Apr 24, 2008
Gentleness and eccentricity, - that's how I remember Auntie Pearl.
Actually she had a bad start in life. Her mother wanted this, her first born, to be named Margaret Frances, but her father, who happened to work in the Post Office, and to have the function, among other things, of registrar of births, deaths and marriages, wanted her named Margaret Jane, after his mother, and quietly registered her birth under that name. In any case she was always known as Pearl, so no problem arose until at the age of twenty something, she applied to enter the Teachers' Training College, and needed to provide a copy of her birth certificate. To her horror, and to her mother's loudly expressed outrage, she found she had been labouring under a misapprehension for all those years, and nothing could be done about it. Just the same, Pearl continued to sign herself "M.F. Dale" all her life.
In 1894 Auntie Maude, who was living in Valley Road, Mt Eden at that time, recalls that Pearl and Ruby were with her when they went on an excursion train to a picnic at Henderson, and had an exciting time for three teenage girls when they saw the train ready to leave and had to scamper across two paddocks to catch it. Henderson must have been out in the Woop-woops in those days. It must have been at that time that Pearl became familiar with the suburb Newton, in Auckland, and continued with that pronunciation for Newtown when the family went to live in Wellington. So she got the new nickname of Newton, which her brothers used when they were peeved with her.
One of those occasions must have occurred in Invercargill when Ferris lent Pearl his "safety model" bike (i.e. with both wheels the same size, as distinct from the penny farthing}. There must have been some failing of the bolts holding the pedals on to the shaft because when Pearl mounted the bike, one pedal moved on the shaft until both pedals were alongside each other. As the bike rolled down the hill, the pedals hoisted Pearl into the air at each revolution, it being fixed wheel, till at the bottom of the hill she fell off into a blackberry bush. Ferris wanted to know why, when she found the pedals were in phase with one another she hadn't applied the brake and got off. Pearl protested that she "thought it was one of those blessed free-wheel machines". She must have heard of them somewhere, uncommon and all as they were in Invercargill in the 1910's.
In spite of the bike business she must have been pretty smart. She and Maude were among the first women to graduate from Victoria University College in Wellington, and at Palmerston North Girls' High in the 1920's Pearl taught french as well as latin and botany. We still have some of her french and botany books here. Anna has some Shakespearian costumes from Pearl, so she must have taught english too. She and Grandma had a house in Cook Street.
When I first knew her in the late 1930's she was head mistress at Solway College out of Masterton and lived with Grandma at 54 Pownall Street. She still had her idiosyncrasies though. Grandma once lost one of her shoes, only to find that Pearl had been wearing it along with one of her own for a week, without noticing. I bet g
Grandma had something to say about that. Bump remembers when he visited them in Masterton and Pearl lent him her bike so he could go into town and get some bread. He was amazed at how difficult it was to make it go, even downhill, and it transpired it had never been oiled. She had never even considered the need for it. When Bump asked about oil she directed him to a bottle in the wash house, but it turned out only to contain Jeyes Fluid. Pam remembers the shed at Palmerston North having many empty Jeyes Fluid bottles in it. Pearl or Grandma must have had a passion for the stuff. Very hygienic.
I remember the bike too, at Palmerston North, not so much for its lack of oil as for the tremendous weight of its back wheel, as if it was composed of depleted uranium. I don't know whether it was Pearl's strength or just her dogged persistence that enabled her to put up with it. Bump also recalls a time when the little guide wheel of Grandma's wheelchair jammed in the sideways position, (possibly for the lack of oil), and Pearl pushed it, with Grandma in it, the whole length of Church Street, so that the solid rubber tyre got worn flat where it scraped along the pavement, and forever after gave a ker-thump at each turn of the wheel. What determination though!
When Pearl retired they had moved back to Palmerston North, and bought a house at 611 Church Street. After Grandma died Pearl took in lodgers and stayed on there through the 60's. We used to visit them regularly when our family were living at Linton. Later when Pam and I were at Massey, we often went to see her or take her for a drive. Driving through the Esplanade Gardens to admire the wealth of cherry blossoms, she claimed they only had the advantage of quantity, not quality over the solitary tree in her back yard. She also expressed sympathy for the judas tree in the gardens, that it should have been saddled with such an unfortunate name. She knew her botany alright.
Cooking she wasn't so good at. I suppose Grandma did most of it while she was alive. I remember Pearl cooking with a pot that looked as if it had been run over, so its mouth was nearly closed. Dad once watched her trying to get a chop out of it with the aid of a table knife. He said that after the twelfth attempt he went outside for a rest, to get his nerve back.
At one time her lodgers were an Anglo-Indian couple, of whom I remember little except they had a technique for pickling limes. Perhaps it was on account of them that Pearl contributed generously from her meagre superannuation to some Indian mission for the rest of her life. Later she had a red-headed lodger of doubtful merit called Bluey. He was inclined to hit the bottle, whereas Pearl was a lifelong member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and yet they somehow divided the house between them and coexisted quite well. Pearl also took care of an old lady across the street who was immobilised by a stroke. Pearl would read to her out of the paper, but Mrs Adams complained that she always read the church notices, and never the racing page.
Finally at Church Street she too had a stroke and fell down in the back yard, where she lay for an hour or two before the kid next door came in looking for cake and managed to rescue her. When we offered her sympathy she declined it, saying it was quite a nice day, and she just lay there listening to the birds and so on.
After that we got her shifted into a rest home in Napier, where Hils and family kept in touch with her. The staff at the rest home all took kindly to her. She was such a warm and thoughtful person, and so grateful for anything that was done for her. As for example, when Darce was about to set off for England, and went to say goodbye to her at Church Street. By way of a parting gift, she gave him a hard-boiled egg.
There! We remember quite a lot about her, and none of it tinged with bitterness.
