History – Life and love in Albertland

Some 20 years after the Albertlanders arrived and families grew, many daughters left home to go into “service”, usually in Auckland. These girls, often friends from childhood, corresponded regularly with wonderful gossipy letters. (I’ve mentioned the importance of letters before). 

My Great-Aunt Ella worked first in Auckland, then for her Uncle Will in Paeroa.  When she returned home to Wharehine, Paeroa friends kept her up-to-date with social life and fashion near the goldfields. Lizzie Sorensen wrote in 1889 that “every girl in Paeroa wears a bustle, even little girls eight and nine years old wears one!!”  Another of Lizzie’s letters gave details of recent weddings such as “Miss Quin was married to Mr Clarke in the Catholic Chapel on Xmas Day.  She was dressed in pink and she wore a bonnet, she had four bridesmaids, two dressed in pale blue and two in pale pink.”

And oh, their love life. Teenage girls haven’t changed in the past 120 years.  They asked each other if they had a “masher” (not the utensil used for pulverising veges, but an admirer), talked about who was “gone” on who and which relationships had broken up.  When I read that “Jim and Minnie have gone outside to spoon”, I guessed they weren’t drinking soup.

Some girls were very choosy about their men. Gertie Brookes told Ella that she’d lied in her last letter, had said that her masher did not smoke but “he came home with me two or three times and one of these times I saw him smoking and that was enough for me, I would not speak to him at Chapel nor anywhere else.” She went on to say that she might be considered hard for giving someone up because he smoked and perhaps she might end up an old maid (she didn’t). As for men who drank – they would never be considered suitable.

These teen romances rarely came to anything.  Girls grew up and married other men, some from out of the district. All the letters I’ve read say how happy they were with great love and respect for their husbands. Pioneer wives worked hard but rarely complained – that’s how life was.  Often distance (and the state of the roads) meant friends couldn’t visit each other so they continued to write, describing domestic life, and of course their children. Speaking of children, as soon as a woman found out she was expecting, she had to write to book the midwife.

Louise Flower (nee Grice) told how difficult it was taking Sunday School classes and practising the organ with “Baby”.  She said she took him once but he laughed and talked at the Minister so she had to take him out again. Louise finished her letter by saying: “The young shaver is on my knee at this minute worrying the life out of me, so I guess I will have to say goodbye.”

Many of these women continued to keep in touch until the end of their days. Their letters are a fantastic personal history of Victorian and Edwardian life and an invaluable source of family information.

Note:  All letters quoted are in the archives of the Albertland Museum and Heritage Centre.