Silvia's story

Ka mihi atu ki a koutou, 
Kororia ki te Atua Kaha Rawa, te timatanga o nga mea katoa, te Ao Marama me nga ngakau tangata. Ka mihi atu ki te Tama, Ihu Karaiti, ki te Wairua Tapu.
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My story stands on my ancestor's story (which you can read about in the Family History section). On my mothers' side my tipuna are all English, 'salt of the earth' types who built and stitched and sang. They came from Turvey in Bedfordshire, and similar places, recruited to build a new nation on the other side of the world. They packed up their children and a few possessions and cross the oceans, between 1858 and 1872. They settled in North Canterbury and built homes and churches and communities.
My father's mother's parents both came from Denmark and were part of the Scandinavian communities in Dannevirke and Bunnythorp.

My father was born in 1915. The last time I saw him was my wedding day in 2005; he died soon after in England. Ern was a short, dynamic man. Married four times! Outlived by two of his wives. His live was profoundly shaped by his Christian commitment to pacifism. This saw him locked up during WW2 and banned from teaching in NZ after the war. So he taught in the Islands: Fiji and Tonga (and some years at Wesley College in Pukekohe in the 60s after the ban was lifted). A terrible tragedy took his first wife and eldest daughter when the house they were staying in was destroyed in a mud slide. Dad himself was pulled from the mud. After that he returned to Fiji, married my mother (after a short postal proposal). So I was born in Suva in 1968.
I am grateful every day that my mother, Wendy, is still around - with her partner Helen in Greytown.