Maude (Willis) Harper (1893 - 1983)

Ancestors Descendants

MAUDE WILLIS 1893 - 1983

Maude was born in Kapuni on the 14th January 1893, her parents were Robert Willis and Alice Chapman. Maude's younger sister Mary recalled stories from their childhood, saying “Maude was always trying to put one over me.” Mary said that Maude’s adventure as an almost three year old, crawling under their Rowan house and getting stuck in the farthest corner where the house was almost on the ground, precipitated Mary’s birth. The joke between them was that if Maude hadn’t tried to upstage Mary that day and upset their mother, they would have shared their birthdays. Maude rather resented being sidelined by the new baby, her own memory of that day was of being sent under the house for the event, guarded by five-year-old George. It is not hard to imagine what was going on in the minds of those two youngsters as they listened to the drama unfolding above their heads. Maude’s third birthday fell two weeks after Mary was born.

Although we know the family moved to Rowan in 1895 where a school was already established, Kapuni School records show that six-year-old Maude was at school there in 1903. With her parents breaking in a new farm at Kohuratahi, it looks as though Maude was sent to their much loved Aunt Maggie in Kapuni for a while. As her sister Louise said, “we had the two homes".Taranaki settlers made the most of what social life was available to them. There were carnival meetings and athletic meetings. Now and again athletes from surrounding districts would be invited to compete with the local boys. There were picnic race meetings with bookmakers and all, held on Charlie Tait’s property on Manaia Road, on the right hand side just north of the railway line – sometimes a school picnic would be included at a race meeting.

Whangamomona - kohuratahi just up the road

Maude was sent to Kohuratahi in 1907 when she was only fourteen, to keep house for her father, and brothers Bob and George. On a post card to Jack from Kohuratahi on the 12th April 1907, Maude writes “Dear Jack, How in the world are you getting on this splendid weather. You old stick-in-the mud you never send a bloke a line. I suppose you are too busy with the cows & turnips & carrots & so forth & so on. I can picture you getting in the cows at three in the morning & pitching in like a real colonial. I will now have to close as I have no more room. Goodbye. Don’t work too hard because you only live once. Don’t lose yourself in the mud. Don’t get spliced. Maude Willis Much love to all & don’t forget yourself be good. Give Lily my very best love. If you answer this I will send you a real post.” xxxxx The picture on the front of this card is of a ‘Gibson girl’ with a tear in her eye, across the corner in tiny writing Maude has written “don’t get married”.

Maude

To Lily at Skeet Road, Kapuni she wrote “Dear Lil, I suppose you are still squeezing teats & working hard. I wish I was out helping. By-the-way I hope you haven’t got the pip as I’ve got a fit of the blues. I have had the last 10 years-months I mean. Maude write soon xxxxxxxx “. Ten months in the isolation of Kohuratahi must have seems like ten years to a lively young girl. Mary went out to give her a break and enjoyed the experience even less. To Mary at Rowan she wrote “Dear Mary, I hope you are not feeling to glum to drop a poor repentant sinner like me a line. I suppose you have a lot to do but cheer up we’ll soon be dead. Goodbye. Give my love to May and Mabel & yourself. Write soon. Maude.

Then, on the 2nd of April 1908 Maude wrote from Rowan to Lily at Skeet Road, after a visit to Skeet Road “Dear Lil, arrived here all right. I was only wet through. I am very nearly asleep. We gave a farewell social to the factory boys last night. I had a real snorter of a time per usual. Also by the way, Dada is coming out next week and I might have to go back to Whanga. Maude.”

Maude was fifteen when her mother Alice was taken to Porirua Mental Hospital in 1912.

The Willis girls made their fun where they could. Louise told of fund raising to build the Tokaora Hall. “We had quite a success for this bazaar. We didn’t charge much because nobody had any money much but they all sort of all pulled in together. Even Maudeie came. I don’t know where she was but she came. (She might have been staying with us.) She read the fortunes for a shilling a turn just to get a bit more money.”

Maude with hockey stick

Cash was hard to come by in those days. People worked for wages wherever they could find a position. Maude wrote “Dear Mabel I received your very welcome letter last week. I hope you will write to me again soon Mabel. Yes Mabel, I like Toko pretty well. The people are all good to me so I cannot help but like it. Well Mabel, how are you getting along now without Lil? I expect she has gone by now. Tell Jack I will send him a card when I can get to town to get another. This is one I got before I left Kapuni. Remember me to your Auntie & Uncle & also Ted. Must close now with best of love & lots of kisses Maude".

About that time Alice wrote to Lily “… Did you hear anything of Maude since she went to Mrs Robb? I see Mr Robb is advertising for a girl so I thought Maude had gone from there I had a letter from M so if she said she was in Hawera last Saturday I was sorry she did not see any of you. I suppose she is lonely there now". Another undated card reads “Dear Dad, I received your very kind and welcome letter the other day & I am very pleased to know I am not forgotten by everybody. Thanks very much for your invitation back home but I am not overworked yet, I am still as fat as ever. How are the sheep doing? It is getting near shearing time isn’t it? How is Mama getting on? I would like to be remembered to her. I suppose Lily is quite a good bush feller by this time. I hope she doesn’t go bush ranging. Well I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a bright & happy new year, your loving daughter Maude".

Maude

In 1912, after Lily’s stint felling Kohuratahi bush she accompanied Ted Black on his return to Western Australia. Maude wrote to her “Dear darling old Lil, I am so awfully sorry I never wrote before but I have had such a lot to think about. But I promise to write oftener in the future. You don’t know how everybody misses you over here, me especially and how I wish you had been at the wedding. I was longing for you all day. I will write to you a full account of it later (whose wedding is unknown). Lal and I have only just come back from Whanga. What price mud. We were nearly buried alive. I think if I lived out there again I would go mad but it was a nice change. Master George Lavel wants to be remembered to you. Much love from all – Maude xxxx”

Maude and Jim Harper were married in Kaponga on the 24th September1914.

Maude and Jim Harper

Though there was almost four years between them, Maude’s son Jim Harper looked very much like his older cousin Leo Wytkin. Mary told a story, during wartime rationing for cigarettes and tobacco, Leo saw Jim carrying several packets of tobacco. Asking where he got the tobacco, Leo went into the shop to pick some up for himself, only to be told “you bought some just before!” Leo has been mistaken for Jim.

Maude and Jim were never “well off” but cheerfully made the most of life as they found it. Maudie loved the races and her daughter-in-law Shirley recalled that Maude was the only person ever seen walking up the stairs to the Members Stand, reading the racing form as she went.

After Jim’s death, Maude retired to 7 Morrissey Street Hawera. Maude died on the 26th April 1983. She is buried in Hawera Cemetery, General Episcopalian Section New Plot ID: 10679 Block: LXXV Old Plot No : 21

Sources

• Dept of Internal Affairs, New Zealand - www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz
• N.Z. BIRTHS - 1893/2755 - Willis Maude - parents : Alice & Robert
• N.Z. MARRIAGES - 1914/1624 - Maude Willis & James Harper
• N.Z. DEATHS - 1983/46972 - Harper Maude - birth 14th January 1893
• South Taranaki District Council cemetery records