Ruth Leov and her family on D'Urville Island Pt4

D'Urville Island is in the Western Sounds of New Zealand. An area frequented by high winds, severe weather conditions. Isolated because it is an island, but more because French Pass, one of the fastest running straits in the world, separates the island from the mainland and must be crossed.
So it was in 1945 the Leov and Stratford families moved to Port Hardy and began farming on land which Len was convinced grew the best cattle because of the mineral belt that runs across the island.

The Bill Stratford and Len Leov families at Port Hardy

It was a hard isolated life there and boat voyages could be life threatening especially as Len wasn't really a boat man, but fortunately there were plenty of good boat men serving the Western Sounds at that time. The big commercial ferry ran daily from Nelson to Wellington via French Pass as well and passage on her could be gained.

The homestead at Greville Harbour built from a house they transported by boat piece by piece from Manawaikupakupa harbour to Greville Harbour on D'Urville island.

The view out over the lake past the Greville Harbour homestead 1960s

The family complete with Helen, the youngest.

The children were taught by Correspondence School and then sent to boarding school in Nelson or Blenheim for high school.

Len got to breed fine cattle and Ruth created a beautiful family and a gorgeous sub-tropical garden with bouganvillea, hibiscus, roses, cherry trees, medlars, fejoas, grapefruit, oranges, apples, pears and much more in the orchard.

They hunted deer and pigs, raised sheep and cattle, rode horses, brought turkeys and quail to the island to raise as cash crops. 

The Leov family Gilbert is 21 years old

Aircraft began to fly in to the big long beach at Greville Harbour and the island began to feel less isolated. 

Ruth in her garden with some of her grandchildren. 

Around 1970 Len and Ruth retired from farming and moved to Spring Creek to manage a small farm. They renovated an old Bedford Bus and made it into a house bus, long before the current popularity for mobile living they went away for two years travelling around New Zealand, making many friends wherever they went. 

Ruth and her family saying goodbye before they leave in the Bedford bus 1971

Eventually they retired to Havelock.

 
 Wedding Anniversaries, weddings, grand children came along in flocks.

Ruth and Len with their grandchildren 1977 family reunion

Ruth Yeoman marries Leonard Charles Leov pt3

Ruth Yeoman marries Leonard Charles Leov Pt3

Len Leov wrote.
'We were married 14th May 1930 in Paihiatua.

When we went to the Church at Pahiatua to get married the church was locked and the local parson was away, so Mr Yeoman had to break in. It’s a good thing he did. I would not have had such a good helper if we had not been able to enter the church.'

For our honeymoon we went for a trip around the lower part of the North Island in a Chrysler car. We arrived in Napier late one night from Taupo and camped at the camping grounds. In the morning I looked across a big swamp. I said to my wife, ‘Isn’t it a pity such areas couldn’t be lifted up.’ 

We were home only a few months and the Napier earthquake did lift it. Now there are thousands of acres of dry land. We visited the area recently and I'm sorry to see that there are houses on the best land and the powers that be are trying to farm the worst. 

Unfortunately the Great Depression then came to New Zealand and hard times ensued both for Len and Ruth Leov, and for many millions of people.

Len and Ruth moved from the dairy farm in the Ronga Valley and set up a pig farm in Rai Valley making use of the whey waste product from the dairy factory across the road.

Ruth Leov with Gilbert

After the tragic loss of two infants, at last Gilbert arrived on the 8 August 1932 and so began their family.

Maureen, June, and Frederick followed as the Depression moved into World War Two. 

Leov family from Left: Maureen, Ruth, Gilbert (rear) June, Len and Fred. ca 1945

Then Len made a fateful decision on behalf of his family: They were to sell up everything they had, the dairy farm and the pig farm and move to remote inhospitable D'Urville Island in the Marlborough Sounds.

Ruth Yeoman Pt2

Ruth Yeoman Life Story Pt 2

Ruth Yeoman loved learning but by the time she was six years old she told me that she was not allowed to attend school because her older sister Mary was the only child her parents could afford to send to school.

However little Ruth begged and pleaded to be allowed to study her big sister's school books and after proving how dedicated to learning from Mary's school books she was, Kate and Thomas eventually permitted her to attend Pongaroa school.

Ruth Yeoman age 18

Around 1923 she moved south to live in Wellington and study at Wellington Teacher’s College to train as a school teacher. The Teacher’s College was forced to close for a couple of years and Ruth returned home to help with the family until eventually the Teacher’s College opened again and successfully completing her study Ruth Yeoman graduated as a qualified teacher.

My Grandmother Ruth collected and hand bound with sewing a black and white cloth cover onto all the early New Zealand School Journals she owned. In the rural areas in which Ruth lived, any good quality student reading material was always incredibly valuable.

A brief history of the NZ School Journal.

THAMES STAR, VOLUME XLIV, ISSUE 10188, 10 JANUARY 1907

History of our School Journal

The first publication by the New Zealand Education Department in May 1907 was the School Journal. It offered reading practice by way of stories and poems for various age groups of pupils. Math and algebra, art and painting, sewing and wood working projects all featured in the School Journal.

The School Journal is still published today and circulated around New Zealand schools and to correspondence school pupils. 

Ruth was always very fond of the school journal. She encouraged me to read them and we always had plenty sent to us from the Correspondence School. However I found they didn't offer enough information for my tastes. I liked solid in depth detailed information and long books. So a school journal story of 150 words was just enough to whet my appetite and no more.

Euclidean geometry was also something required as study for students in her day and Ruth Yeoman's copy of Euclid survives in our family collection.

Ruth Yeoman age 21 she had wavy auburn hair and blue eyes.

Work for rural school teachers in the 1920s was rather challenging. Ruth's task as a young woman in her 20s was to open a school when the local population of school aged children required a school (more than eight children) and close the school if the roll fell below that magic number of eight students.
Often communities would write to the Education Department requesting a school for their children. There were many small school houses scattered through farming communities, opening and closing depending upon the local birth rate.


Gilbert Leov, her oldest son recalls:- 'She went to teach at Pauatahanui School at the head of Porirua Harbour. I think that was her first job after Training college. How long she spent at that school I do not know.
The next post she had was down in Marlborough at the Waikakaho Primary School. She lived with people close to the school.
Then she was sent up to the Ronga School as a relieving teacher. She Lived with Pickering family when doing Ronga Job .for Year more. The Pickering family had 14 kids . There would have been Hewetson kids & other families in the Ronga as well.'
It was then that she met Leonard Leov, then dairy farming at the head of the Ronga Valley between Nelson and Blenheim. He recalls 'It is remarkable how couples meet. I was riding down the Ronga one evening when I met Charlie Maule where the Ronga and Opouri roads branch. He had a young woman in the car with him. He stopped and introduced us.
‘Miss Yeoman, the school teacher.’ I thought he said ‘Youngman’ then, when he corrected me, I said,
‘Perhaps she is looking for a young man?’ And it turned out that she was.

I had a man put in a good word for me when I was courting Miss Ruth Yeoman. He was a Mr Mowat, stock agent for New Zealand Loan Co. at Pahiatua. He accompanied the buyer of the cattle from Mr Hayter on D’Urville Island (the cattle that Cyril and I had mustered). He was appointed to Mr Yeoman’s place where he talked about his trip to D’Urville Island and the two good cattlemen he had met there. He was quite innocent of the fact that I was visiting Pongaroa at the time. Mr Yeoman had to explain why Ruth’s sisters were so amused.'

The wedding will be a feature of part 3 of Ruth Yeoman's story.

An Illustrated Life of Ruth Yeoman 1902 - 1993 Pt 1

An Illustrated Life of Ruth Yeoman 1902-1993 Pt1

Kate Reid and Thomas Yeoman were married on January 23 1902 in Pahiatua with her father Charles Reed driving Kate in the gig to the church, Thomas riding a horse beside them. After the marriage the happy couple rode back together in the gig and Mr Reed rode the horse.
Kate and Thomas lived in a weatherboard cottage which Tom had built out of timbers milled at his mill, about half a mile from the mill at Beehive. Unfortunately their first child, a son, died but their second baby, Mary, born December 8 1903, survived.

The sawmills moved frequently to get access to more timber so Gardner and Yeoman established a second mill at Maku, about 2 miles from the Beehive. Then in 1904 the partners purchased a mill at Pukehinau and the Yeoman family moved to a house near the Pukehinau mill where their second daughter Ruth was born on 2 October 1905.

Lottie, Mary, Elsie, Arthur and Ruth Yeoman ca 1907

Arthur followed in 1907 (he died in 1935) Then came Lottie, Elsie, Olive (Bobbie) Eva and another brother, Robert, who died at only five weeks old in 1916. In all Kate Yeoman bore 10 children and all were born at home except the youngest, Gladys.

The Yeoman daughters: Mary, Ruth, Lottie, Elsie, Olive (Bobbie) Eva and Gladys

As their family grew the milling business went from strength to strength. A stable home was needed and they settled on a piece of farm land at Pongaroa near the saw mill and built a large beautiful home called Ngarata.

BUSH ADVOCATE, VOLUME XVIII, ISSUE 451, 2 JULY 1906
Dannevirke Bush Advocate 1906