As I approach my 84^th birthday I find myself thinking about my past. Recently, when visiting a friend who is older than I he shared his research into his family history. Perhaps it is the characteristic of old age that we look back over the years and are curious about where we come from and why we have lived our lives the way we did. Why we are here and how have we come to where we are may be symptoms of our search for the meaning of our lives. Having benefitted from many biographies and memoirs perhaps this self-reflection is valuable to our pilgrimages. The Bible contains many such accounts which serve as guides for our lives. My parents displayed no interest in their family histories. They never talked about former generations. I have had to do my own research to discover the little I have found. The following is part of a memoir I was asked to write for a book to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of my home-town: GOD KNOWS WHERE THEY COME FROM!  I entitled my chapter From Hokitika to Florida: A Spiritual Odyssey.

The West Coast Times on 11 October 1873 carried the following announcement:

MARRIED. DOWELL-JOHNSON – On the 8^th of October, At All Saints’ Church, by the Ven. Archdeacon Harper, Bartholomew Dowell, of Durham, England, to Amelia, seventh daughter of Mr Robert Johnson, Hobart Town, Tasmania.

Bart and Amelia Dowell were my great-grandparents. Bart Dowell was born on 8 July 1836 in County Durham, England, and began to work in the coal mines at the age of eight years. In 1857 he went to Victoria, Australia, in the ship Sir William Eyre, landed in Melbourne, and proceeded to Ballarat. He followed the diggings for six years in different parts of Victoria, and then came to New Zealand in 1863 at the time of the Hartley and Riley rush in Otago. Bart Dowell was one of the lucky diggers on the Shotover, where he made £900 in the first three months. He afterwards travelled to Hokitika on the steamer Wallaby from Nelson, in November 1865. He bought the Butcher’s Arms Hotel in Revell Street, which he ran for thirteen years before acquiring a livery and bait stable (a place which both hired out and stabled travellers’ own horses) on Revell Street, containing seven stalls, four loose boxes, and standing room for a large number of vehicles.

In 1903 Bart purchased the Salvation Army barracks adjoining his stables and converted them into a residence. Eleven vehicles of various kinds and fourteen horses were employed in connection with the business. The stables eventually became a motor garage, with coaches and taxis. He invested in the Maori Reserve Gold-mining Company in Kaniere and died in 1908.

The Dowells

After his marriage to my great-grandmother, Amelia, for whom we named our younger daughter, the Dowells had thirteen children, of whom five sons and five daughters survived. They were Avery, Bart, Ethel Freebury, Nellie (married Sid Brooks, parents of Nancy Havill, whose son Durham is a leading citizen and former Mayor of Westland District Council), Amelia (married William Diedrichs of Kokatahi), Eddie, Annie, Durham (of the Albion Hotel, Greymouth), Pearl and my grandfather, Amos, who was born in 1892, whose first name is my middle name.

Amos married Ethel Read in All Saints’ Church in 1912 and my mother, Phyllis, was born in 1913.  When war was declared in 1914 Amos, a twenty-two-year-old, signed up for the Canterbury Regiment and served in Gallipoli for one year and then in France for three years. He was wounded several times but returned to serve in the trenches for the duration of the war. Like his father, Amos must have possessed great courage and perseverance to survive. These qualities and tenacity are family traits that were passed on to his descendants. When he returned they had three more children: Eddie (married Mary), Lloyd (married Paula Fleming) and Jill (married Alister Manson and were very active members of All Saints’). As a result of Amos’ war service, I have made a study of the history of World War One, and in particular the battles in which my grandfather was engaged. My grandfather purchased the Central Hotel in 1922, which stood on the opposite corner to All Saints’ Vicarage. On his final illness and subsequent death at age forty six, my mother, Phyllis, took over running the hotel in 1935, and simultaneously married Carl Schroder in All Saints’ Church.

The Schroders

My father was the grandson of Carl Frederick Schroder who was born in 1833 in Stettin, Prussia, and came to New Zealand in 1871 with my great-grandmother Henrietta and their six children. My grandfather, Carl August, was born on 4 August 1870, in Gossentin, Pomerania, Prussia, married Martha Fane in Hokitika and died in 1944. They had seven children: Lydia, Frederick (married Elsie), Florence (married Jim Hall), Nellie (married Bob Cowan), Martha (married Theo Lynch), May (married Lou Schroder), Harold (married Edna) and my father, Carl, who was born in 1911.

My sister, Carol, was born on 21 March 1938 (married Jim Havill), and they have three children, Julie-Ann, Belinda, and Michael. She lives in New Zealand surrounded by her family and many great-grandchilden. I was born 11 June 1941 and baptized in All Saints’ Church on 12 August 1941 by the Revd H.A. Childs whom I met many years later. (More to come)