We're just over two weeks away from remembering our Tīpuna Theresia and Carl Alve's wedding 150 years ago. They were married in Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr Valley, Deutschland Germany on 14 February 1874. An interesting fact about their wedding was that ten couples were married in the same marriage service. Pfarrer (Father) Schulte the Catholic Priest must have offered a Valentine's Day Special in the midst of St Augustinus Church which was in the process of being rebuilt. And, it seems, Carl had to return to work in the coalmine the next day! The Ruhr Valley at the time was experiencing a population explosion as coal had become 'black gold' and hordes of Germans, Poles, Scandanavians and others were flocking to the mines. The reason that ten young couples wanted to marry on that most romantic of days. To celebrate this significant event 66 descendants of Carl and Theresia are gathering at Masters Hall, Pahiatua on the weekend of 17-18 February. We chose this Pahiatua venue because it is near where the Alves settled at Alfredton Road, Eketāhuna in 1880 - four years after arriving in Aotearoa New Zealand as assisted immigrants. During those four years Carl worked for the railways building the Remutaka line and then the line from Featherston to Masterton while he discharged his debt to the Government under the Vogel immigration scheme. A fellow immigrant family the Schormanns who had travelled on the ship Gutenburg to Aotearoa jointly farmed the Eketahuna land in the early years. Part of the Reunion weekend will be a Sunday bus tour to Eketahuna to explore sites of interest, including the original farm block in Alfredton Road. These, and many other matters relating to Theresia's and Carl's colourful life, are explored in a new book to be released on Valentine's Day. Entitled Valentine's Day 1874 and subtitled, A Ruhr Valley Romance Terry Alve writes of their German background and meeting in Gelsenkirchen. He asks why they emigrated and explores how their life together panned out in Aotearoa New Zealand until Carl's death in 1910. You will find a purchase link at www.alve.nz after Valentine's Day. To mark the marriage sesqui we have scheduled a Zoom call at 7pm (NZDT) on Valentine's Day 14 February 2024 - an opportunity for brief dialogue (no more than 40 mins.) on the Sesquicentennial of Thersia & Carl’s wedding day. Join us via this link: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/4112201146?pwd=fRa0eYclcvqPfx8CnPgXnvTMBi4S80.1&omn=74267779934 There will be a surprise for those of us who tune in!
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Just to keep you on your toes, www.alve.org.nz has become www.alve.nz
In fact if you continue to use www.alve.org.nz it will direct to www.alve.nz for several months, but when the longer URL sub runs out it will be gone. It's all done in the name of simplicity, we hope. Cheers, Terry P.S. We will have online registrations for the Easter Day 2015 mini-Reunion available very early in the new year. This will include pricing info. Watch this space or, better still, join our eList and get news red hot, off the press. During Sept/Oct 2014 the task of adding 1st and 2nd generation Alve descendant biographies from "Alve Road" has been completed - well almost. In the process biographies have been edited to include deaths and other updated factual information. Not all "Alve Road" photos have been available; while new and relevant photos have been added. We are reliant on family members supplying relevant pictures and updated info to complete this task. If you can provide a photo/s please scan a copy and send it/them to Terry Alve. Alternatively please post to Terry at Box 51-132, Tawa 5249 with accompanying text and your photo will be scanned and returned. Supplying a post paid envelope for return would be appreciated. As we prepare for the Easter Sunday 2015 (5 April) mini Family Reunion, the completion of this task takes us a long way towards preparing the website for the occasion. We are encouraged at the response thus far of family members in pre-registering for the mini-Reunion. Busch, Simmons, Purdom, Pedersen plus Henry, Eddie and Dolf Alve descendants have all expressed an interest in attending. Are there any Alfred Alve descendants out there who will consider coming? We are relying on you to get the word out as we do not have a lot of email contacts. Also you can sign up for our Alve Family eNews using the mini-form at the bottom of this page. That way you will be sure to get news as quick as it is available. I have recently added a page to this website, "Alve Family Reunion Easter 1995." The page title is self-explanatory and it reminds us that we are all 20 years older, unless we were born since 1995. The Alve Family Reunion was a grand occasion celebrated in the magnificent Highden Country Estate, Green Road, Awahuri in the Manawatu, west of Palmerston North. Nearly 150 relatives and associates of the NZ Alve Family gathered, reminisced, journeyed, worshipped, ate, enjoyed speeches and entertainment over two days of Easter. Various momentos were on offer including photos, key rings and letter openers with Carl & Maria's photo, and the recently published "Alve Road" history of the family. The Reunion page mentioned above offers a full report of that occasion and a copy of keynote speaker, Rolf Panny's Saturday evening address to the family which highlighted the very significant role of pioneer women. This website is an attempt to keep Alve Family memories alive. Much of the the "Alve Road" content is re-presented. New research findings are reported. Subsequent births, deaths and marriages are included and your family information is invited for inclusion. The question I am wrestling with today is, "Should we do something to mark the passing of another generation 20 years on?" Only four members, all males, of the second generation of Carl & Maria's descendants survive from the 20+ who were living at the time of the 1995 Reunion: Alve Purdom, Hilton Alve, Ivan Alve and William Alve - please correct me if I am wrong. Recent deaths include Phillip Alve (2012), Thelma Avery (2013) and Thelma Pedersen (2014) - wife of the late Russell Pedersen. Alongside these deaths are various new births. Grandchildren of my parents - Val & Joyce Alve - born in the last couple of years include Ruby Weir, Olive Perris, Wolf Schroder, Eden Alve and Lucy Alve (born last week). My suggestion is that we consider scheduling a ONE day event, possibly during Easter 2015 - maybe Sunday 5th April? I'll do a bit more homework around this thought and get back to you via this Blog and our eList. In the meantime what do you think? Please consider contacting me or leaving a response to this Blog post via the form below. Terry Alve - Tawa, Wellington P.S. I always appreciate notice of your family's BDM info which can then be added to the family record. Bert & Gwen Davie celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary on 25th February 1992 Bert and Gwen Davie celebrated their 60th Wedding anniversary in 1992 in South Canterbury. Gwen Purdom is the daughter of Carolena Alve - 5th child of Carl and Maria Theresia Alve. This photo appears in Lena's bio page in the website. Over the summer we are adding 1st generation descendant biographies to the website.To date Mary, Charlie, Theresia, Anna, Carolena and the infants Rosa and Emma bios have been added, along with new pics. These bio pages as they are added are password protected. You will have to join our list to get the password to enter these pages. Joining is currently FREE. Get your password HERE. A much younger Gwen Purdom An enhanced photo from "Alve Road" the book. As we convert, edit and enhance content from the 1994 publication, "Alve Road" we are seeking to improve accuracy, grammar, content, imagery and accessibility. We love to receive your feedback. From our perspective, News Blog comments are best. They make you responses publicly available and they facilitate our editing processes. Email or other content is acceptable and will be acted on. Another picture (right) associated with Carolena's bio also features Gwen Purdom. The original of this photo from around 1923 is very badly spotted and damaged. With the aid of computer technology we have been able to significantly improve this image. The original (it also appeared in the Book) appears below. N.B: Clicking on the photos in this post will give you an enlarged view of them. Phillip Alve 1918-2012 Margaret and I want to share with you our personal Christmas greetings and news for 2012. The year has ended with Margaret sitting on two new job offers and Terry employed on a five month contract with Statistics NZ helping to conduct the 2013 Census which will be held on 5 March. The two week break over Christmas - New Year will have us redecorating our downstairs back bedroom as we convert it into a counselling - mentoring space. Yes, both of us increasingly have clients coming to our home as we operate our respective businesses: counselling and professional supervision (Margaret) & spiritual direction and ministry supervision (Terry). Early in the new year Margaret developed her counselling businesses by taking a contract for ten hours weekly with the Wellington Cancer Society and launching her "Because U Matter" counselling business in March. During the year Terry has further developing his spiritual mentoring business (iCare Resources) by engaging a number of new clients and continuing to work with others. He continues to offer retreats with Spiritual Growth Ministries teams and he now manages the SGM Wellington-Kapiti website and email database. The year began with Terry turning 60. Margaret's gift was a couple of nights in central Auckland before travelling on the Overlander daylight train south to Tawa - an all day (12 hour) trip. An early web project for Terry was a feasibility study and a subsequent website development for NALAG - the National Association for Loss & Grief. The other biggie this year has been a redevelopment of the Shadz Hair Art website for friends Steve & Sovann Dowall. Talking about websites, the site you are on www.alve.org.nz has also been developed recently. More about that in a moment. On the family front there have also been significant developments. After a long gestation Jono & Jenn moved into their new Tawa home in March. Jono continues as southern North Island BDM with Dominion Breweries and Jen works with the Ministry for the Environment. David & Ingrid have settled into their Grenada Village home and David joined the permanent staff at Park Road Post in movie post production. He had the privilege of working on the "Hobbit" and so appears in the movie credits if you look closely. Ingrid has gained primary teacher registration. Caleb has a new friend - Emma - whom he lives with in Khandallah but they are soon to move to Johnsonville. He has joined the staff of Kiwibank after finishing with Countdown butchery management. Emma works with an employment recruiting company. Sarah and Simon now have three children with Olive being born on 30th June at Kenepuru Hospital. She joins Elijah (3) and Holly (just 2) in their new home in Lupin Terrace in Tawa's eastern hills. After some choosing between employment options, Simon has taken a permanent lectureship in Classics at Victoria University. Sarah is a busy mum who finds time to meaningfully contribute to the running the local Playcentre. Two other significant developments this year have been:
Well, that's more than enough for now. We notice that several Christmas messages have come in already from family and friends. We appreciate and value your correspondence with us and thank you for your Christmas and new year greetings. We want you to know that we prayerfully and lovingly extend to you our aroha trusting that 2013 will be a year full for you. Go well... Terry Alve on behalf of Margaret and the Whanau who yearly increase in number! POSTSCRIPT: Members of the Family at Titahi Bay Beach around 7:15pm Christmas Evening
We've taken a while to get this website to a stage where we feel it can be publicly promoted. I think we are there. Of course there is plenty more to add, including the biographies of the first three generations in NZ. That's all available digitally to load along with appropriate pictures - some from the 1994 Book and some new ones.
We have an email list of about 20 that we will send a website link to along with a password to the member only content. There's no cost for membership currently, but we have made it that you need to give us your email address to access the Book historical info and (in time) the biographical info that will be an edited version of the "Alve Road" book content. Please do not give the member only password to others. Ask those interested to complete the signup form here: http://www.alve.org.nz/get-your-free-password.html As we launch we ask that you start promoting this website, especially to family, and to others who may be interested in knowing more about the family. And, Christmas/New Year greetings to you. Marg and I have recently had the privilege of a kitchen upgrade. In the process Marg bought a wall decal that appears below. We offer this as our prayerful hope for you this Christmas and into the new year. Terry Alve |
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