayed with them two days and I enjoyed myself very much. We all used to go out and watch the men cutting the oats and stooking them. The second day I was over there I thought I

would like to stook some oats. In the afternoon I put on a big apron and stooked all the afternoon. I liked it very much. 24

Fathers without sons, or without enough sons to do all of their field work would have rejoiced to have a daughter like Stan. Uncle Ned certainly approved. He replied to her rather unorthodox and enthusiastic admission with ‘So “Stan” is a girl, short for Stanley, I suppose, and a very good name too. ... I like girls to be rather like boys when they are your age, and I am sure that Stan would get on well with Uncle Ned.’ 24 What the historian would be unlikely to find, but would be very happy to see, would be a testimonial by a young man to his work in the home, and his enjoyment of it. Surely, in homes without daughters and without the funds to hire female help, a son would have aided his mother. Few sons, however, would have been likely to attest to this in print.

For the sons and daughters whose lives have been described here, work was at the centre of their existence. The farm, with its animals, crops, and daily chores, was with them every day. School, be it half a mile down the road, or six, existed at a distance. From 1877 onwards, the law demanded that all young people of primary school age attend school, but the attendance requirement was quite modest. Any number of exemptions were available to parents. If a child lived more than two miles from the school, if the roads were bad, if the child was sickly, or if the parents were willing to provide instruction, then school was not compulsory. In addition, if the local school committee was not willing to enforce the compulsory attendance clause, then parents were free to ignore the law.' 4 While legislators regularly amended the law and made the rules more stringent, the law remained difficult to enforce in farming communities. A glance at school logs makes it clear that many daughters and sons spent far fewer hours in school than authorities would have liked.

Weather continually wreaked havoc with school attendance, largely because it made roads hazardous. Teachers regularly noted the trials caused by wet weather. ‘May 17th: Very wet and stormy day. Continuous rain prevented a single child from attending.’ 27 Another frustrated teacher, facing wet weather, wrote: ‘miserable attendance renders general improvement impossible’. 24 Dry weather caused its own set of problems: ‘Weather excessively dry; in consequence of which many children are detained from school herding cows or looking for them on the roads.’ 24 These natural phenomena and their results, however, were beyond the control of parents.

The same could not be said for the work routines that kept children away from the schoolhouse. Teachers noted that housekeeping resulted in poor attendance for girls. ‘May 17th, 1897 —Some of the girls absent owing to “washing day” services required at home.’ 30 Crops resulted in low attendance for both boys and girls. A Mauriceville East teacher wrote in 1888, ‘Attendance low. Children engaged in putting in crops.’ In 1889, he wrote again: ‘Attendance low, many older children engaged in harvesting.’ 31 In some areas, hop-picking required children’s labour at

home. ' 2 Cows seem to have been the most consistent reason for school absences. Alfred Gower, headmaster for the Ashhurst School, near Palmerston North, wrote:

Most of the elder boys attending School come very irregularly because their parents have cows running on the roads which have to be looked for. Even when they do attend, I am requested to let them go half an hour earlier than other pupils. This much affects my 3rd and 4th Standard classes, as these boys have little time to do any home lessons, in addition to short hours at School. 33

Children attending to and milking cows before school were chronically late, a situation that caused a moral dilemma for teachers: ‘March 9,1893.1 have continually to complain of children being late. They have always to be kept in. I do not like to cane them as it is probably not their fault, and my soul revolts against punishing a child for the fault or neglect of another.’ 34 Some schools simply altered the hours of attendance in order to accommodate the milking season, the day beginning late and ending early. 3 "

So many factors worked against farm children obtaining a solid education. Work mitigated against school. The remote locations of their parents’ farms limited their access to educational facilities. Extremes of weather compounded the problem of distance. Although well-meaning parents may have tried to educate their children at home, Alice McKenzie’s diary illustrates the problems that might arise in such a situation. Children might not easily take instruction from parents and siblings, and parents and siblings might find themselves inadequate to the task or too busy to complete it properly. Providing a truly good education to one’s children, in these circumstances, required an overwhelming commitment to the process of education, often above and beyond the needs of the farm.

Such was the case of George Welch, a sheep farmer who owned a large run in the Masterton area. His wife had died shortly after the birth of his youngest son, and with the help of his mother and other family members, he raised a family of four children. Welch was fairly well-to-do, and was chairman of the local school committee. Even so, his own children had somewhat irregular school attendance. His oldest son Kemble often remained at home to help him with the sheep, prompting the local teacher, Miss Keane, to send a notice home to Welch. On Monday 19 February 1900, Welch wrote: ‘Willie Stevenson brought note from Miss Kean asking that Kemble may be allowed to come occasionally till after the examination. Replied in affirmative.’ 36 Prior to Welch hiring a housekeeper, his oldest daughter Kathleen also often remained at home, doing the work that would normally have fallen to her long-dead mother. His diary entry for Wednesday 7 February illustrated the place that both of the older Welch children played in the work of the farm: ‘Cutting scrub by myself in morning left Kemble home to help Kathleen who stayed home to

wash &c. K[emble] came with my lunch & we finished the spur out leaving a few patches round gully to do when we have time.’’ As with many families, the sheep and the wash sometimes had to take precedence over the children’s school attendance.

Welch, however, was not unconcerned with his children’s education. He hired a housekeeper to relieve Kathleen of many of her household duties, and found the resources to send his children away to complete their formal educations. Son Kemble attended Wellington Boys’ College, and Kathleen went to St Bride’s Convent in Masterton. Because of the limitations of his diary, it is unclear what provisions Welch made for the education of his other two children, Eileen and Claud. Welch’s letters, however, make clear his financial and emotional commitment to his son’s continuing education. He worked hard to gain Kemble entrance into Wellington Boys’ College, even though he estimated that the annual expense would be around 75 pounds. He wrote, ‘You must try your hardest to win some of the scholarships so as to lessen the expense ... I wish to give the girls and Claud an education if I can manage it.’ 38 ‘Managing it’ would not only include payment for his children’s tuition, room and board, but also for casual and regular hired labour to replace children away at school. Because Welch was a relatively prosperous farmer, and because he placed a high value on education, his children were able to continue their education, in spite of the pressures of work on the family’s run.

It was not being a farmer’s daughter or son, per se, that made life difficult for the young people on New Zealand’s farms. Not all farms, or all parents, were alike. What could make life difficult were the characteristics of individual farms and families. Those who lived on farms in the first stages of development, and in frontier areas, often faced greater difficulties because of the unsure footing of their parents’ enterprises and the raw, untamed nature of the land. Those whose families were poor, of course, suffered proportionally greater workloads. Youngsters whose families made their living by way of dairying often had the heaviest workloads, because of the constant demands that cows and milking made upon farmers. This, however, was not a foregone conclusion. Gertie Sanders, who wrote to Uncle Ned about her father’s dairy farm, was looking forward to her work. ‘I am nine years old and in the Third Standard.... I have a nice little flower garden and keep it clean of weeds. I have just learned to milk, and next year papa will give me small weekly wages for milking.’ Gertie’s father must have been fairly prosperous to offer a nine-year-old daughter wages for milking, and life on this particular dairy farm may have been less onerous than most. From the perspective of the historian, it would have been useful to hear what Gertie had to say about her childhood several years, and many gallons of milk, later. The size of a family often had an impact on the quality of a child’s life as well. Older children in very large families might find themselves overworked, caring for the farm and caring for their siblings. But too small a family might mean that children could not keep up with the demands of the

farm, no matter how hard they worked. It is no wonder that farming families tended to be larger than rural, non-farming families and those in urban areas. 39

A government report published in 1928 confirms some of these assertions. Physical examinations of children revealed that those in thriving farm communities were somewhat behind other children in their education, but were generally healthier than those living in coal mining or timber-milling districts. The children of sharemilkers, generally among the poorer of farming families, not only were slow to progress in school, but poorly nourished as well. Even though their families were involved in dairying, their children rarely drank milk. 40 Farm children, in general, progressed through school more slowly than their non-farm peers, but their health and well-being was highly dependent upon their parents’ level of income.

In spite of long hours of work and sometimes limited hours of education, life on New Zealand’s farms did not have to be unpleasant. Caring parents, committed to home and family, made all the difference to the quality of life of their children. Two families already discussed illustrate the possibilities for a full family life.

Although living in dramatically different environments, on farms that could not have been more different, the Welch and McKenzie families showed that farm children, although hard working, could live rewarding, rich lives. The Welchs lived on a substantial run near Masterton, in relatively close proximity to extended family. That extended family helped to compensate for the loss of the children’s mother not long after the birth of the last child, Claud. The four children worked alongside their father, and had relatively privileged lives prior to their father’s 1907 suicide. The five McKenzie children, on the other hand, grew up on an extremely remote bush farm in Martins Bay. Their father had left employment with the newspaper in Hokitika to subdue the wilderness, without any prior experience of it. The children worked hard at the tasks required to beat back the bush and make a living. They largely made do with home schooling, as well as their own company. What these daughters and sons had in common, however, were close family relationships.

Although the Welch family story ended in disaster, the father committing suicide in 1907 after years of ill health, George’s account of the first years of the century show a loving parent caring for his brood. George Welch shared his work with his children. Mustering, cutting scrub, laying poison, as well as other chores, were shared tasks. Evenings were also shared, with the children singing, the whole family playing any number of games such as draughts, grab, quartettes, and dominoes, and George reading to his children. In 1901, he read Robinson Crusoe and Tom Sawyer to his youngest son Claud. Another regular feature in this family’s day was father George sitting down to listen to his children’s lessons. It was not unusual for him to spend time in the evening ‘yarning’ with his children. In one week in 1900, George Welch’s diary included these family activities:

Sunday, May 27. Miss H. [housekeeper] & Kathleen singing.

Tuesday, May 29. ‘K[emble] & I sawed the Rimu log through & I split it up . . .

Saturday, June 2. ... Too cold to work in morning so went up Kiri over hills shooting with Claud & Kemble saw several rabbits in traps up spur Shot 6 & came over Sandy home ... Evening played draughts with Children. 41

The Welch children not only worked with, but also played with their father.

George Welch’s letters to his oldest son Kemble while he was away at school reveal the depth of his commitment to his children’s well-being. His letters included all of the usual descriptions of home and family life, but they also included heart-to-heart discussions of serious matters. In his letter of 23 February 1901, he provided moral guidance to his son. He wrote:

I notice you remark on the conversation of some of the boys. You will find where ever you go that a good deal of bad conversation is indulged in. But you must try my dear boy to keep from it yourself and not make companions of those who do but try your hardest to be pure in mind & body for if you do not you have always the possibility staring you in the face of becoming like some of the low characters we often see & read about. I would rather you had no education with family than the greatest scholar without.

Welch softened the serious tone of his advice with the following encouragement: ‘Write to me always of anything that I should know do not keep anything back so that I may be able to help and advise you which is my duty and great wish.’ 4 ' Although this farm family’s story did not have a happy ending, in the centre of their story the observer finds hard work, loving relationships, and a commitment to the welfare of the family’s children.

The McKenzies of Martins Bay were a rather different family, and a daughter, Alice, rather than a parent, recorded its story. Again, the record is one of a family working and playing together after all, what other choice did they have? They lived miles from neighbours and miles from town, in the heart of the bush. The story Alice McKenzie told was very similar to that of George Welch. Work was a cooperative affair, with the children assisting each other and their parents. Play was also a group effort, with the family gathering together in the evening to write, read, sing and play games. January 16, 1889, found the family gathered around the cribbage board. Alice wrote, ‘Father. Helen. Daniel. & I had a game of cribbage

. . . It is the first time Dan Helen or myself ever played so we did not know much about it I am almost stupid as ever about it.’

The next evening, they carried on in what was to become a family tradition: ‘We had another game of cards to night Dan & I were partenrs [sic] we won the two first games our Father & Helen won the two last. We let them win but we gained ours by superior ability our opponents were very near having a duel Indian clubs at 100 yds because each blamed the other for losing the game they would not have done so well at the last only Helen cheated.’ 4 ’A family night at singing was less likely to end in a duel. On 20 March Alice related:

We had some singing tonight Helen & Dan sang the ‘Farmers Boy’ very nicely. Our Mother sang a grand little one about ‘The Girls That Work the Sewing machine’ . . . our Father broke into song every now and then, but I dont think he finished any of them. . . . last though not the least Helen gave us the ‘Three Black Crows.’ I of course can’t sing and I am just thinking which sang best, they all sang so well, it is hard to decide. 44

Evenings such as these often found their way into Alice’s diary. Her brothers and sister, as she described them, worked hard for their parents, but played hard too. Although she had no formal schooling, she found little about which to complain. In later life, she reflected on her childhood in isolated Martins Bay: ‘. . . people who live in lon[e]ly places often read and study more than those who live in towns, and have many things to distract their minds from study.’ 4 " Her childhood had left her with few regrets, despite its apparent limitations.

The Welchs and McKenzies may have been exceptional families, and again, they may not have been. Too few families have left the kinds of records that would allow historians to make sweeping generalisations about the quality of family relationships on New Zealand’s turn-of-the-century farms. What these records do tell us, though, are the possibilities: that it was possible for children to work hard, to play hard, and to have reasonably strong bonds with their parents and siblings in spite of the rigours of life on the farm. Unfortunately, there are not enough records available to tell us what relationship a family’s economic position bore to that family’s ability to provide a stimulating home life to its children. In a poor sharemilker’s home, there may have been less food to eat and less milk to drink, but how much love and affection there was remains a mystery. What we do know is that New Zealand’s sons and daughters generally survived and many thrived, but often chose in later life to leave the farm behind. That they did so is both a testament to their parents’ efforts on their behalf, as well as to the difficulties that their parents’ choice of an agricultural life imposed.

Turnbull Library Record 33 (2000), 63-80

References 1 This paper was written while in residence at the Alexander Turnbull Library on a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship. I presented this paper to a meeting of the Friends of the Turnbull Library, and would like to thank them for the opportunity to do so. I would also like to thank those who aided in the research for this paper and made my work in New Zealand possible: Chief Librarian Margaret Calder and the staff of the Turnbull Library; the staff of the National Library of New Zealand; Dr Jeanine Graham, University of Waikato; and Jennifer Gill, Director, New ZealandUnited States Educational Foundation. 2 New Zealand official yearbook (1905), 607. 3 Jeanine Graham, ‘Country Children: Part two,’ New Zealand genealogist (March-April 1992), p. 86. 4 Rollo Arnold, Settler Kaponga 1881-1914: A frontier fragment of the Western World (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1997), p. 181.

5 Ibid., p. 181. 6 Although Uncle Ned most certainly edited the column, he did, in the early years, allow the children great latitude to discuss their concerns. While he often asked questions of his correspondents, his column gave children the opportunity to describe themselves, their schooling, their work, their families, and their pets, among other topics. The column seems very much to be the ‘children’s’ column unlike the column in later years which a new ‘Uncle Ned’ very thoroughly shaped with the questions he asked, taking on the tone of assigned writing exercises. Although Rollo Arnold (p. 172) argues that the letters in children’s pages are ‘not a rich source’, I would argue otherwise. Given the general lack of other sources by children and about themselves, children’s pages are as good a sources as is available to describe the breadth of children’s work experiences. 7 ‘The children’s post office’, New Zealand farmer , 9 (4) (April 1889), 144. 8 Ibid., 10 (10) (October 1890), 425. 9 Ibid., 10 (11) (November 1890), 470. 10 ‘Letters from little folks’, Otago Witness (8 June 1893) 45. 11 ‘The children’s post office’, New Zealand farmer, 10 (6) (June 1890), 240. 12 Ibid., 12 (7) (July 1892), 309. 13 Ibid., 12 (2) (February 1892), 70. 14 Ibid., 12 (9) (September 1892), 391. 15 Ibid., 16 (11) (November 1896), v. 16 Ruth Fry, It’s different for daughters: A history of curriculum for girls in New Zealand schools, 1900-1975 (Wellington: N.Z. Council for Educational Research, 1985), p. 9. 17 Robert Lee, Inspector, Patea, in ‘Education: First annual report of the Minister of Education,’ Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives (1878, H.l), p. 61. 18 George Fowlds, ‘Thirty-third annual report of the Minister of Education’, Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives (1910, E.l), p. 6. 19 ‘The labour of school-children’, Journal of the Department of Labour, 6 (64) (18 June 1898), 541. 20 Claire Toynbee, Her work and his: Family, kin and community in New Zealand, 1900-1930 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1995), pp.so-52, 55. 21 Alice McKenzie, Diaries kept at Martins Bay, Southland, vol.l, November 1888-January 1890, MS-1184, Manuscripts and Archives Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand (hereafter referred to as ‘ATL’). 22 Ibid. 23 Anna Dierks, Diary 1875-1893, translated from the original German by Theo Dierks, MS-Papers--2326, ATL; Mrs McKinney, Diary 28 October 1886-31 December 1887, MS-1188, ATL. 24 ‘The children’s post office’, New Zealand farmer, 18 (4) (April 1898), v. 25 Ibid. 26 Colin McGeorge, ‘School attendance and child labour 1890-1914’, Historical news, 46 (May 1983), 17. 27 G. L. Baker, Whenuakura-Opaku Schools and district centenary, 1877-1977 (Hawera: Ekdahl & Son, 1977), p. 22. 28 G. J. Fitzpatrick, 1889-1964 Kimbolton School 75th jubilee and reunion - Valley Road School, 1905-1950 (Palmerston North: Grant Printing Co., 1964), pp. 24-26. 29 M. Griffin (ed.), Ashhurst School: The first hundred years (Ashhurst: Ashhurst Centennial Committee, 1980), p. 6. 30 Terence Ballantyne, Maraekakaho School 75th jubilee, 1893-1968 (Hastings: Cliff Press, 1968), p. 9. 31 Bill McClymont (ed.), A history of the Mauriceville East School and district, 1887-1987 (Masterton: Greenlees Print, 1987), p. 50. 32 Griffin, Ashhurst School, pp.B, 12. 33 Ibid., p. 12.

34 D. P. J. Crofsky, Frasertown-Clydebankcentenary 1868-1968 ([n.p.]: Frasertown and Clydebank Committee, 1968), p. 38. 35 Jill Sulzberger (comp.), Awatuna School and district centennial, 1893-1993 ([n.p.]: Stratford Press, 1993), p. 14. 36 George Welch, Diary 1900-1902, in Welch family, Papers, MSX-2275, ATL. 37 Ibid. 3 8 George Welch, Letter to Kemble Welch, 6 February 1901, in Welch family, Papers, Correspondence 1884-1906, MS-Papers-3918, ATL. 39 Toynbee, Her work and his, p. 36. 40 Dr. Albert Henderson, School Medical Officer, ‘Report on the health conditions and environment of rural school-children in certain districts of New Zealand’, Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives (1928, H. 31), pp. 74-78. 41 George Welch, Diary 1900-1902, in Welch family, Papers, MSX-2275, ATL. 42 George Welch, Letter to Kemble Welch, 23 February 1901, in Welch family, Papers, Correspondence 1884-1906, MS-Papers-3918, ATL. 43 McKenzie, Diaries kept at Martins Bay, vol.l, November 1888-January 1890, MS-1184, ATL. 44 Ibid. 45 Alice McKenzie, Pioneers of Martins Bay, in McKenzie family, Papers 1887-1992, MS-Papers--5311-10, ATL. Partial manuscript of published reminiscence (1947).