Family history – theoldkirknz.blog

Happy 100th ‘anniversary’ kirk!

12 August 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of the marriage of Ivy Horne to Ivan Croad. It was the first marriage in the new church. I still don’t know when it was opened, so this date is as good as any to celebrate!

Here’s how the wedding was reported in the Manawatu Times on 21 August:

CROAD—HORNE. On Tuesday afternoon at the Presbyterian Church, Ohakune, Mr Ivan Croad, of Ballance, Pahiatua, son of Mr H. Croad, of Palmerston, was married to Miss Ivv Horne, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Horne, Miro Road, Ohakune. The church had been prettily decorated for the occasion by friends of the bride. The bridal gown was of cream crepe de chene, embroidered with pearls, made with a tunic and finished with a sash of cream satin. A veil caught with clusters of orange blossoms and a shower bouquet of spring flowers completed her toilet. The bride was given away by her father, and was attended by her sisters, Misses Violet and Elsie Horne, who wore pale blue fuji silk dresses, and hat to match trimmed with tiny pink roses and black velvet ribbon strings. They carried bouquets of violets. The bridegroom’s presents to the bridesmaids were a gold curb bangle and a gold wishbone brooch respectively. Mr N. Croad, of Palmerston North, supported his brother as best man. As the wedding party left the vestry, the Rev. Mr Morton presented the bride with a Bible, as this was the first wedding in the new church. Mrs Butler presided at the organ during the ceremony and played the Wedding March. Numerous presents were received, amongst the most treasured being a silver cake basket, presented to the bride by the congregation of the church. The church was packed with the many friends of the young couple, and after the ceremony the guests were entertained at the wedding breakfast at the residence of the bride’s parents. The Rev. Mr Morton proposed the health or the bride and bridegroom, and the other customary toasts were honoured. Mr and Mrs Croad left by the afternoon train for North on route for Pipiriki and Wanganui, the bride wearing a tailor-made brown costume with saxe blue hat.

Next time: As pretty as a picture.

The end of an era

This is my former home of the last sixteen years. You too could live here if you have a lazy $900k+…..

We’ve already established that I have a thing about old things. Buildings, cars, clothes, and furniture are all things that I prefer to buy / occupy in a pre-loved state. My last residence was the same – it’s polished floorboards and hand-drawn glass window panes were some of the things I loved about it. The wind whistling up through the gaps in the floorboards in winter? Not so much.

The property has an interesting history. It was originally built around 1895 according to the Quotable Value website. The historic Thomas Ward maps shows three sections making up what is now Hobson Crescent, with only one of those sections having a building on it by 1892. That building appears to have been demolished to make way for the new road.

A fire broke out in a closet under the stairs in the afternoon of 27 May 1901. Mr James Marchbanks owned the eight-roomed house which was severely damaged by smoke and water. He was the Managing Engineer of the Manawatu Railway Company. The only occupant at the time was a “servant girl”.

Mr Marchbanks must have recently purchased the property as his address for the 1900 election was given as 91A Tinakori Road. For the 1904-05 election his address is given as 2 Hobson Crescent. This difference in address from what it is known as now may be because the properties would have been re-numbered as the sections were sub-divided.

Mr Marchbanks made application for a building permit in 1901 to reinstate the fire-damaged dwelling. It’s not clear if he was still the owner of the property in 1911 when a ‘J W Marchbank’ applied for a permit to make additions to the dwelling. The 1911 census have him and his wife May Constance Marchbanks still living there.

Electoral rolls show James and his wife still living there in 1928. In 1935 the couple and their son Donald were living in Heretaunga. By 1936 it was owned by ‘J C Marchbanks’ when it was converted into three flats. The ground floor was the largest, with two smaller flats upstairs.

The Marchbanks had two sons (Donald and James) and four daughters (Mary, Olive, Katherine and Barbara) by 1908, so ‘J C Marchbanks’ may have been their youngest son James Charles Ross who was born in 1903. He’s listed as living there in 1935 and 1938 with his wife. They had moved to Lower Hutt by 1946.

A widow Edith Millie Boyes was the owner in 1946 (until 1965 approx.) when the garage was added. My former neighbours who now own the garage had to buy a car that would fit it’s narrow 1940’s proportions! It was owned by a schoolteacher Mrs Brenda Margaret Narbey between 1969-72. In April 1990 application was made to convert the three flats into two dwellings. The building was sold to the current owner for $285,000 in October 1990.

Last October I learned that the owner wanted to sell said home to diversify his property portfolio. Too many properties in one earthquake-prone (i.e. Wellington) basket you might say. Liking the property, it’s location, and not wanting to move, I decided that I would try and buy the property. Ever the eternal optimist me.

Long story short. I put in an offer, it was accepted, and I withdrew it because I couldn’t get finance. The owner was going to put the sale on hold for 12 months, but I decided that I couldn’t realistically afford to buy it and renovate the church at the same time. Reluctantly I decided to move out and put the rent towards financing the renovations.

So here we are. The property is for sale but probably not for long. Ironically, another Thorndon property I lived in is also on the market. It’s been flashed up quite a bit since I lived there 20 years ago! Now I’m staying in a 1986 spec house with my brother that is 2/3 the size of my previous residence. He’s been very accommodating of me, my stuff, and my two cats. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Next time: The search for a builder begins

Why I write

This photo of Mt Ruapehu from Ohakune was taken around 1910.

Most people who know me well know I’m an ‘extroverted’ introvert and a very private person. I might be on Facebook and Twitter but it’s not like I’m into sharing my every action or thought. Speaking in public or writing and publishing a blog aren’t easy for me – so why do I write?

I write because it’s not easy for me. I write to practice writing, to become better at it, to try different styles of writing. Sometimes I’ll bash out a post as a travel-log or musings upon a topic. Other times it’s a quick and dirty update with photos so that I can see my progress. Going back and re-reading my posts last weekend as I added categories to them was a great reminder of my ‘before’ and ‘after’.

I have an uneasy relationship with words. Whilst I may have been the earliest of my siblings to speak, I was born with a hearing impairment like a number of children at that time. That means I don’t always hear what people say, misunderstand their meaning, and misinterpret what they have said. That’s lead to some hilarious and painful conversations at times.

We have such a strong aural tradition as a society. From parents reading and singing to their young children, listening to the radio, or live and recorded music. TV shows and movies were around but not as dominant as they are now. I’ve always loved reading books. There I could be more certain of the words I was reading, and gain my understanding of their meaning from the words around them and the context.

I may have loved reading as a child but I was rubbish at English in my first year of secondary school. I’d always sat at the front of the class during my primary schooling due to my dodgy hearing. At secondary school I was often sitting in the middle of the class due to my family name. I changed it when I was 16 so I then ended up sitting at the back of some classrooms. I don’t think I can blame my class seating position on my understanding of English though!

I went to the sort of girls’ secondary school where the ‘brainy’ kids did French and Latin as their third form (Year 9) electives and everyone else did Shorthand-Typing and Home Economics. My mother figured that I’d struggle with French so it was Latin and Shorthand-Typing for me! I may not have ‘passed’ School Certificate (NCEA Level 1) Latin but at least it took my understanding of English from a ‘C’ to an ‘A’ in three years.

The other thing it did was take my writing from simple to complex. Let’s face it, a sentence in Latin translates to a paragraph in English so I was rocking those tenses! Unfortunately that didn’t always translate so well to the business world, where active language and plain English are preferred.

By my 30’s I was having to relearn how to write business documents in a way that others could actually understand. Readability statistics are now my best friend! More recently I’ve explored copy-writing techniques to improve my business writing. But writing fact-based documents which have specific legal meaning is not the same as writing for personal pleasure. A journey of 10,000 hours starts with a few blog posts. Thanks for joining me on this journey.

Next time: The cabinets are coming, the cabinets are coming……………..

Decidedly average coffee

Warning: this is a post about a road trip. Look away now if it’s not your thing.

If you’ve been reading my posts you’ll know that I have a predilection for old things – especially second-hand furniture. I also have a predilection for buying things online. One of the risks that comes with that is the item you covet / purchase can be in a town far, far away. I’ve limited myself to the North Island for my searches but there can still be dragons.

My new two-seater recliner couch was one such item, being a resident of one of Auckland’s eastern beach suburbs. Dimensions in hand I loaded them into an online freight calculator to discover that it would cost me as much to freight it to Ohakune as it did to purchase it. Don’t people know I’m on a budget?

The seller reassured me that it could be dismantled so I figured that I should be able to fit it in the back of my trusty red Mazda6 liftback. I’d also bought a 2.5 x 3.4m Flokati rug residing in one of Auckland’s western suburbs so I now had two reasons to make the trip to Auckland. Said rug is the feature image for this post. It will keep my toes toasty on chilly mornings.

An early finish at work on Friday meant that I could take in my niece’s final school prize-giving followed by a family dinner. I contemplated a coffee injection prior to getting on the road at 8pm, but figured that I had enough energy and focus for the 3+ hour trip to Turangi, including the Desert Road. There wasn’t much traffic on the road for the most part, and a little bit of drizzle kept me on my toes. I made it to Turangi shortly after 11pm and headed straight to bed.

Coffee count for the day = 1. People’s Coffee, Don Wilfredo blend, plunger. Above average.

I was up early, breakfasted, sheets changed, dishes done, and on the road by 8am. I’m not a ‘needs coffee first thing in the morning’ kind of person so thought I’d wait until I got to Tirau for my first coffee for the day. My sister and brother-in-law do a lot of motorbike riding so she’d introduced me to her favourite cafe there a few years ago. I think it’s changed hands since the last time I was there as my flat white was very watery, and my friand came with the dairy products I asked to be excluded. Not the service we usually get there!

Back on the road to Auckland with an ETA of midday. Then I caught up with the traffic heading to the car races at Pukekohe. Traffic slowed down to a crawl meant that I wasn’t going to make my first pick-up on time. Sigh. Fortunately the sellers had left the rug in an accessible location so I loaded it into my car and headed to Titirangi for lunch. After an average lunch and acceptable coffee I was ready to head east to collect the sofa.

Unfortunately my pick-up was delayed so I headed to Hillsborough Cemetery to try and find the grave of someone connected to my maternal family history. Geneology websites are very good at giving you plot numbers etc for specific graves – cemetery operators not so much! After stomping around the cemetery for a while I gave up and headed for my next destination.

Of course I was early and the seller not at home yet so I parked up for a nap. The seller’s son arrived at the appointed time and we tried to figure out how to dismantle the sofa. We figured it out but didn’t have the tools to make it happen. The seller arrived, pulled out his trusty tools and we were able to get the back rests off. The next challenge was to get it out of the building via a long narrow corridor, down a U-shaped ramp, and into the back of my car.

Whilst I’d worked out that it should fit into my car, I hadn’t taken into account that the reclining mechanism would make the couch heavy. As in very heavy. As in almost too heavy for three people to carry / lift. We finally managed to get it into the car, and the seller took a photo to prove to his sister that it could be done! I had no idea how I was going to get it out of my car and into the church on my own. I figured the universe would provide the answer!

Then it was off down the motorway to Hamilton where I’d arranged to stay with my cousin and his wife. It was great catching up with them, seeing how tall their four boys had grown, and recharging for the final day of my road trip. I’d arranged to meet the Session Clerk of the Taihape-Waimarino Presbyterian Parish in Taihape at midday, so it was going to be another early start for me the following day.

Coffee count for the day = 2. (1) Unknown roaster and blend, flat white. Almost undrinkable. (2) Allpress Espresso, unknown blend, flat white. Acceptable.

It’s been a while since I’d driven to Ohakune via State Highway 3. Being on a mission to get the car unloaded meant that I didn’t stop for a coffee en-route. It was surprisingly easy to get the couch out of the car and into the church. I was able to reverse up to the front doors so that there was about 70cm between my car and the entry.

The steps up to the front door meant that the floor and boot were almost level. A bit of huffing and puffing saw me wriggle the couch out of the car, into the church, and position it in front of the nave windows. Low cloud meant that I couldn’t check out the views, but I did have enough time to check on the wood oils I’d applied last time to see which one I preferred. I also tested the paint chips in the vestry’s natural light to see which ones worked best.

I decided that I had enough time to grab a coffee from one of the carts in Ohakune before I was due in Taihape. I hadn’t tried the brand before even though it was a Wellington roaster. Oh well, cross that one off my list! It kept me going long enough to spend a couple of hours going through the old records for my church which I’ll use to add to the history section of this website over time.

After a late lunch at the reliable Brown Sugar cafe, it was back on the road for the last leg to Wellington. I promised myself a decent coffee at Bulls but it was not to be! Coffee yes, decent no. What was usually a very reliable coffee stop wasn’t on this occasion.

The rest of the trip was uneventful until I got to Paraparaumu. A crash at Paekakariki had caused significant delays so I made a detour to my mother’s to say hello. I managed to cap my weekend off by leaving my mobile at her place. Needless to say I was too tired to drive back to retrieve it that day!

Coffee count for the day = 2. (1) Lucky Espresso, unknown blend, flat white. Below average. (2) Revive Espresso, unknown blend, flat white. Disappointingly very average.

Next time: Why I write

Mostly old, sometimes new, occasionally borrowed, nothing blue (or black)

Red car, red sofa. There’s a theme here somewhere……………………

So here’s the thing. Apart from old buildings and cars I also like other old things. I think it’s a family trait. I remember my eldest sister inheriting an old lounge suite from our gran which she had for a good few years before she replaced it. She’s still got gran’s coffee table in her holiday house, and I have the oak sideboard from our other grandparent’s holiday house.

If I didn’t inherit my furniture I’ve generally bought it second-hand from a shop or online. This two-seater couch is a recent purchase that I’m looking forward to trying out. It reminds me of old railway carriage seats – railway carriages are another mild obsession of mine.

I’m determined to try and buy second-hand furniture where I can – except my mattress – I think that needs to be new as you never know where they’ve been or what adventures they’ve had. I made the mistake of buying a second-hand bed and mattress online a few years ago to discover the mattress was stained. I’ve now learned to read between the lines!

I do like buying new kitchenware and appliances for some reason. So far I’ve had to restrict myself to the basics that are essential for making coffee and heating lunch. I’ve still opted for quality as I figure it will only cost me once.

Borrowed? Well that may take the form of something a relative ‘insists’ that I use. I’m trying to avoid it becoming a dumping ground for other people’s unwanted stuff without offending anyone. I want it to be a peaceful and relaxing environment without jarring elements that don’t work for the space.

Blue and black? They aren’t colours that I like or wear which is a bit of a challenge when it comes to purchasing clothes. At least I can avoid them with my decor!

Next time: Decidedly average coffee

Boom and bust

This photo of my roof ‘scissor’ trusses shows the underneath of the post-WW2 concrete tiles and the complete absence of insulation or a moisture barrier. The strong winds associated with the March 1918 fires nearby pushed the original building over and removed the roof! I wonder if the random bits of wood lying alongside the king posts are still good?

The construction industry works like many others – it goes through periods of boom and bust. It was the final years of the first World War at the time my church was being built. Market gardening and milling native trees were the key industries – it’s hard to gauge if there were labour shortages in the area caused by the war. I’m hoping some historical research I’m conducting next month will reveal more about how the church was funded and built.

I grew up in an immediate and extended family involved in the construction trades. Most of them worked on new-builds or in commercial construction. I learned that competent trades professionals are more likely to survive bust cycles, and you’re more likely to get shoddy work or tradies doing ‘foreign orders’ in boom cycles.

I also learned that there are two methods of charging – colloquially known as ‘do and charge’ or ‘job and knock’. The former is paying for all hours worked, the latter is paying for work as quoted regardless of how long it takes.

I went overseas in 1985 when the industrial landscape was one of paying for all hours worked. It changed whilst I was overseas, and I returned in 1993 to a more competitive environment. Unfortunately that competitive environment has seen a lot of price undercutting in order to secure work. I’ve observed family members losing money on jobs they sub-contracted to as the main contractor went bust.

I’m fortunate as a self-employed contractor to be paid for the hours I work. I believe that I should respect the trades professionals I engage by paying them for the work they do. I know that there will always be some ‘surprises’ with an old building, and I don’t want to compromise the quality of the work.

Every project is subject to time, cost and quality constraints. I would prefer that tradespeople under-promised and over-delivered than the other way around!

Next time: Mostly old, sometimes new, occasionally borrowed, never blue (or black)

Finding and choosing great professionals

Every church should come with it’s own organ. I have no idea what the different knobs mean in case you’re wondering.

The title of this blog is adapted from a document I wrote nearly twenty years ago. It was a guide for franchise owners on how to find and choose great people for their business. The document’s purpose was to provide small business owners with corporate expertise on employing people.

It reinforced three key things:

People tend to associate with others who hold similar values, attributes, and beliefs as themselves
The best recommendations for your job are people already working there
People are more likely to refer people who will reflect well on them

I believe in evidence-based practice in my professional life – focusing on data-driven decision-making. My search for an architect was a very rational approach. I looked at the NZ Register of Architects and the NZ Institute of Architects websites to identify someone with the skills and experience I was looking for.

My search for other professionals was quite different. I’ve used a mix of recommendations from work colleagues with connections to the area, referrals from my new neighbours, and real estate agents. I knew from my upbringing that working on a building site can be quite a tense environment. Construction professionals want to work with people that they get on with, so referrals from one professional for another was another important part of my approach.

Just like the knobs on the old organ that came with the church, every construction professional adds their unique ‘note’ to a build. Getting everyone playing in time and harmoniously is the objective.

Next time: Boom and bust