The Farm at Black Hills by Beverley Forrester

Author:Beverley Forrester [Beverley Forrester]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781775535959
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

BY THE TIME eighth and last child, John Archibald, was born in December 1894, Louisa would have been all but worn out. She was 39 years old; and while her three eldest boys were all but grown up, and Nell, her elder daughter, at seven was likely to have been useful to her, the entire burden of Victorian-era home-making otherwise fell on her shoulders.

Between them, Louisa and Nell would have done the cooking and washing for all 10 members of the family — both hot, heavily manual tasks with an open fire for cooking and a copper for the laundry. Then there was the business of tending to baby John and 17-month-old Sarah, as well as cleaning the house and making and mending clothes for everyone. Even if they could afford it and were minded to buy it, bread was delivered to Waipara only once a week in those days; Louisa doubtless made her own, and not only milked the house cows, but also churned the butter. In season, she would have laboured, red-faced with sleeves rolled up, over a preserving pan. And every now and then, when stock needed shifting urgently, say, or some other operational aspect of the farm needed attending to, she may have worked alongside Robert out on the hills.

Trips to the outside world, even to Waipara, would have been few and far between, and required the hitching up of horses to the trap or taking a saddle horse. On each occasion, Louisa would have sat with pencil and paper and laid out her plans for the next few months as carefully as any ship’s quartermaster preparing for a voyage. It was her responsibility to lay in enough stores to see her crew through the journey of a season.

It’s little wonder that when Louisa was photographed at Karaka in 1896, flanked by Sarah and Nell and with little John on her knee, her eyes slid away from all the photographer’s fussing about with his black hood and his little tray of magnesium powder. A slight, wry twist to her mouth and her downcast gaze give her a look of exhausted resignation.

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