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EVELYN KATIE (EVA) BROWN's story

This account has been adapted from "Browns of Kyeburn Peninsula" by Wally Brown - to whom many thanks



As a young woman Eve, or Eva as she was affectionately known, played netball for several years with the local club, working on the farm after she left school, until she married Clarry in 1940. They share milked* on Ivan McGuire's farm on the Stratford/Opunake highway for about 15 years during which their family of one boy and two girls were born.Then, in partnership with Basil and Florrie they farmed at Pomgakawa for a couple of years before settling on a Maori lease farm at Pukehina, not far from Pongakawa in the Bay of Plenty.

Clarry has had a long association with the Boy Scout movement, having been a scout himself. From 1957 to 1967 he was scoutmaster in charge of the Pukehina scout troop and attended the New Zealand Scout Jamboree with Allen in 1959

In 1967 they sold up and went on a six month holiday to South Island with their car and caravan, finishing up in Bluff where they settled in nicely, Clarrie working in the woolstores until Allen found him a job on the wharf construction at Tiwai Point. For several years they stayed in Bluff where Eva knitted and sewes, even standing in for the local barber. Odd jobs suited them, and they worked their way all round South Island, ending up back in Te Puke almost 10 years later.

They bought a house at 24 Tui Street and set about renovating it to suit their wishes. They went back to Bluff later, and helped Allen and Elaine to rebuild their house completely. They really enjoyed working together on this kind of project and there are dozens of houses from Bluff to Cape Reinga which bear their skilful trademark.



* Share milking is a system whereby a number of people share a herd of cattle owning a proportion of the whole herd. All the participants work on the herd, but the costs and profits of milk production are divided according to the proportion of their share. The farm itself is usually owned by the major shareholder, although it could be owned by someone else altogether.

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