Women friends

There are always emails circulating on the internet about the importance of a woman’s friends. I was reading one yesterday that had been sent to Mum, which she wanted to share with her friends. It reminded me that the last bit of research I was working on was to try and identify some of Sarah’s friends – and that the main reason I hadn’t been researching and blogging for the last couple of weeks (apart from exhaustion – I’m sure humans are meant to hibernate in winter) is that I’ve been spending time with and helping my friends.

The reason it’s important to me to identify some of Sarah’s friends is because, like all those emails say, it’s your women friends who get you through the tough times, who share life’s joys and pains and humdrum moments with you. Your friends are the ones who tell you where to find the super-duper on-sale bargains. They go shopping with you, and know how to answer the question, “does my bum look big in this?” They hold your screaming baby so you can have five minutes peace and quiet in the loo. They put the kettle on and make cups of tea while you go and wash the tears off your face. They put your 10 year old daughter in make-up and high heels and smuggle her past the no-children-under-16 sign to visit you in hospital. They turn up in the afternoon and cram you and the kids in the car for an impromptu trip to the beach. They come to the fence to hand you cake still warm from the oven because they just had to tell you how happy they were that they’ve finally cracked the perfect marble cake recipe. They help you shift house. They lend you a table when you don’t have one. They sew with you. They send you cheery texts when you’re sick. Your women friends are there to hold you up when you can’t cope, when your marriage falls apart, when the kids are driving you crazy, when you don’t know how you’re going to pay the electricity bill, when you want to kill your boss. Your women friends celebrate with you when you’ve found a new love or had a baby or passed a test or just because it’s Friday.

When Sarah came to New Zealand, she left behind her mother, her sisters and her friends. Many of those relationships survived through letter-writing – we know about the family ones because some of the letters have survived, but we know nothing of the friends she left behind. And letters would have been small comfort in a new and unfamiliar country. New women friends would have been Sarah’s support, sharing with her the experiences of the rawness of early Wellington, the longing for the familiar things and people of home, the struggle to make do and get on in their new life. They would have watched out for each other’s children, helped deliver each other’s babies, shared news of home and worries about money. They would have laughed together at the small things women manage to find funny, and they would have cried together at heartbreaks and fears, tragedies and pains.

For the early days in Wellington, I can only speculate about who Sarah’s friends may have been. Eliza Plimmer is likely to have been a shipboard friend – the Plimmer and Norgrove bunks were adjacent, and like Sarah, Eliza was a young mum following her husband to a new country. How much time they might have spent together after arriving in Wellington is debatable – the Plimmers lived initially in Vivian St, while the Norgroves lived on Thorndon Flat. With busy lives and no access to transport, opportunities to meet must have been very limited. They would rapidly have grown apart socially, as well – John Plimmer’s quicly found success in business, as well as increased social and political influence, while William’s business ventures met with only patchy success.

Also on board Gertrude with the Norgroves were John and Amelia Gill, and their one-year old son, Frederick. The Gills settled in Thorndon Flat, so for the first year or so would have been close neighbours. With sons of the same age, and the shared experience of the voyage, it seems likely that Sarah and Amelia could have been friends. There are one or two other Gertrude families who also lived in the area who I’m targeting for some further research. Some time soon, a surprised descendant of a Gertrude passenger is going to get a email from me asking if they mind their great-great grandma being written into my great-great grandma’s story!

One friend we do know about is Emma Lumsden, who arrived in Wellington with her husband William on the Oriental just a few days before the Norgroves arrived on Gertrude. William Lumsden was a gardener and nurseryman. The Lumsdens don’t seem to have ever lived particularly close to the Norgroves – newspapers, almanacs and electoral rolls show them in Wadestown in the mid-1840s, Hawkestone St in 1849 and Tinakori Rd in the 1850s and 1860s. Somehow, though, a connection was made, and a friendship formed that lasted even after the Norgroves left Wellington – evidenced by one surviving letter. In 1863, by then widowed, Emma sends bulbs and seeds to Sarah, along with a very affectionate note to Emma Norgrove, then about 14 – could the young Emma have been named for Emma Lumsden even?

Then there’s Mrs Earll. We have a couple of letters written by Sarah later in life, one to daughter Gertrude and her husband Joe, who had moved to Wellington, and one to the family in Blenheim while Sarah was herself in Wellington visiting family and friends. The Earlls are mentioned in both letters – in fact Mrs Earll accompanied Sarah on the Wellington trip – Sarah says in her letter that “I should have been very dull but for Mrs Earll”, although her letter outlines a very busy and sociable time. William Earll seems to have been a joiner who had a sash and door factory in Blenheim, so it’s possible that the women may have met through their husbands who would have been connected by their jobs.

I’ve pondered long enough on Sarah’s friends. I’m going to and eat some of my friend Anne’s marble cake before it goes cold!