My grandfather in the newspaper

I have just completed a bio for my grandfather Martin Riordan. He bought a farm in Hurford Rd, Omata, Taranaki about 1910-11, and lived there for a decade or so before moving into town in 1921. He was there during a time when 'District News' from Hurford Rd commonly featured in the local New Plymouth newspaper, and this added interesting 'flavour' to his bio. There are the various committees he was on- for instance he was chairman of the School Committee- but there are also some more 'offbeat' snippets.

In 1917, his bull earned a trip to the meat works after it gored several of his horses overnight. (TDN 28 Feb 1917)

 

In 1915 he was taken to court for failing to control the ragwort and blackberry on his property, and that brought to light the sad fact that his wife had been ill and away on holiday. (TDN 6 May 1915) 

It wasn't uncommon to find that he was thanked for playing music at some community event or other. (TDN 27 Oct 1920)

Sadly, only a few months after leaving the farm, he died after contracting influenza. He had attended an event on Hurford Rd not long before his relatively sudden death, which left the rural community shocked. (TDN 5 Sept 1921).

As was typical of those times "Mrs Riordan" was mentioned less often in the papers. 

 

 

My Aunty Mary Riordan as a nurse

 It's often trickier to find out more about our female relatives than our male ones. I have been trying to find out more about the career of my Aunty Mary as a nurse for a while, and more recently I was searching (unsuccessfully) to find a NZ Gazette that had a Nurses' Register with her name in it. Instead I published an article in our local genealogy newsletter about the NZ Gazette, and the range of 'name' lists I had found in it. Once I had finished that I turned to Papers Past and did a deep-dive for any "Riordan Nurse" kind of snippets- quite successfully in the end as it turned out. I must have wiggled my nose correctly and sent a proper message to the genealogical ether!

Previously I had actually found an electoral roll entry from 1935 where a Mary Margaret Riordan was living in the Timaru Nurse's home.

 

I doubted that could be my aunty though, as why would she go that far away from home (in New Plymouth) for her training? Perhaps at that time in the 1930s, there simply weren't enough training positions around. And she did have Riordan cousins in Christchurch. I had in fact been told many years earlier by one of the Christchurch cousins that Aunty Mary had helped nurse her mother Bridget (Ryan) when she was dying in 1935.

As it turned out, my Papers Past rabbit hole soon threw me lots of bits and pieces. The earliest was this extract from November 1931 saying that M. M. Riordan of New Plymouth had been placed on the waiting list of probationers. You can see that people were applying from all around the country, and in fact Aunty Mary was the only applicant listed from Taranaki.

I soon found lots more snippets. The fact that my aunty was living away from the family home in New Plymouth seemed to lead to bits in the newspaper every time she came back to or left home. In January 1936 was the following information. And this confirmed that the entry in the 1935 electoral roll was actually my aunty.
 

And finally, something I had been searching for, a date that showed when Miss M Riordan became registered as a nurse. Her success in the Nurses' State Registration examinations  was recorded in the Taranaki Daily News on 15 July 1936.

More details were found in Papers Past as her early career continued. She did maternity training, as well and midwifery training and a Plunket stint. She was mainly in Auckland, but also Hamilton and Karitane. She even had a very brief stint in Palmerston North before she moved to Auckland to start her maternity training at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital. 

A marvellous thing  happened as I was doing this research. Because of an article about his NZ Ancestor Search Helper that I had included in our newsletter, I had sent the magnificent Luke Howison a copy of our May newsletter. He saw what I had written about the NZ Gazette, and replied to me with a copy of the register page from the 1931-1940 Register of Nurses (R22227911) at Archives NZ, that included the entry of my Aunty Mary Margaret Riordan as a registered nurse #8627 in Timaru, on 6 July 1936. Also written on her entry were her qualifications as a midwife, postgraduate diploma, a Plunket Certificate and as a Maternity Nurse.

This of course is just the 'preliminary' to Aunty Mary's career as a nurse. She spent many years as a Public Health Nurse in New Plymouth. But I'll finish with this one piece. Vaccination was obviously an issue then as now. She was being quoted as giving advice for the whooping cough inoculation in 1944.

My Dad- writing things up

I have decided that one of the things that I need to do this year is 'write up' and check the information I have about my New Zealand family. I have started with my father, James Kevin Riordan (Jim). I have quite a lot of information about him as it happens, as he was a Railway worker, and went to the Middle East in WW2. Men tend to give rise to a more detailed paper trail than women.

This is my father with his mate Curly, somewhere at a camp in the desert in 1941.

 

 

 

 

Dad was born in 1917 in Omata, just outside New Plymouth, to Martin Riordan and Margaret Malone. At the time of his birth, the family was living on a dairy farm in Hurford Road. One of the things I would like to find out sometime is where exactly on Hurford Rd the family lived. I know it was somewhere not too far from the Royal Oak factory which his father Martin supplied. If I can find some old maps, I will hopefully be able to narrow the location down a bit.

Dad obtained Proficiency at primary school, and by 1938 was working with the Railways, firstly as a junior porter, and by 1955 he was a Guard. When men were sought for the War, he joined up serving in Railways Operating and Construction Companies, after entering Egypt in September 1940. In a chance meeting at a genealogy conference in the early 90s, I met a man who served in his unit, who told me Dad was much in demand in the canteen of an evening, where he sang Irish folk songs.

Dad moved to Waitara at some stage after his war service, where he was a guard. As a single man, he was boarding at the Masonic Hotel. It so happened that my mother, Katherine Lalor, was working there doing 'domestic duties', which I know included cooking. There was a courtship, and in 1956, my parents married, when my father was 39. Just under a year later, their first daughter was born, to be followed by three more in succeeding years.

From a moving company receipt, it was clear we moved into our Waitara home in July 1960. Dad clearly enjoyed being a husband and father, and making our house a home. (Back then, lower income people could still buy homes, through State Advances home mortgages.) I have many happy early childhood memories of Dad working hard around the property. He had a huge vegetable garden, planted fruit trees, and also numerous flower gardens. He had magic green fingers. He laid the concrete paths, dug drainage, and made a fence.

There was a day that I remembered walking down to the Railway Station with my Dad, to find the steam train was in its shed, with a wagon in front of it. I was only four at the time, but I still knew that wasn't 'normal'. I asked Dad why the wagon was there, and he told me it was so nobody could steal the train. I thought he was being silly! But it turns out that is exactly why the wagon was there. In the very early hours of 3 March 1962, shortly after my father had come home from work, he heard the locomotive AB.817 going past our house, when he knew it should have been in the loco shed. There was a chase with cars up to Big Jims Hill, but the train was by then returning to Waitara. Newspaper accounts appeared in various papers, and are all collected up in a file at Archives NZ, as are copies of 'official' documents. My father received a letter of commendation for his part in the incident. There was even an editorial in the Christchurch Star about the event on 10 March 1962.

Excerpt from editorial in Christchurch Star, 10 March 1962

 I have many idyllic memories of my early childhood. But in early June 1966, my childhood came crashing down, when Dad collapsed at work, and died not much later, of a sudden heart attack. I missed him acutely. 

Over the years, I have written various pieces about him, from the heart. The posters above are ones I prepared for the genealogy conference in the 90s in Palmerston North, when Anne Carian was organising the wall displays. The conference theme was 'Tracking the Lines' with Railways being one of the sub-themes.

Requiescat in Pace my dearly loved father.

 

 

Darfield Visit

 Today it was time for a trip out to Darfield and Charing Cross. First I went to the cemetery by the Catholic Church, where a quartet of headstones are there for my Riordan-Burke family. Mary Burke was the first one buried there, after she died of consumption when only 29 years old. Her mother Ann Philp (Burke) and her Uncle John Burke) died within months of each other in 1895. Patrick Riordan, Mary’s husband, died in 1911. 

Next I visited the Darfield Cenotaph, which carries the name of James Riordan, my great-uncle, who died of wounds received in the Battle of the Somme. 

The last visit for the afternoon was to Charing Cross where the Riordan farm used to be. Patrick raised sheep and grew crops, and it seems like similar uses of the land are still in place. But today there were large irrigators also in use. 

Burke Family Gathering

 Yesterday some of my Burke Family whanau had a gathering in Christchurch- a very enjoyable day. The first item for the morning was at Sydenham Cemetery where we had a blessing for a memorial plaque for Martin Burke- my 2x-great-grandfather. He doesn't seem to have ever had a headstone, and a group of us decided that it might be a good idea to erect one. Fr Simon Eccleton was the priest who came along to perform the blessing, a very special thing. He said he often does blessings for the month's mind at cemeteries, but for someone who died over a 100 years ago was a first for him!

Some of us then headed to Lyttelton and took a short cruise across to Quail Island. I appreciated being on the harbour to mark the day when everyone disembarked from the Mermaid, 160 years ago.

Next stop was at the Gondola, which gave a superb view down to the harbour, and also to parts of the Bridle Path that they had to climb over to reach Christchurch itself.

We finished the evening with a wonderful meal celebration with about 44 cousins. I particularly enjoyed meeting up with a couple of Riordan second cousins who I had never met before, and there was a group of Burtons there whose mother had helped me get started on genealogy many years ago. All round, it was a very special and satisfying day, getting to know a large group of whanau I hadn't met before.

Annie Riordan- Sr Majella

 The youngest child of Patrick Riordan and Mary Burke was Annie Riordan, who was just a baby when her mother Mary died of consumption. Sadly, Annie acquired it from her mother, though she lived to be 19 before she went quickly downhill with it.

Annie was reputedly very musical, and in Papers Past there are numerous references to her when at high school for passing music exams (piano and harp) and for singing in concerts. At high school in 1974 I had the lead female solo in a musical, and afterwards some nuns were telling me how much my voice reminded them of this nun who was my relative. It was only when I began doing genealogy quite some time later that I found out the nun in question was my great-aunt Annie Riordan, and that she had died in 1911. The nuns who told me the story about her singing voice could never have heard it, they must have just heard the tradition amongst the congregation about her voice.

I am presently in Christchurch for a Burke family gathering, and took the opportunity to go to Linwood Cemetery to update my photos of Annie's grave, in the plot ( Block 40, Plot 99C) of the Mission Sisters, RNDM (Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions.) Her name in the convent was Sr Majella. The plot used to have a tall cross on it, atop a base with the sister's names on it. These names were solely their names in religion, and just the date of death was recorded. Now the cross lays flat over the plots, and there are plaques that carry the names and birth and death dates of each nun. Their family names are included along with their religious names.

Here are a few photos from how the plot looks now.

Mary Burke- Biography

 

Mary BURKE was born on 21 August 1862 at Polgavie Cotter’s Houses in the Parish of Inchture, County of Perth, Scotland.

 

She was the first child born to Martin Burke and Ann PHILP. Martin her father, had been born in Co Mayo, Ireland, and had emigrated to Perth in Scotland with his family around the time of the Famine. Her mother Ann was born in Fifeshire, Scotland.

 

Mary was a passenger to New Zealand aboard the ship Mermaid with her parents, while still only a baby. On the passenger list she is described as being 5 months old^[1]. The Mermaid departed England in November 1863, and Mary arrived with her family at Lyttelton in February 1864.

Sr Martina Burke told me that her father told a story about how Mary was carried on her father Martin’s shoulders over the Bridle Track from Lyttelton to Christchurch.

 

Mary Burke married Patrick RIORDAN on 11th April 1882, at the Catholic Church in Lincoln. Her occupation was described as servant and her usual residence was given as Lincoln. Her age was said to be 20, but actually would have been 19. Ann Burke, of Burnham (at home), was one of the witnesses.

 

Mary and her husband Patrick Riordan had six children. Their first child, John, was born in January 1883, and became parish priest in Ross. Martin, their second son, was born in 1884. He was my grandfather, and settled in Taranaki. Other children were Patrick Joseph (1886), James (1887), Bridget (1889), and Annie (1891). Her youngest child, Annie, was born on 23 August 1891, when Mary was already suffering from consumption.

 

Mary died on 26 March 1892, after two years of illness with consumption (phthisis pulmonalis). She is buried in the Catholic Cemetery beside the Church at Darfield, in a group of four graves, amongst the earliest in this cemetery. She rests beside her mother Ann, her Uncle John Burke, and her husband Patrick Riordan.

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^[1] With a birth in August 1862, I would expect her age to be 15 mths, not 5mths, on embarkation.

Waitara to Lepperton Railway Trip

Recently I was in Taranaki for the Garden Festival, and I noticed that one of the 'events' was to take a trip along the Waitara to Lepperton Railway line, run by the Waitara Railway Preservation Society. To be fair, I am not sure I would have got around to taking this trip, except it was... raining... so not ideal for garden viewing. But as it turned out, this was a dose of nostalgia plus for me, and I am so very glad I took the trip.
To put things in context, my Dad, James Kevin Riordan, was a railway guard based at Waitara during my childhood.

One of the events I recalled from childhood, when I was just four, was taking a walk down to the Waitara railway yards from our house, and seeing a wagon backed up against the engine shed. I remember asking Dad why it was there- I must have been familiar enough with the yards to know a wagon wouldn't usually be there. And Dad told me it was so they couldn't steal the train. I thought he was being a bit silly with that answer. But years later I discovered that the train had indeed been taken on a joy ride the previous night, and my father was one of those involved with 'chasing' it.

The railway line to Lepperton forms one of my special memories. When I was of school age, Dad would occasionally ring home in the school holidays if the train was only going as far as Lepperton, and we could hitch a ride in the guard's van. The guard's van door might even be open, and it seemed awfully daring to go near it. I was fascinated to watch as wagons were coupled and uncoupled and as Dad used the lever to switch over the lines that the train was moving on. 

My father, sadly, passed away of a heart attack when I was just eight, but these precious memories are still there.
So, with all that personal history behind me, I boarded the train at Waitara on 3 November 2023 for the trip to Lepperton. It was staffed by enthusiastic members of the Waitara Railway Preservation Society, and I was duly issued a ticket for the trip.

There was a great viewing wagon on the rear, but it was rather too rainy to enjoy it on this trip!

At Lepperton was an exciting part of the journey for me. The Railway Preservation Society had bought the line etc but couldn't travel on the KiwiRail part of the tracks. Where the historic line from Waitara met the Lepperton tracks, a farmer had kindly sold them an adjacent strip of land and they had built a 'deviation'. But to go back to Waitara, it wasn't really safe for the engine to be at the rear, as we had several road intersections to cross, so the engine was allowed to be driven along a section of KiwiRail track, then changed over onto the deviation to be at the front to take the train home to Waitara again.

These kind of movements were exactly the kinds of jobs my father was in charge of as a guard. When I saw the guard rejoin this engine to the carriages, it took me right back to childhood. 

There was no sign left of the Lepperton yards, and no sign of the tall signalling tower. I had actually asked if these were still in existence at the previous year's garden festival and was assured by locals that they did, but no...

We took the journey back to Waitara, over the Waiongana Stream, past the Brixton sidings where the Society has yards to repair buildings and rolling stock etc, and under the overbridge where Big Jim's Hill road passes by.

We passed above my old primary school, St Joseph's Waitara. I am pretty certain this house has been moved here more recently, as I seem to remember looking straight up the hill across paddocks to see the train occasionally passing by while I was at school.

Then finally, just a short distance from the Waitara Railway Station, we passed by the house that my parents built for us, and that we moved into in 1960. It used to have a quarter acre section below it that we played in, and where my father had planted fruit trees of many kinds. (Now there are a couple of townhouses on the lower part of the section.) It made me realise, that every day when Dad left Waitara in the guard's van, whether his journey was to Lepperton or New Plymouth, he saw our family home and was reminded of his young family.

This was a great train trip- highly recommend it- and for me personally, it was a very nostalgic one.
Margaret Riordan
12 November 2023.