Family Back Story

I was born Mary Josephine O'Sullivan in Kaitaia on 19 August 1947, at a time when this small rural town was a pleasant microcosm of post-WW2 New Zealand, not the marijuana-and-meth headquarters that it appears to be today. I was the third child of Marjorie and John, following on after my two brothers Michael John (9 years older) and Kevin George (6 years older). It took me many years to realise that I was probably something of a surprise arrival, as my mother was 42 and my father 59 at the time of my arrival. However, despite the surprise aspect, by all accounts I was a much-loved addition to the family, with my father, by then in his 60s, taking me shopping in town in our big Ford V-8 car, patiently holding the door open for me until I deigned to climb down to street level, much to the amusement of local gossips. So, let's backtrack to how I ended up being born in Kaitaia in 1947.

My immigrant story is no doubt quite typical of many New Zealanders, being a tale of poor workers from Ireland and England emigrating at the end of the 19th century in search of a better life. On my father's O'Sullivan side it was as a result of the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s, the effects of which lingered on for many years. By the 1860s, prospects for a small-holding farmer's younger son, as my grandfather Michael was, were fairly bleak, so he and his brother embarked for the far-off land of New Zealand in 1869. On my mother's Webb side, her grandfather Christopher was a shoemaker from Bristol who emigrated to Nelson with his three children in 1861, then producing six more children, including her father George. On arrival in New Zealand, both sides of the family were relatively poor, striving to establish themselves in a raw new land.

Fuller details to be filled in for both sides.