Page 27 - J G Book

1909 A new life

James George was about to make two major changes to his life.
First: to sell up and leave South Taranaki.

Hawera and Normanby Star 31
st
March 1909

A rumour that James George
Kenyon was planning to leave
South Taranaki are found as
early as March 1909.

The basis of this report is
something of a mystery. As we shall see, in later 1909 James George did purchase a
large farm but the journalist was not quite correct in reporting “Hamilton, Waikato.”
The farms at Otakeho and Manaia were now about to be sold.

Hawera and Normanby Star 3 April
rd
1909

By not selling the farm in 1907
when it was valued at £32.10.0
per acre (see previous page)
and selling it now at the record
price of £40.0.0 per acre,
J. G. Kenyon had made a capital gain of almost £1500 during those two years.

The lease on the farm at
Taikatu Road (Otakeho) was
then disposed of.
Hawera and Normanby Star
12 June 1909
th

A few days later a whale was
washed up on the beach at the
bottom of
Lower Normanby Rd.

Taranaki Daily News 29 June 1909

The other major change in his life: James George was about to re-marry.

We do not know how James George met Ada Oliver, but it may not be a coincidence
that she was a cousin of Jim Oliver (who had married J.G.’s sister Florence in 1893.)

Ada’s grandfather was James Oliver who was one of the very early New Plymouth
pioneers. One of James’s sons, Samuel, was Ada’s father.
Another son, Charles, was the father of Jim Oliver.
Ada came from a mixed farm quite close to the town of Wanganui. She was a
spinster. Her parents had both died – Jessie in 1891 and Samuel in 1907.
The Oliver family farm had recently been subdivided and sold, so perhaps Ada had
moved to South Taranaki.
(See another scrapbook The Olivers, Early New Zealand Settlers for more information.)

4/11/16 graemekenyon@hotmail.com 23