AUGUST UPDATE - The Grandparents We Never Knew

Tom and Annie Elcox at their wedding in 1925 supported by Harry Morgan and Ida Farmer (Annie's sister)

Thomas Richard and Annie Mabel Elcox are my maternal grandparents. Annie was a Farmer from Glen Oroua in the Manawatu. Tom arrived in Aotearoa in 1924 after four years serving with the British Army in France, Belgium and India. Annie was born and grew up as the second youngest of a large dairy farming family. They both died young so that my siblings and I, their only grandchildren, never knew them. Their stories are a fascinating study of a very endowed couple serving their families, communities and world. They are told in a new publication, The Grandparents We Never Knew.

Tom (1899-1933) grew up in Areley Kings, Worcestershire, England before offering four years of youthful service in WW1 and on the North West Frontier of India (1917-1921) with the Machine Gun Corps. In New Zealand he very quickly established an agricultural contracting and stock transportation business and fathered three children before he was tragically killed when his truck overturned with a load of sheep aboard in 1933.

Annie (1897-1951) was gifted musically gaining ATCL in 1923.  She worked as a church and community musician and music teacher into her marriage. Living as a widow with three young children, she took on the task of maintainig their family business at Rongotea into WW2 when manpower shortages demaned its sale in 1941. She spent the last ten years of her life raising her children, the second of whom had been born with cerebral palsy. Annie died soon after her younger daughter's marriage at age 53.

Flipbook and a PDF copies of this publication are below.

THE GRANDPARENTS WE NEVER KNEW
File Size:	7820 kb
File Type:	pdf

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FLIPBOOK VERSION

The Elcox children Joyce, Bill and Joan taken soon after their father Tom was killed in 1933.