Crabapple Glory
of wedding gifts was on display and there was ‘‘a handsome wedding carriage brought down from Dunedin specially for the occasion’’. So it must have been an enormous shock when detectives arrived from Dunedin and exposed ‘‘Percy’’ as Amy, a wellknown con artist.
Ordinarily, in an article like this we would now focus on Amy Bock’s extraordinary life as a compulsive fraudster. But that story has been told many times before. Let’s think instead about the poor girl she had duped into a fake marriage. In fact, Agnes (Nessie) Ottaway was a mature woman, nearly 32 years old when ‘‘Percy’’ walked her down the aisle. Perhaps that’s what made the Ottaways an easy ‘‘mark’’ for Amy. In Edwardian society to be unmarried at 32 made you a hardened ‘‘spinster’’ and probably ‘‘on the shelf’’ for life. George was undoubtedly relieved when their charming boarding house guest ‘‘Mr Redwood’’ formally asked for permission to court and marry the last of his three daughters.
Poor Nessie. How did she cope with the public humiliation of being headline news in every newspaper in New Zealand and many overseas? By quickly marrying someone else, for a start. In May 1910 she quietly became the second wife of a middleaged Balclutha widower, Thomas Gilmour. She also became stepmother to his grown children, including an eldest daughter only a few years younger than Agnes herself. Was there any romance involved? Impossible to say now but there is a definite sense of ‘‘making the best of it’’ to a union like this. The marriage was to be shortlived in any case. Thomas Gilmour died of heart disease in 1918.
Agnes married again in 1927, this time to Alexander (Kenny) Campbell, a farmer and decorated World War 1 veteran of her own age (now 50), from Kaka Point.
Amy Bock dressed as a woman.
This seems a much better match; Nessie and Kenny would have known each other most of their lives, since their mothers had operated rival accommodation houses at the Nuggets for years. Sadly, this marriage was to be brief as well; Kenny Campbell died from cancer in January 1930. Agnes subsequently gravitated to Dunedin, by then quite comfortably off after inheriting property from two husbands and her mother. When she died in 1936 she owned a house, shop and land in Mornington as well as a house and land at Kaka Point. Though thrice married, Agnes is buried alone in a grave at Andersons Bay cemetery. Her headstone bears the simple inscription ‘‘At Rest’’.
Wild tree laden redorange fruit golden leaves we pick pick pick bubble boil mushy pulp muslin bag hangs drips drains nightlong into the pot bulk with sugar skim the scum pour jars glow rosy in a row to set sharp and sweet on toast.
Claire Arthur is a retired Primary teacher inspired by the natural world, injustice and special events. She is grateful for the motivation and support from her Tight Lines writing group.