Emily May Gilbert/Hemera (Dudley) 1921-1885 - my paternal grandmother

Emily May Dudley, my paternal grandmother was always known as Gran Gilbert to me. Jeremiah Francis Gilbert (Jerry) was her second husband, but it was her first husband, James Alexander Hemera, who was my grandfather. 

Emily, or “Em” as most people called her was born 25 May 1900 in the small town of Dobson on the West Coast of the South Island, New Zealand. She was the eldest of 10 children to Thomas Dudley and Mary Ann Johnston.

She attended the Mercy Convent at Cobden in 1911, its first year of opening, but the following year as work had dried up the family moved to Ahaura north of Greymouth. She left school at the age of 15 with her destination being Slatey Creek, where the family lived.  In 1916 her father made an application to the Education Board for a Grade 0 school in the Big River, Moonlight area as he had six children. It was granted and Emily was temporarily appointed to the position of sole teacher, a job she had probably already been fulfilling unpaid.

Scene at Ahaura, with St Mary's Catholic Church.
Photograph taken by William Archer Price between 1900 and 1930

Coincidentally on her 21^st birthday, when she did not need permission, she married James Alexander Hemera at Ahaura Catholic Church. He was a sawyer aged 26 and she was listed as a school teacher. Their first child, Emily Annette (Tottie) was born later that year, followed by James William 1923, Kathleen Patricia 1925, Thomas Eugene (my father) 1928 and Mary Bernadette 1940.

Five generations Johnston family:
Seated Emily May Hemera (dudley) nursing Emily Annette and her great grandmother Sarah Johnston;
Standing Emily's mother, Mary Ann Dudley (Johnston) and her grandfather Thomas Johnston.

They moved around the West Coast following work in sawmills before finally settling in Kumara in about 1935 when James Alexander appears on the electoral roll to work for the Gilbert & Tomasi Sawmills.

Emily was an excellent piano player and played at church and community events. She popped up in the newspapers here in Australia looking for a pen pal in 1936.

She had a hard life raising children in difficult conditions often struggling financially. Her husband died in 1941 leaving her with a one-year-old and my father who was 13, with the older children grown up and working.  She sent my father away from his father’s graveside to live with an Uncle in the depths of the West Coast bush. Later life my father often asked, “How could she do that?” It had affected him deeply.

One year later she married her husband’s boss, Jerry Gilbert. She had one more child, Matthew in 1944 and they adopted Mary as their own.

Emily and Jerry Gilbert

I usually saw Gran once a year when she and “Uncle Jerry” came to Auckland to visit us. There was always a mad run around and clean up before they arrived – even putting in an instant garden.  We children were to be on our best behaviour and be “seen and not heard”. We never received any presents from them except one Christmas they arrived with a set of the New Zealand Encyclopaedia which I made great use of over the years.

My sister and I stayed with her and Uncle Jerry once in Kumara during the school holidays. She was a basic cook making standard dishes of the day. Her go to recipe was a date and nut loaf which I have, but it is her steak and kidney pie I remember with large chunks of kidney that we could not swallow.

In later years she dabbled in landscape painting and was an avid stamp collector. On visits she would show us her stamps, and occasionally give you one or two. She always wore her hair long, tied up in a bun.

After she married Jerry Gilbert the children from her first marriage were put to one side in favour of her new family. She never acknowledged the possibility of James Alexander Hemera being of Maori descent, but later in her life she gave my mother a written whakapapa saying, “this might come in handy one day”, though it proved to be inaccurate. Her denial of his heritage made my search for his ancestors difficult in later years.

My father, Thomas Eugene Hemera and his mother Emily 1984

Gran Gilbert died 2 September 1985 at the age of 85 of cancer in Greymouth Hospital. I had been to see her earlier that year to show her our first born, her great granddaughter, so did not go to the funeral, though my father attended.

She had survived through hardships, including losing her first born, Auntie Tottie in 1977. She is buried in Karoro Cemetery, Greymouth with Uncle Jerry who died 26 December 1997.