Golden Wedding

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bentley Celebrate a 50-Year Partnership

( Contributed) WHEN the Bentley clan of Fiji fore gather, the celebrations tend to land us right into the early history and background of Fiji’s pioneering families.

On July 17, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bentley, of Suva, celebrated their golden wedding, and a merry affair it was!

Their family is a good old-fashioned one, which boasts four sons and a daughter, all of whom are married and have a quiverful of healthy offspring.

On this occasion, Mr. and Mrs. John Bentley came from Timaru, NZ; Mr. and Mrs. Will Morrison and family from Vatakoula; Mr. R. V. O. Bentley, repre senting his family, from Wakaya; Sister Flo Bentley, from Labasa: Mr. and Mrs.

Dick Bentley and family, recently back from Auckland were also there.

Congratulations poured in from the many relatives and friends, in and out of Fiji. A large golden cake, the work of daughter and daughters-in-law, was cut.

The parents of Mr. Charles Bentley went to* Fiji in the early days of “The Cotton Boom” (and what a story of high hopes and disillusion was that saga of the gentlemen adventurers and would-be planters of The Wild Feejees!) They settled on the upper Rewa River with five young children and began a battle with new conditions and homesickness, lack of accustomed food, social interests, skilled medical care, and all that went with the pioneering of those days. Occa sionally news of native risings and threatened attack by natives from the mountains was brought to the settlement.

On one occasion rafts were hastily con structed and women and children were sent down the river, some to be taken on board a man-o’-war which happened to be in the vicinity. Later, when these things quietened down their cotton crops

failed, and the market, due to the cessa tion of the American Civil War. collapsed.

Our pioneer Bentley joined the Govern ment in those early days when Levuka was the “Crossroads of The South Seas” and, later, parts of the family drifted to Tonga and yet again returned to Fiji.

Maybe it was the blood of that famous ancestress, Captain Betsy Miller, who sailed under her own flag and skippered her ships out of old Salem, that still sends the Bentleys venturing on the high seas.

Perhaps, too, it is the spirit of great grand-aunt, Florence Nightingale which

sends such a number of the Bentley daughters and grand-daughters into the nursing service, in Fiji and elsewhere.

Mrs. Charles Bentley, who was an Irish girl (Miss Ann Godkin) also had a private hospital in Suva for many years. As a young man, Charles Bentley was a pro minent runner and represented Fiji at sporting events in Australia. He was in terested in the commercial life of the Colony, but has been retired for many years.

Mr. nd Mrs. Charles Bentley and their youngest grandchildren.