Dragging this thread back to within a bull's roar of the original topic ("Repaint and thin no more", indeed!), I was quite sad that the diary ended where it did. I don't think she was that remarkable a young lady (although she could read and write, which certainly makes her unusual). But she recorded the mundane and gives an insight into what it was like on those migrant ships. Of course, it was also sad that she popped her clogs so soon after arrival, but that was normal in those days.
I have often wondered how anyone could bear the tedium of a three or four-month one-way voyage to a completely unknown and non-understood destination. When I immigrated to Britain from the Zild in 2001, (a) I had been here before, and (b) it could have taken two days, although, as most of you know, we dragged it out to nearly three months from choice. As a matter of fact, the other day I found a photo of Sandra and me standing by the statue of Glenn Frey on "The Corner" in Winslow, Arizona during that trip. Not quite the same thing at all.
But I have often wondered how my great-great grandparents felt after, say, a month at sea. Bad food, deteriorating water, clothing inadequate in any climatic extreme at all, heavy seas making them sick and getting them wet for days on end - and no definite day to look forward to when it would all be over. Ketura Davies brings it all to rather revolting life.
Since my antecedents also came to New Zealand via Australia in 1860, it is entirely possible that they may have been on the same ship as young Ketura. Now THAT would be unusual and remarkable. I've emailed the Hocken Library in Dunedin to find out if they have any records, since such information was kept, quite meticulously, in both the Strine and Zild. My oldfers came out on to Australia on the same ship, but apparently they didn't actually know each other before they boarded it. There has been some suggestion that their marriage was contrived without benefit of clergy and that they just hopped the boat to New Zealand from Australia without bothering much with the usual formalities.
I'll let you know!
