Category: Uncategorized
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Preface
It is not easy to lose your mother. At least I didn’t find it easy, even at the ripe old age of sixty-nine. I found myself, after she died in 2022, trying to fix a mental picture of her and of Dad that might give me some solace as I came to terms with their…
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John Hollis Murray
John’s Personal History A happy Auckland childhood My father was born into a moderately well-off Auckland family on the 15th of August 1926. His parents were relatively newly married – first marriage for his mother and second for his father – and he was the first of what was to become a family of four…
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The Murray Ancestry
Dad’s father, John Murray (1885-1973) was the first of our branch of the Murray’s to have been born in New Zealand. His father, John McLeod Murray (1856-1943) came to New Zealand from Scotland as a 10-year-old boy in 1866, and his grandfather and great-grandfather (all Johns) came in 1858. Their departure from Scotland and their…
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Beverly Margaret Murray nee Aitchison
I have struggled with describing my mother. Conventional wisdom suggests that at some stage in your later youth, you cease seeing your parents as mum and dad and get to know them as people. This holds for me to only some extent. When I joined them on their first Pacific cruise at the age of…
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The Aitchison Ancestry
Their provenance Mum’s maiden name was Aitchison, and through her father’s line, she was descended from the Aitchisons, who lived in the lowlands of Scotland from the late fourteenth century. Family folk law had it that the highland Murrays used to come down out of the hills in Scotland and raid the lowland Aitchisons’ cattle.…
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Their early days together
Mum remained on Clachanburn during the three years between her visit to the Murray’s in late 1946 and their wedding in mid-December 1949. Her father’s health was deteriorating, and she was needed on the farm. Dad initially worked on North Island hill country farms to gain farming experience, but later, he had some time on…
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The Farming Era
It is possible that when Mum and Dad married, they had not decided what to do to make a living. While farming was obvious, Dad’s Massey training would have qualified him for a professional role in one of the allied agricultural industries or organisations. And that is where they began. Dad had obtained a job…
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Shoes and Fish
The purchase of a shoe store in 1962 seemed even to a nine-year-old, a most unlikely thing for Mum and Dad to do. It must also have surprised many others who knew them, but they embraced it with apparent enthusiasm. They were soon shoeing the feet of Warkworth’s populace and entertaining shoe peddlers who came…
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Off-Shore Adventuring
The First Pacific Cruise We need to step back in time to the early 1970s, when they began planning their first Pacific cruise. It is quite likely that they had been talking about this long before, but it was while they were on Waiti that the plans really began to crystallise. This was probably driven…
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Explorations of Home
After Mum and Dad returned from their second Pacific cruise, they moved back into their house at Leigh, Jane Rhodes went back onto a swing mooring at Sandspit, and they began planning the next chapter in their lives. Mum was likely already planning a trip to the United Kingdom and Europe, but Dad was planning…
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Beverly Alone
Mum was naturally shattered by Dad’s death. She felt that but for the cancer, they could have had several years of active life together and she felt this loss keenly. However, she didn’t dwell on the what-ifs or bemoan her fate. She simply set out to learn how to live a useful life without him.…
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Scrapbooks
Scrapbook 1 Explanatory Notes Scrapbook 1b – Boats Explanatory Notes Scrapbook 2 Explanatory Notes Scrapbook 3 Explanatory Notes Scrapbook 4 Explanatory Notes Scrapbook 5 Explanatory notes Scrapbook 6 Explanatory notes Scrapbook 7 Explanatory Notes
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John and Beverly Murray’s Photo Albums
1890-1945 John and Edith Murray’s Photos Explanatory notes 1915-1949 Aitchison Photos Explanatory notes 1926-1949 John H Murray’s Album Explanatory Notes 1940-1947 Beverly’s Album 1943-1946 Beverly’s Columba College Period 1947-1951 John H’s Album 1947-1956 Beverly’s Album 1949-1956 Album 1955-1965 Album 1968-1972 Album 1973-1974 1st Pacific Cruise and the USA 1975-1982 Album 1978-1998 Miscellaneous Photos 1983-1989 Album…
John and Beverly Murray 