Long-awaited journal of Motueka's history launched

May 29th, 2011
[by Coralie Smith]

"... and so it began - Continuing the Story of Motueka, Volume 7" is the title of the new journal which was launched yesterday at the monthly meeting of the Motueka and Districts Historical Association.

Eileen Stewart, vice president, and Jennifer Stilwell from Stilwell Reunion committee. Jennifer, wqho launched the journal, was on Stilwell Reunion committee in 1994.

Twenty-two members of the association were joined by invited guests including several from the other two heritage groups in Motueka, the Motueka Museum Trust and the Motueka Genealogy Group. Also attending were family members from the many families who are featured in the journal, and also some from the organisations whose stories are told in the 80-page journal.

The journal has been a long time coming. Five journals were produced between 1983 and 1989; then in 1991 when the district celebrated 150 years of European settlement, a sixth publication called "Not Without Courage" recorded the first families to arrive here.

Although the association has remained in the public eye through many newspaper articles and the research room at the Motueka Museum, the writing of another journal has taken some time to come to fruition. The millennium project which saw an information kiosk built at the Old Wharf area took up time in 2000. Various people have taken up the project and helped put together the stories, including Eileen Stewart, Aileen Rich, Judith Duxbury, Pam Fry, Judy Simpson, Patsy O'Shea and Coralie Smith.

The Stilwell family reunion committee donated the proceeds from its reunion to the association back in 1994 to help print another journal, and finally we can tell them we have fulfilled our part of the bargain.

The Stilwell family features prominently in the new journal just as their mill dominated life in the middle of the Motueka town ship for over 50 years. Other families who feature are three Jewish families - Bucholz, Manoy and Myers. Their business acumen set the tone for Motuekas business district. Not only were they successful entrepreneurs, they were also very generous, public minded men.

Sally Goodall's father features in the story of the wartime plane crash in the new journal. Sally (left) is showing a piece from the plane that went down.

Bakers form a sub-group of the theme of businessmen in this journal - Goodman, Hawken and Hart are names that were, and in one case still are, synonomous with the baking of bread.

Buddens Bookshop closed only two years ago after being in business in Motueka since 1904. The story of this enterprising family adds to the businesses in the journal.

Sprinkled among these family stories are an eclectic mix of old and new. The old includes letters written by Mary Hobhouse, the wife of the first Bishop of Nelson, who visited Motueka in 1859 and wrote home to her family in England. The Greenwood family built The Grange in Whakarewa Street in 1861 and it still stands in its rural setting all these years later.

Three other families left their legacies in the parks that we now enjoy - Thorps Bush, Fearons Bush and Marchwood Park associated with the Knyvett family. The story of the A&P Association and its connection to Marchwood Park is also told here.

The new covers a wartime plane crash and how the engine was discovered 50 years later; as well as the story of Kitty Ovens, district nurse extraordinaire.

Jennie Askew, treasurer, looking at the journal in between making sales of "Volume 7, Continuing story of Motueka.

Two churchmen feature - one an Anglican, the other a Catholic - and an Irishman, Kavanagh, who settled in Riwaka, rounds off this journal.

Modern printing methods have allowed us to use plenty of photographs from our collections to enhance the many stories.

The journal will be on sale at the Motueka Museum or through the Historical Association. We hope that now we have broken the drought we will follow this journal up with a deluge of publications. If you have a story to tell contact us and who knows it may be included in Volume 8.

At yesterday's meeting, Trevor Lummis then spoke about the part his father and uncles played in the butchery business in Motueka from the 1940s. Those were the days of butcher vans touring the rural areas and drivers popping the roast into the oven for the farmer's wife as all part of the service.

Trevor began as a butcher boy and has a vast store of stories to tell about butchers and customers alike. He went on to become a stock and station agent and that led to auctioneering which is what he still does today, although not with animals but with second hand and antique goods instead.

There is a move away from supermarkets being the main supplier of meat and small butcher shops are once again appearing in our neighbourhoods. The always smiling face of the butcher with his cheery 'hello, what can I get you today' will once again be heard around town.

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