Memories Of Queen Emma
p. 41 · Read in the full issue
Letter to the Editor
IREAD with great interest your article, in April, “Memories of Queen Emma”.
You mention therein a Mrs. Grace Forsayth Schmidt, who joined Emma In New Britain in 1886. When I left NB in April, 1886, no Grace had arrived, and in all my conversations with Emma, Phoebe and Mr. Parkinson I was always told that there were only five children in Consul Coe’s family—viz.; Emma, Phoebe, Essy, Bob and Willy—all of them in NB at that time. (It has since been explained that Grace was the youngest of six daughters by the second marriage.—Ed. “PIM”.) Thomas Farrell came to Mioko, NB, in 1880, for the firm of Peter Godeffroy, of Apia, Samoa; and, after a rather mys terious deal with the captain of the “Marquis de Rays”, left Mioko and started on his own account on “Ralun” (Gazelle Peninsular). After Emma separated from Farrell, Phoebe married Parkinson, who became Emma’s mana ger; and it was Parkinson who obtained from the natives large tracts of land, for a song, and started plantations (coconuts, cotton and corn) and this was the beginning of Emma’s fortune.
Mr. Farrell must have been married before he met Emma, as the Forsayth junior I met in NB in 1885 was about 13-15 years old; and the Farrell junior, who, on August 29. 1885, joined our trip for Mt. Beautempts Beaupre (1640 feet) (our party included High Commissioner Oertzen, Parkinson, Rev. Rickards, of Wesleyan Mission, and many natives, and we called the mountain “Varzin Berg”, after Prince Bismarck’s estate, in Germany), was about 30 years of age.
You show a photo of Emma’s old bun galow. It must have been erected after I left NB in 1886. The one I know, and where I spent many happy evenings playing “Nap” for native twist tobacco, with all the Coe family, was not so elaborate as the one in the “PIM” of April.
I am, etc.,
F. T. Goedicke.
Haapai, Tonga, 24/5/1941.
Mr. S. Hw Short, of Tinputz plantation, Bougainville, TNG, arrived in Sydney on leave by the July steamer from Rabaul.
Mr. T. Frazer, of the Morobe District, New Guinea, arrived in Australia recently to take up duties with the Navy. His son Mr. Norman Frazer, is in the RAAF,