Last Of The Grubbs

Death Writes "Finis “ to Romantic Story of South Seas

ON April 4, there died at the Patou Memorial Hospital, Port Vila, Henry Grube, senior partner of the well known firm of Henry Grube & Son, Ambrim, and the last surviving member of the German family that had been identified with the New Hebrides for 35 years.

Soon after the death of his son, the junior partner, in June of last year, Henry Grube became ill, and he had been on the sick list ever since. Finally, he was brought to Vila Hospital, where he died a few days later.

The association of the Grube family with the New Hebrides forms quite a ro mantic tale and receives a fitting setting in the fantastic South Seas.

The first bearer of the name to settle in the Islands was Wilhelm Grube who, 45 years ago. discontented with his cramped life in Germany, ran away from his home and signed on with a British schooner bound from Hamburg to New Zealand. After the disciplined life of Germany he revelled in the untramnelled environment of the British overseas do minion and became a naturalised British subject, a fact of which he was proud to the end of his days.

After working for some years as a gum digger, he seized a chance of going to the New Hebrides, and in the free and un fettered life of the islands he felt at home, and found the atmosphere that suited his wild, untameable nature. From the day of his arrival in 1902, until his death 12 years later, Wilhelm Grube, of Paama, was a bizarre and picturesque figure, typical of the traditional South Seas, and was generally regarded as a sort of Bully Hayes of the New Hebrides.

On leaving Germany, Wilhelm could not speak a word of English, and the vocabu lary he acquired on his long voyage to New Zealand contained a liberal assort ment of oaths; and to the end of his days he could not speak without the aid of these expletives. In the presence of Government officials and missionaries he tried to conform to conventional speech, but the effort cramped his style and made him speak with a stutter. In spite of the teaching of correct English in the Mission schools, the natives of Paama michiev ously copied his style, and spoke an extraordinary jargon of English. Despite his unconventional ways, Wilhelm Grube had a big heart, and was liked by every body, His energy and industry were boundless, and he succeeded in building up a flourishing business on the islands of Epi, Paama and Ambrim.

YEARS passed; and, in Germany, noth ing had ever been heard of Wil helm Grube. He was accounted as dead by every one except his old mother, who never gave up hope that her wandering son would one day turn up.

Twenty-five years after his departure, a registered letter, with a foreign stamp and a fat money order, arrived, and sent the old lady into the third heaven of delight. In the quiet Holstein village, the news spread quickly that their runaway fellow-villager, Wilhelm Grube. had re formed and was now a rich and prosper ous planter in the South Seas.

With a view to helping his impecunious relatives and friends, Grube brought out from Germany to the New Hebrides his

brother, Henry Grube, now deceased, with his wife and son, and four other adven turers —making 7 in all. They left Ger many thinking that they were bound for El Dorado. The spectre of a South Sea Bubble never once crossed their horizon, and they journeyed out with exalted hopes and expectations. The Captain and offi cers of the B.P. steamer that conveyed them from Sydney to the New Hebrides might easily have dissipated the illusion under which they laboured, but they dis closed nothing about the picturesque white savage whose guests and employees they hoped to be.

ON the arrival of the steamer at Paama the stage was set for one of the most comical situations ever enacted in real life. The first sight they had of their patron gave even the phlegmatic Ger mans a shock and rendered them speech less.

As he climbed the gangway, and stood on the deck of the old “Tambo”, with leviathan bare feet, unshaven face, long hair, and shirt open to the waist, exposing a black, hairy breast, Wilhelm Grube looked more like a grisly Russian bear than a member of the proud Aryan race.

On going ashore, a still further sur prise awaited them. The household in which they had expected to live in tropi cal comfort was a kind of harem, with a bevy of South Sea Islands ladies running the establishment, and living and eating like princesses.

Partly from pride in his British citizen ship, and partly from a desire to estab lish a German colony in the New Hebrides under the Union Jack, the first thing the elder Grube did, on the arrival of the im migrants, was to register them as British subjects under the Condominium. At one jump, the diminutive British population in the New Hebrides leaped up by 7.

Co-operation between such incongruous elements was impossible, and it was not long before trouble and dissension arose.

Henry Grube, the new arrival, appealed to his gone-native brother to remember that he was a German, and to return to a civilised mode of life.

But Wilhelm was wedded to his habits and, rather than part with his harem and associated extravaganza, he allowed his relatives to depart and go their own way.

Wilhelm did not long survive the ad vent of his relations and friends. Indeed, he was already in the grip of tuberculosis when his friends arrived.

So there was no alternative but for Henry Grube & Son to embark on trading operations on their own account, in the field already occupied by Wilhelm. With true German thoroughness, they per severed in the face of great odds, and succeeded, in establishing one of the most successful and best-paying trading sta tions in the New Hebrides.

Willy, the junior partner, died in June of last year, thus predeceasing his father, Henry, by less than a year.

Father and son belonged to the best

type of German colonists— hard-working, kindly, neighbourly—and they gained the respect and friendship of natives and Europeans alike.