Feet Up; Time to Think

My initial thought when seeing the prompt "Lucky" was to write about me, but from a genealogical point of view, that didn't seem quite right. As the Irish are celebrated during March, and it's close to St. Patrick's Day, the subject of the "Lucky" blog will be my great great grandmother, Helen or sometimes Ellen Riley, who married Alexander McMinn, a prominent 19th Century New Zealand journalist. I always believed that Helen was the first European child born at Himitangi near Foxton as that is what my grandmother, Marcia, believed. In fact, Marcia was wrong. Helen was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1845 into a poor Catholic family. Those three facts were potentially a death sentence for Helen as from September that year, potato blight had mysteriously occurred initially around Dublin and before long Ireland was in famine. However, Helen's family had an escape route. In 1841, Helen's father Francis Farrell Riley had enlisted in the 65th Regiment o...

A 1904 All Black cap, a family bible with entries back to 1801, a Croix de Guerre for gallantry - there are many items owned by other family members that would be much more worthy of a post about heirlooms but my heirloom has a special connection. It is the powder compact given to me on my 16th birthday by my grandmother, Marcia Adeline Mary McMinn. It looks like a locket, but in fact is a very small powder compact. On the lid are the initials, MMM, for Marcia McMinn. When the lid is lifted, it is clear that it once held a small mirror. Like its original black velvet ribbon, that is long gone. It held face powder and a small power puff and was used at dances - just in case your nose got shiny after too much exertion. Marcia had been given this compact on her own 16th birthday. I'm not sure who gave it to her. Her father had passed away two years earlier under very sad circumstances, so it may have been a gift from her mother or either of her grandmothers, Mary Ann Edwards or mo...