Alice was born in Lyttelton, on the Banks Peninsula in the South Island of New Zealand on the 13th May 1880, while her father Robert was teaching further down the peninsula at Little Akaloa and her Uncle James was teaching at Head of the Harbour, across the water from Lyttleton.
In 1880 Robert resigned his teaching position at Little Akaloa and moved his family to Woodville on the West Coast of the North Island, in South Taranaki where In 1881 he was appointed schoolteacher for the new Woodville School. (When a Post Office was established there, Woodville was renamed Alton) Alice started school there 1885, the year Robert took over the occupation license for a block of land on Skeet Road, Kapuni, on Taranaki's newly opened Waimate Plains block. When the new Kapuni School first opened on a frosty May morning in 1888, Alice was there with Maggie & Bob. There is a view of the sea across the plains from Skeet Road, but when the Willis children started school, there was nothing to be seen for miles around but great tree trunks and half=cleared bush.
Margaret, Alice, Maud, Louise and Lilly Willis |
Taranaki cows among burnt trunks and fallen logs. N.11.98 photographer A.J.Reid Puke Ariki |
In 1894 Robert bought a second farm at Rowan. Alice’s Uncle John and Aunt Margaret Willis arrived in Taranaki from Ireland. There was a good house at Rowan for Robert’s young family who could help break in the new farm, while John and Margaret could take over the established Kapuni farm. Alice didn’t get to spend much more time at school. While Maggie stayed at home to help with the children, Alice, with her younger sisters Louise and Lily, went out to earn cash as household-help wherever they could pick up work. What money they could find was put into buying comforts for their new home. Gradually, the cotton curtains pulled back on a nail each morning were replaced with roller blinds and the rough floorboards were covered with linoleum.
In 1901 Robert took up another block of land on Putikituna Road, in the steep hills of Northern Taranaki beyond Whangamomona. Louise and Lily were left in charge at Rowan to keep the farm going and look after the little ones, while Alice and her brother Jack ran the Kapuni farm for their Uncle John and Aunt Margaret. Alice and Jack stayed on the Skeet Road, Kapuni farm for about three years before going on a working holiday to Western Australia, to visit their cousins, the children of Edward Willis. Edward Willis' daughter, Margaret Ann Willis had married Charles Black, and was running a boarding house in Boulder City, and expecting her eighth child. Alice helped in the boarding house.
Alice met Joe Wytkin in Boulder City, he was a gold miner. Joe's parents came from Europe, his mother Johanna was born in southern Germany, his father Lawrence was a Russian Pole. The family name Wytkin chosen at random from a telephone book when the family first arrived in Australia; their own European family names now forgotten.
Margaret and Charles Black arranged a lovely wedding for Al and Joe, making sure they would have something good to remember at the start of their life together. The wedding was planned to take place shortly after the birth of Margaret’s baby but Margaret, ill with jaundice, died the day her baby, Margaret Sadie was born. Margaret was forty-one years old. Joe and Alice went ahead with their wedding plans and were married a few weeks later at the Black’s home in Boulder City, on the 29th July 1908; Charles Black gave Alice away.
Wedding of Alice Willis and Joe Wytkin (left to right) Bella Black, Chris McDonald, Joe & Alice, Charles Black |
Alice wasn’t very well in Western Australia. The hot weather "nearly killed her" as she too became ill with jaundice and began to pine for the cool green of Taranaki. Joe, though he had no farming experience, enjoyed Alice’s stories of life on a dairy farm and agreed that they should try their luck in Taranaki. They left immediately after their wedding, making a honeymoon of their voyage to Taranaki and bringing with them Margaret’s son Ted Black, an 18 year old, still recovering from a severe illness that had left him deaf.
Alice and Joe were hoping to take over the old Skeet Road farm as share-milkers. Their plans fell through when Uncle John changed his mind and asked Jack to run the farm at Kapuni. Instead, Alice brought Joe and Ted Black to Rowan. Her parents (Robert and Alice) and brother Bob were splitting their time between the Kohuratahi farm and Rowan so it made sense for Alice and Joe to become share-milkers on the Rowan farm. Margaret and Louise were already married and Bob had been running the Rowan farm with the help of the younger girls. May and Mary stayed on the Rowan farm with Alice and Joe while little Mabel went with their mother Alice to live with Margaret and Ted Wright. Bob and George went up to Kohuratahi with Maude to keep house for them while Lily went down to Kapuni to keep house for Jack on Skeet Road.
Alice and Joe’s first child Trixie was born at Rowan on 25th June 1909. Josie was born at Rowan on the 18th November 1910 and then Francie on the 16th July 1912, much to the amusement of the family who all knew that Alice and Joe were hoping for a boy. (This was a "girls can do anything sort of family") Joe declared that he would adopt a boy.
Alice & Joe at Alton with their girls and May and Mary Willis |
They were at last in a position to think of buying their own farm and began negotiations for a farm at Alton owned by the Washers.
Joe’s health was always a worry. He had been ill at Rowan and then, just a week after he signed an agreement to lease Washer’s farm with right of purchase – suddenly and without warning, he dropped dead on the 6th May 1916. Joe had a heart attack while sitting in the cart, ready to take the days milk to the dairy factory and waiting for Mary to open the gate. At Joe’s funeral, Ted Black, who had recently inhereted money from his father's estate, suggested that Alice should go ahead with the purchase of Washer’s farm in half shares himself instead of Joe. Alice agreed and with a much expanded family, moved onto the new farm at Alton. There was Ted Black and Alice Wytkin; Ted’s brother and sister Dave and Jean Black recently arrived from Australia; Alice’s girls Francie, Trixie and Josie Wytkin and Alice’s sisters, May and Mary Willis, and Joe's young brother Alexander Wytkin also recently arrived from Australia.
Alice |
About 1936, Francie Wytkin and her husband Ken Bell bought a grocery shop called Sunshine Stores, in Hawera. Alice went to live with them and look after Heather, their daughter. Bothered by employees" getting away with the groceries" during the war, Ken and Francie bought a smaller business in Levin that they could run themselves. They did well. Alice continued to keep house for them and look after Heather.
Eventually Alice went to live in a Retirement home where she continued to be her kindly, helpful, cheerful self. Alice kept herself busy, "pottering about", generally making herself useful to staff and guests alike, gradually becoming child-like and getting into trouble for helping herself to the chocolates she found in the rooms of fellow inmates. Alice died in Foxton on the 14th February 1974.
left to right Francie, Alice, Josie and Trixie Wytkin about 1925 |
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Alice is 20 degrees from Herbert Adair, 19 degrees from Richard Adams, 22 degrees from Mel Blanc, 26 degrees from Dick Bruna, 26 degrees from Bunny DeBarge, 25 degrees from Peter Dinklage, 21 degrees from Sam Edwards, 21 degrees from Ginnifer Goodwin, 24 degrees from Marty Krofft, 20 degrees from Junius Matthews, 19 degrees from Rachel Mellon and 22 degrees from Harold Warstler on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.