http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/AF/family_group_record.asp?familyid=5655762&frompage=99
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The Lean family was already living in Pukahu by the time the Neilsen family from Denmark arrived at Wellington on the “Terpsichore’ in 1876. The father, Jens, had a brother, Cristen(?), who lived at Pukahu so most of the family group moved north to Hawkes Bay although some of them remained at Makotuku, a predominantly Danish settlement.
When Augusta the eldest daughter was 14, Charles asked Jens if he could marry her when she was older. The answer was obviously ‘Yes’ as they were married six years later. They lived in a small two-roomed cottage on 3/4 acre which Charles bought from his mother. He worked on Longlands Station.
About 18 months after the birth of their fifth child, Longlands Station was subdivided and the workers had first choice to buy. Charles bought a triangular section of about 36 acres on the corner of Longlands Road and Te Aute Road and remained there until his death. With the help of neighbours they moved the original two-bedroomed cottage onto their own land and gradually built on to it to allow for their increasing family. Another two children were born there.
They harvested rye grass seed, milked a few cows and kept some pigs and hens.
With two babes in the pram, Augusta would walk to Havelock North, then on to Hastings and home again, to sell some butter and eggs. Charles worked as a blade shearer in summer and contracted himself out in winter, working mainly as a fencer. He was the first person to pay off his farm.
Despite her growing family, Augusta involved herself in the community and still found time to keep a lovely garden and do beautiful handcrafts, a skill she passed on to her daughters. Charles would encourage them by paying a small price for their crochet or knitting. She always kept a storehouse of preserves and had a dairy with a concrete floor and running artesian water. She also found time to travel to Makotuku to see her relatives.
When the children were older Charles went to Australia to shear, still using blades. At some of these times, Augusta travelled to Hawaii to see her only brother, Neils, who worked was Deputy Sherriff for the Hawaiian islands.
Charles was a very down-to-earth person. He used to make his own tobacco and loved playing cribbage and telling stories. He would ofen sit, surrounded by children, telling them stories of his homeland in Cornwall or making up smuggling and ghost stories.
Charles took a keen interest in the social affairs of the district and for a number of years was a member of the Pukahu School Committee.
Both Charles and Augusta loved children, raising seven of their own, and when their daughter, Myrtle, died in 1926, they brought up their 4-year old grandson, Jack Herbison. A few years later another grandson, Jack Orchard moved in with them and shortly after that, his sister, Lena. Lena remained with them and moved to Hastings with Augusta after Charles died and the farm was sold.
On the day of the 1931 earthquake, Charles and Augusta had some of their grandchildren staying with them. When the first shake occurred they escaped from the house through an entanglement of stick flypapers and a mess of broken jam and preserves. As the evening drew on and the family prepared to sleep outside, Charles declared that he intended to sleep inside as usual. There was another shake which jammed his hand in the doorway, so he slept outside with the rest of them.
Granddaughter, Evelyn Smyth, remembers telling Augusta of the primitive conditions in which she and her husband had to live at Otoi where they went Shortly after their marriage. They had a galvanised iron bath which had to be filled by heating the water in kettle and saucepan on a wood-burning stove. But there was a shortage of water so they used to conserve it by bathing together. Augusta was horrified and said that Charles had not seen her undressed until after she had had three children. She explained that she would hang the bedspread over the foot of the bed and undress behind it. She thought these modern young things were far too immodest!
(Source: Carol SPRAGG.)
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Mary lived at Pukahu, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, nearly all her life.
She took a lively interest in community affairs, particularly those concerning the welfare of the Pukahu school.
She suffered poor health during the last ten years of her life, then suffered a badly crushed leg during the Hawkes Bay earthquake which caused her to spend 5 months in Masterton Hospital.
(Source: Carol SPRAGG.)
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