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| Claude and Peggy, year unknown |
I will attempt to put together her story from what I
do have on Peggy. There will always be more to her life story and it will
always be growing. Most of the story I am writing are from Peggy’s
recollections and a celebration of her life. I am not putting everything down
for the time being. Her life after retirement I will deliberately leave out as
there will be more stories I can come across. Incorrect information, I have
tried to keep to a minimum and will correct and add more over time
 |
| Peggy around 1947 on the wedding of Don and Nola |
Peggy Lorraine Williams was born Peggy Lorraine
Lissington on the 27th of September, 1933 in Paparoa, New Zealand.
Her parents were George Francis Lissington and Hazel Amy May Milverton. Peggy
was the youngest of three siblings, Nola and George were the oldest. They lived
on the family dairy farm in Huarau, which is between Maungaturoto and Paparoa
in the Kaipara district. The house consisted of three rooms (1 kitchen, 1
bedroom (parents), 1 kids bedroom), which were built by George in his spare
time. At the time there was no electricity and there was an outhouse. The
laundry consisted of a large copper located in the middle of the paddock.
Cooking of meals were done on a wood stove. The clothesline consisted of number
8 wire strung between two posts propped up by a forked post. Peggy would sleep in an
apple box mounted to the wall, when she was a few weeks old as her parents
would milk the cows. The cowshed at the time was powered by a belt driven motor
and the cowshed at the time was a 6 bail walk through.[1] A little different to the
Herringbone, which has a pit in the middle making milking easier. The milk was
separated with cream being picked up for the dairy factory in cream cans. The
residue milk was kept to feed the pigs. Recently I came across a story in the
Northern Advocate Newspaper of a 3 year old Peggy presenting a local lady in
Huarau, a Mrs Birtles with flowers on her 82nd birthday.[2] Although Peggy was unwell
and in hospital in December 2019, she proudly told other family members about
the article I had come across. The article will be in the footnotes and links
for reference.
As a child, Peggy would catch the bus to Maungaturoto,
where the children went to school. One story that Peggy would remember was
there were periods where the school bus was overcrowded resulting in
complaints. When inspectors arrived, the local taxi would pick the children up
as the bus company also owned the taxis. One day when Peggy was 5 and on her
way home in the taxi, the door opened, and she fell out. Peggy’s injuries were
so severe that they would not transport her to hospital in Dargaville, and she
was in a semi coma for around three months. The local doctor did not expect her
to survive, but she did. Her siblings stayed with some neighbours to keep Peggy
quiet. It was thought Peggy had been playing with the door and that it was not
faulty. A side note is that the taxi was bought several years later by George Lissington
and the door was found to be faulty.
When she was younger, Peggy mentioned she was an avid
reader and had read all the books in the Paparoa library. She would also
receive books for Christmas. Peggy mentioned money was hard to come by in the
1930s and had to make their own fun. (She wasn’t sure how to explain life to me
in the 1930s through our Skype sessions) The roads were mostly all metal
(unsealed), no television, people socialised with their neighbours especially
going to local halls for dancing. Electricity was not put on until Peggy was
around 8 years of age and before then relied upon candles. Meat and bread were
delivered once a week from Maungaturoto, into the mailbox. The local newspaper
was delivered by the school bus. Luxuries like lollies and Chocolates were only
for special occasions like birthdays, Easter and Christmas.
Peggy had some fond memories of her brother George, or
Georgie. Peggy and George were close getting into mischief together, and he
would always take the blame for their antics as Peggy claimed she was the
instigator. A four-year-old Peggy and seven-year-old George, cut a corner out
of their father’s tobacco pouch and took some tobacco. They rolled it in
cigarette papers and smoked it. George was violently ill turning several shades
of colour, but not Peggy. He was the one who got into trouble and smacked. George
would pass away in 1941 from a coughing fit and burst a blood vessel in his
lung as he had Haemophilia. He died at age 10 years and 11 months. He was buried
in Paparoa at the Anglican Church. I have visited his grave once around five
years ago with both Peggy and Claude. Their mother Hazel would never recover
from the death of George. Before the death of George everyone had thought Nola,
the eldest of the three children was the one who was ill.
During the Second World War, Peggy’s father George was
part of the Home Guard within his local area. The Home Guard was established
mainly to defend New Zealand from invasion from the Japanese. Peggy had some
stories from the period of war in New Zealand as a young girl. A small group of
American soldiers on leave from either Wellsford or Warkworth, were heading
towards Dargaville, where their vehicle broke down in the middle of the night
outside their farm gate. They waited until morning before approaching the
house, and luckily for them Peggy’s sister, Nola worked for the telephone
exchange and got a message out letting the authorities their predicament and
that they hadn’t gone AWOL. The three soldiers were frequent visitors to the
farm when they were in New Zealand on leave. They would also take in English
sailors who were billeted out within the local community and would be met at
the train by Peggy’s father. They would be bought back in pairs, where they
would stay for several weeks. As tobacco was in short supply, it was known
amongst the servicemen to ring the railway three times and ask for Vi. A funny
story during the time, was the military authorities were using the house as a
communications base and the person in charge would get a cup of tea. When a
communication came through, he would become distracted and the resident cat
would drink the tea instead. Peggy had a story about when she was younger,
where she was playing around on the farm at Huarau, she ran up a hill
that was once a Pa (which was a Maori settlement usually used for defence), and
had to duck to the ground as she had a close call with a flying boat that was
close enough to hit her.
Peggy’s sister Nola married Donald Faulkner Williams
in September 1947. There she would meet Claude Williams, the younger brother of
Donald for maybe the first time. I don’t know if they would have known each
other already, well before the marriage. Peggy was around the age of 13 nearly 14
and Claude was around 17. Christmas’ once Nola and Don were married meant trips
to their dairy farm in Puhipuhi. Claude, Noel and Don’s father, John owned the
farm not long after World War One had concluded. George, Hazel and Peggy would
milk the cows before being out of the gate by around 6am to arrive at Puhipuhi
for breakfast. Christmas Day meant they would be big days with eating and
family getting together. They would not leave til after tea at night for the
long trip back to Maungaturoto and to milk the cows. Christmas at the Puhipuhi
farm would become a family tradition as the family grew.
Peggy left school around the age of 15 to help on her parents’
farm as her mother was unwell after the death of George in 1941. She worked on
the farm for around six months before going to work in the Dairy Factory in
Maungaturoto. Around the age of 16, a story was related to me of the first boy
to ask Peggy to the local dance at a local hall. The halls were the places for
younger people to go mingle and get together. Peggy made him go ask her father,
and he was granted permission. I have no idea what would have been said during
this exchange, but could guess. Could have been at the Maungaturoto Hall as she
was working in the dairy factory at the time.
Peggy began her nursing career on
the 26th December 1950 as a nurse aid, later taking up nursing
training. She did work in a mental ward during this time. She does tell the
story of unmarried pregnant women being admitted to the mental ward, where
their child was then given up for adoption. There is a picture of her training
in an oxygen tent, but had related that she did at one stage wear a straitjacket,
which she thought was uncomfortable. She was six months off from finishing her
General Nurse training when she was married to Ron. Those days you did not
continue your career if you were married.
Peggy’s first marriage was on June 12, 1954 in
Whangarei to Ronald Herman Hartley Gabolinscy. I don’t know how they actually
met apart from Peggy was a nurse and Ron was in the army. Their marriage
produced two children, Jasmine in 1959 and David in 1966, although there was a
huge age difference between the two siblings. When married they lived in
Papakura while Ron was in the army After leaving the army they would travel towards
Whangarei where they would work on a dairy farm in Oakleigh. Somehow, they
would travel to Australia by boat leaving Auckland and disembarking in Sydney sometime
between 1954 and 1959. They had a job on a farm near Trida in NSW, in the far
west of the state near Broken Hill. Peggy was doing domestic stuff including
cutting up the veggies and the ironing, while Ron was a rouseabout. They stayed
in Australia for around six months before returning to New Zealand. One story
Peggy told was that she had to do something with the windmill on the property
and once she had walked out of the building the boss mentioned there had been a
snake in the building. She never went in there again. She remembers that it was
a brown snake. Peggy was not impressed especially when they were kind to an
Aboriginal person by letting him sit with them during meals. They were told
that is not what you do. Another encounter Peggy was asked by the station owner
to join her for a cuppa, Peg thought that was nice until she had to sit in the
laundry, while the lady sat in the kitchen.
Ron had a few jobs in New Zealand worked on several
farms within the Ruatongata district. From there they ended up in the
Hobsonville area working on a dairy farm. It was at the Hobsonville farm, where
Peggy got her first washing machine much better than using the bath to wash
clothes. From Hobsonville they finally worked on a farm for a little while before
they had a house built in the Albany area, where Peggy would live for 15 months
before she left.
On the 25th of November, 1969, Peggy left
her husband Ron in Albany and returned to Whangarei. Due to untenable circumstances,
Peggy and the children left the farm secretly to return to Whangarei. The
event would stick in Peggy’s mind for the rest of her life. When she returned
to Whangarei, the family stayed with George and Hazel for a number of years in
Dundonald Street. The trio would move several times from a property in Kamo on
McMillian Avenue and then to a flat in Bedlington Street, Whangarei. Jasmine
can remember walking to work at the Whangarei hospital from Bedlington Street.
Ron and Peggy would officially divorce in 1975, which can be confirmed through
the divorce records in the National Archives even though they cannot be
accessed. Even though the New Zealand electoral rolls say that she was married
between 1969 to 1978, she had in fact been separated from her former husband
for that entire period of time. Peggy got a job at the Whangarei hospital working
as a nurse aid in the geriatric unit. She worked there for a year on day shifts
before working permanent night shifts. She worked there for around six years
before her back gave out on her. For some time she worked in a nurses home, but
couldn’t remember for how long. The next job after the nurses’ home was to work
in the money factory, or mint in Whangarei for six years before she retired.
Peggy was actually a week short of working the full six years. A story Peggy
spoke of was they would receive overtime looking for lost money especially
notes that had been cut in half as they had to hunt for the other half.
I don’t know how long she looked after her mother,
Hazel Lissington as she had dementia for some time. From memory they lived next
door to each other near the Whangarei golf course. Hazel passed away on the 25th
May 1995. Peggy’s sister Nola Williams Passed away in 1998 from cancer. Peggy
was a keen lawn bowler and would go in many competitions across New Zealand. I
am unsure at the point as to when she took it up, although there are news
articles I have come across in the late 1970s, I do wonder if she came across
other family members that were bowlers and joined in. There are several
pictures, I have come across that were of her playing Badminton. She married
Claude Williams in 1997 in Whangarei. Claude liked to travel and still does. In
his younger years he did for a short period work in Australia and several other
countries. He would also be part of the founding of the surf lifesaving club in
North Kirra in Queensland, which he had a hand in building. They would live
together until she became ill in 2019, where she was admitted to hospital. Her
health over the last few years deteriorated to the point she was no longer able
to leave the house under her own power and required oxygen and the use of a
motorised chair. Peggy would enjoy watching many of the cooking shows like
Master Chef (The Australian version of course) that came across on the TV, and
I am pretty sure she liked Coronation Street. She did have a love for the Wasgij
puzzles as are not what they are on the box cover, but covering what happens
next, or something similar. Peggy would pass away on the 8th of April 2020, A mother, A wife, a grand mother and great grand mother.
Sources
Peggy Williams unpublished memoirs
How a walk through Milking shed works
https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/18502/how-a-walk-through-milking-shed-works,
accessed 24/04/2020.
Unknown, ‘Huarau’, Northern Advocate, 15
December 1937,
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19371215.2.110,
accessed 24/04/2020.
[1] How
a walk through Milking shed works, https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/18502/how-a-walk-through-milking-shed-works,
accessed 24/04/2020.
[2] Unknown,
‘Huarau’, Northern Advocate, 15 December 1937, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19371215.2.110,
accessed 24/04/2020.
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