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buns, sausage-rolls, rissoles, Russian salads,
fruit salads, etc. Several young friends and
relations came to stay, followed next day by
many more – sixty-seven in all – for Mervyn’s
annual Patrick’s Day birthday picnic’.
Ten years later, Adela organized and hosted
(with the assistance of a lady helper) a gala for
some 100 guests:
“The house was brilliantly lit up”, Adela
writes, “and before 8 o’clock, arrived our
guests in the usual independent colonial
style. Ladies riding carried their ball-dresses
in a kit in front of them, some of the frocks
needing a hot iron to smooth out the creases.
The dancing lasted until 5am.; the visitors left
after breakfasting at 10”.
One of Adela’s fundraising events to buy an
organ for the school. We found a news article
about it. Adela garnered a glowing review (in a
stunning display of a run on sentence!) in the
Bay of Plenty Times
from Dec of 1902.
“Commencing with the weather I may
describe the day as simply perfect; the
tastefully laid out and well-kept grounds
looked at their best, smiling flowers and
sweet scented shrubs perfuming the
atmosphere, while the view of the South
Pacific Ocean, the precipitous Katikati
Heads clad to their summit with vegetation,
and contiguous to the House, the broad
expanse of the northern extremity of our
noble Tauranga Harbour, presented a most
pleasing contrast of Nature unadorned, with
the refinements of civilisation, cultivation
and good taste as displayed at the hospitable
mansion and property known as Athenree,
the residence of Capt. and Mrs Hugh
Stewart, where 25 years ago was a roadless
wilderness of fern and tea tree.”
The reporter enthused that Adela raised £41 for
the school organ, with enough donated goods
amassed to hold another bazaar.
In their prime:
Captain Hugh
and his wife
Adela Blanche Stewart
Hugh took on the farming and livestock and as
he was an engineer in the army, handled the
Heritage’s many building projects.
Adela capably handled everything from
domestic duties to schooling her son. She also
performed many of the farm chores: keeping
poultry, milking, curing pork, making butter,
canning and vegetable gardening.
“It becomes evident that gardening must be
the women’s department,” Adela wrote. “The
men being too busy for anything so purely
ornamental as flowers and unnecessary as
vegetables.”
Adela earned money by selling butter, fruit,
jams, tomato sauces, honey and flowers from
a much-admired garden – her coveted prize-
winning chrysanthemums were shipped to
buyers all over the country.
The Stewarts knew how to encourage an
active social life in the region. They held
picnics, dinners, teas, balls, christenings,
socials, fund raisers, and even a enjoyed
tennis dates with the Johnstons who had their
own court next door. Visitors included family,
locals, dignitaries, and travellers from out of
the area, all noted in Adela’s diaries. Once a
circus came through and the Stewarts hosted
the entire group, with Adela doing the cooking.
Among the visitors to Katikati whom she
entertained were William Rolleston, Lord
Ranfurly (the governor), Bishop W. G. Cowie,
and Richard Seddon.
On 24 January 1884, Te Kooti (leader of one
of the last Maori wars) and over a hundred
of his followers stopped by the Athenree
Homestead. Adela made them tea and invited
his followers to pick flowers. They plucked
them all, decorating themselves and their
horses ‘quite artistically’.
“If it were not that she appears to have been
a truthful woman, her feats of entertaining
might be queried”, writes Hughes. In 1887, for
example, she organised a picnic, described in
her diary:
“One day, in addition to the ordinary work,
I made bread, rolls, oat-cake, plum-cakes,
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