Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Alice (Bee) Warren

Chapter Eighteen

Alice (Bee) Warren

Alice Bee was the youngest daughter of Mary and George Bee. She was born in Havelock North on the 13th December 1870.

She married Robert Warren and on the 15th September 1892 they purchased town section No. 49 in Havelock North for the sum of £65.00. Here they built a house and bakery business.

In the following years they also opened a tea-room and catering business in the main street of Hastings. They purchased the section at 303E Queen Street where the family home was built.

Alice was widowed in 1916. She carried on the tea-rooms for several years and lived in the Queen Street home until her death in 1955 at the age of 85 years. They had four children.

Robert Nigel Warren who was known to family and friends as Nigel. He was the eldest son and was born in Havelock North on 23rd April 1896. After attending Central School, Hastings, he served his apprenticeship at his father's bakery until the death of his father in 1916 forced him to leave. He then worked at several other bakeries, eventually ending up back in Havelock North at his brother Gordon's bakery.

A succession of fires bought about the selling of Gordon's business which saw Nigel being employed at his sister's cake shop in Russell Street, Hastings. He worked here for 26 years until his retirement.

He was married to Elsie Moss and they had four children — Robert, Velma, Ronald and Noeline.

Charles Dudley Warren was the second son of Alice and Robert Warren. In the 1920's he drove the New Zealand Railway buses between Napier and Hastings and in the 1930's worked for the family owned bakery, delivering bread all over Havelock North.

During the Second World War he worked as a cake finisher at his sister's cake shop. After that he worked at Dunlop NZ Ltd, Queen Street (Hastings) until his retirement in the late 1950's.

He married Ellen Susanna Bevan and they had three children —Joy, Ola and Bevan. He died in 1961 at the age of 64.

Clarence Gordon Warren was the third son of Alice and Robert Warren. He worked in the clerical field in Hastings. He re-established the Havelock Bakery where his brothers Nigel and Dudley worked for him until it was destroyed by fire in the 1930's.

He managed the Stortford Lodge Hotel and later purchased 'Ayres' Hotel in Westport, where he stayed until his retirement. He was a GP of the Buffalo Lodge in Hastings.

He married Doreen O'Reilly and they had one daughter — Lynn Ellen Warren.

Pearl Mavis Warren was born on 15th September 1908. She was the fourth child and only daughter. She attended Havelock North Primary School and Hastings High School. On leaving school she worked for some years as a shop assistant in several local businesses and then purchased the 'Cake Kitchen' in Russell Street Hastings. She operated this business in conjunction with her brothers Nigel and Warren.

On May 24th 1941 she married Thomas Taylor, an orchard worker from South Africa who also joined them in the business.

After 26 years in the cake shop they retired to live on a small orchard in the Longlands area.

They had one daughter — Janice Ann Taylor who married Maxwell John Paynter. They have four children — Jonathan, Paul, Melody and Olivia.

Velma Brannigan

No comments:

Post a Comment