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.