Giddy, Elsie (1907-1988)

Elsie Stephenson Giddy was descended from some of New Plymouth’s earliest Pākehā settlers.

Her father’s grandparents, George and Sally Giddy, arrived on the ship Amelia Thompson in 1841 and settled on a farm near what is now New Plymouth’s racecourse. Her mother’s grandparents, Simon and Jane Andrews, came on the Timandra the following year and established a cherry orchard at Huirangi.  Elsie’s mother Jane Andrews and her father George Giddy were among the first pupils at Huirangi School and became childhood sweethearts. They married on Christmas Day 1894, with the bride attended by ten bridesmaids – eight sisters of her own plus two of her husband’s.

Elsie was born on 2 November 1907 and named after her mother’s youngest sister Elsie Andrews. She was the last of five girls, and attended Bird Road, Kaimata and Inglewood Schools then New Plymouth Girls’ High before becoming a teacher herself. Elsie’s career took her all over the North Island, from schools in Palmerston North and Taranaki to Raurimu and Auckland.

Elsie began writing her memoirs – what she calls in the preface her “humble slice of history” – in 1980 and completed them in 1986. A typed copy was eventually gifted to Puke Ariki and is now part of the Taranaki Research Centre’s reference collection. It provides a vivid record of her long life, told with the cheerful enthusiasm of a woman who believed she had always felt God’s presence and been given many blessings.

Elsie’s recollections range from knitting scarves for soldiers during the First World War and her entire family coming down with influenza during the epidemic of 1918 to the first time she laid eyes on a motor car and getting her hair permed (which took six hours and involved curlers attached to large rings suspended from the ceiling of the salon).

But some of the most charming stories are from her school days:

My fifth birthday came and I was eager to start school… My family had seen to it that I was well equipped with the pre-school experiences and knowledge needed to commence school in those days… I could say my alphabet from A to Z and recognise the letters, both large and small… spell several three-letter words… count to 10, say and sing many of the Nursery Rhymes, and was familiar with the usual fairy tales, like the Three Bears etc. Bird Road School was within easy walking distance and I went off with Doris and Madge in the mornings and walked home with other little primers in the afternoons.

Funnily enough, Elsie’s aunt and namesake worked as a teacher at Kaimata School which had a roll nearly double that of Bird Road:

We found Kaimata School was a much larger two-teacher one than Bird Road, but Madge and I were soon accepted and made many friends… Father bought us a pony, Darky, to ride to school. (All schools had a horse paddock alongside them and many children used horses as transport with a bridle and a sack to sit on.) For Madge, Darky was a wonderful treasure but alas! to me he was a real disaster. I was supposed to ride behind her but how to get on into that position was more than I could manage. My chief complaint was that Madge wouldn’t bring Darky in close enough to the bank… I can see now that I was never built to be a rider of anything. I was given two very strong sturdy legs for WALKING and that has always been my preference and my standby.

Pupils learnt much more than reading, writing and arithmetic:

It was while I was a pupil at Kaimata that I remember toothbrush drills being introduced… Each room had a shallow cupboard fixed to the outside wall and inside it held our individual enamel mugs with [a] toothbrush attached to the handle by a length of string. When the bell rang after the lunch hour, it was toothbrush drill time. We collected our mugs and stood in line while the monitors came along filling them with slightly salted water. After the first day’s demonstration on how to use our tooth brush correctly and brush our teeth with an up and down motion, and not sideways, our drill began – not to numbers as much of our other school drills were done – but by more explicit instructions e.g. Ready: front teeth, right side, left side, open mouths, top teeth, bottom teeth, rinse mouths. We next filed past the drain and emptied our mugs and received a half mug of clean water to rinse our toothbrush and mug, emptying it on the grass before putting away in the cupboard for tomorrow’s repeat – reform lines and march into school. I wonder as I look back now how much hygiene there was in that exercise!

Elsie never married or had children of her own but wrote proudly about having eight nieces and nephews, 32 great-nieces and nephews, 21 great-great nieces and nephews and one great-great-great nephew – which she admitted “makes me feel as old as Methuselah!”

Elsie Giddy died in New Plymouth on 7 September 1988 and is buried at Huirangi Cemetery.