Eleanor Shirley Lavinia is the eldest child of Elizabeth Bathgate and Bert Sim. She was born at ‘Redroofs’ Salvation Army maternity hospital (now a rest home) in Dunedin, and has fond memories of her early childhood on the farm at Hindon, with Bert’s parents living next door, and frequent visits to Gran and Danny and Bathgate cousins at the farms near Outram. There were also visits to see the great-aunts at ‘Hope Hill’ in Dunedin. Her cousins on the Sim side, the Hemera family, came to stay with their grandparents at Hindon every summer. Younger siblings Everard, Anne and Susan were also born while the Sims lived at Hindon, and Aunty Olive, Bert’s younger sister, would also visit next door.
In 1959 Eleanor started school at Outram (where Mum had also attended). While there was a school at Hindon, it was reached only by a very winding road, and the Sim children always got carsick easily. Eleanor stayed during the week with Gran and Danny, who by then were living in the front of the original Kinfauns homestead while Uncle Peter and Aunty Ngaire lived in the back part. Renovations had made things very comfortable for both families. Eleanor slept in what used to be Mum’s bedroom. Dad would drive her to school on Monday mornings and come to pick her up Friday afternoons. On the few occasions she was not able to go home for the weekend, Gran would comfort her upset granddaughter with her special treat of a pink wafer biscuit. Eleanor remembers Gran’s special sitting room, its colour theme of crimson and gold, and carefully lifting the lid of the pretty rosewood piano to try and play a few keys. She sometimes walked over the road to Uncle George’s with a billy to get some milk while he was at the cowbyre. After Gran and Danny moved to ‘Hope Hill’ Eleanor stayed on at the homestead with Uncle Peter and Aunty Ngaire, who now had a son, Robbie. Aunty Ngaire says she ‘big-sistered’ him.
The Sim family moved to another farm at Nicholson Road, Brydone in April 1961. Brydone School was only a mile away. Gran and Danny came down to help look after the family for a week or two when Fairlie was born in 1963. Albert John came along in 1969 to even out the numbers (besides being now 3 boys and 3 girls, three were right-handed like Dad, and three were left-handed like Mum).
Eleanor attended Wyndham District High School 1967-1970. She missed University Entrance by 9 marks so rather than repeat the 6th form year in order to go to university, she chose instead to do a Certificate in Secretarial Studies at Otago Polytechnic, with a Machines option. The accounting machines were a forerunner of the calculators and computers that came along a couple of decades later. She boarded at the YWCA in Moray Place in Dunedin, walking up the steep hill to York Place where the Polytechnic was in temporary premises. At the end of 1971 the Polytechnic arranged an interview for her with Butterfields, a small department store in the Octagon. Eleanor began her first job there as Office Junior. It was a great job, she remembers, “I got out and about, running all the errands.” Aunty Ngaire would come in Friday evenings or Saturday mornings and pick her up so she could have the weekend at the farm, often attending Boy Scout dances at Momona with Uncle Peter and Robbie. Aunty Ngaire took her back into the city Sunday evenings in time for the service at First Church, which was followed by its Coffee Club.
In 1972 Eleanor, while learning Scottish Country dancing at the YWCA, was offered the opportunity to be a debutante at the Otago Scottish Council Ball. Aunty Hazel, an excellent dressmaker herself, gave her tips in making her ballgown.
Later she decided to move back to family at Brydone and worked for an accountant in Gore, before taking a major step in the spring of 1973 and moving to Auckland. In 1977 she married Owen Edward Hooper (formerly from the Wairarapa), and they became parents to Sonya, Leanne and Colin, then grandparents to Nestor, Solomon, Caitlyn, Joshua and Jaxon.
Eleanor was really happy to meet her cousin Raewyn in 1999, and also thrilled to have found her eldest cousin Laon at long last, which has spurred her into picking up again her research into her family genealogy.
[ashgallery code=”543″]
Save as PDF