Page:Gillespies Beach Beginnings • Alexander (2010).pdf/64

 John Sullivan was told by his father that Patrick developed flu which he neglected. Neglect culminated in a serious lung infection from which he died. He is buried in Hokitika cemetery along with his parents.

The photograph of Fred and Julia Williams nee Sullivan standing outside their first home, the totara bark hut at Weheka, Fox Glacier, has appeared in many publications. Fred and Julia were married at Gillespie’s Beach on 4 August, 1895. Julia had been brought up in a relatively comfortable cottage at Gillespie’s Beach but, being of pioneering stock obviously accepted that she would spend her early married life living in what can only be described as a shack. The increasing family, according to the 1940 article, necessitated the enlarging of the original hut by two extra rooms.

The date when their first cottage or second home was ready for occupation is unknown but it was probably a gradual affair because the timber would have had to be felled and sawn. It is not known how many children Julia had while still living in the bark hut but her oldest daughter, May, commented in later years of the difficulties her mother had catering for a growing family. This second home was certainly in existence in 1906 when Maud Moreland wrote about her visit but more of this later. Visitors to the area were never turned away when they needed accommodation. This is the house to which four extra rooms were added in 1919 by my father, Bob Clarke and Bert Weenink. Bob Clarke and Bert Weenink had both served their carpentry apprenticeships in Greymouth and came south, as young men, to work at Weheka which is how they met their future wives, Margaret (Mag) and Elizabeth (Liz) Williams, daughters of Fred and Julia.

When Tom Seddon, son of the Premier, Richard John Seddon, travelled by horseback in South Westland in 1906, the Otago Daily Times quoted him on 19 January as saying "that Mrs Williams gave us a hearty greeting followed by a hearty dinner. Bush fires were ablaze and the rising smoke lent to the surrounding mountains a lovely blue tint."