The dead tell tales
Fredrika Fanny Buckeridge
(also Goulter, nee Trolove) 1867-1956
A few months ago Edward Buckeridge featured in this column, but his wife Fredrika (Rika) is also of great interest.
Rika was the daughter of Frederick Trolove, who arrived at Nelson in 1850. His brother Edwin came two years later. They each married and settled on adjacent farms near Clarence, but Frederick’s wife, Mary, died six weeks after giving birth to Fredrika, their third child. The children were brought up by Edwin and his wife Sarah with their own 10 children.
The neighbouring property, Hawkesbury, was owned by widower Cyrus Goulter, and as is the way in small communities, the families were joined in marriage in 1887 when Amy Goulter (Cyrus and Ann’s daughter) married Peter Trolove (Rika’s brother). Rika Trolove was one of the bridesmaids, at 19 years’ old: ‘‘so tiny and fairy-like … it occurred to some of the guests that another wedding might be in the air, that of the widower of over 60 to the young bridesmaid’’. Family tradition has it that when Ann Goulter lay dying in 1886 she asked ‘‘Who will look after Cyrus?’’ to which teenager Rika answered, ‘‘I will’’. She and Cyrus did marry, but as an orphan she was a Ward of the Court and they had to wait until her 21st birthday in 1888. The story of Cyrus and Rika’s romance is sympathetically told in Mary Catherine Goulter’s ‘‘Keeper of the Sheep’’, noting that the age difference did not matter as Rika took such tender care of their ageing father.
Cyrus Goulter died in 1891, and his and Rika’s daughter, Gwendolyn, died two years later. That same year, 1893, Rika was one of the thousands of women who registered on the electoral roll for the first time.
Rika began a new life with Edward Buckeridge, a government surveyor, when they married in 1897; they were to have three children, Clarence, Florence and Mavis. In 1902 they moved to Te Papatapu on the Aotea Harbour. They also owned Rosamond House in Kawhia, but lived there only occasionally.
Rika and Edward Buckeridge were stalwarts of the Kawhia-Aotea-Raglan community for many years, their home often being a staging post for travellers or people in need of medical attention. They also ran the postal agency. Clarence’s book ‘‘Reflections of the Aotea’’ records many family stories, including that Rika had the honour of cutting the ribbon at the opening of the Pakoka Bridge in 1922. Clarence stayed on farming in the Aotea district, while Florence (Phon), who married Rika’s cousin, Frank Trolove, farmed at Ruapuke. Mavis did not marry and died in 1925.
In one of Rika’s diaries she recounts interactions with local Maori including King Mahuta, reflecting on illness, tapu, changing customs and how she and her family ‘‘were more or less a curiosity to them with our way of dress and home comforts’’. She also notes her unwillingness to eat dried shark.
After Edward’s death in 1933, Rika continued farming at Te Papatapu. In the late 1940s she described Te Papatapu as being ‘‘in the wilderness, with no metalled roads’’ – the roads were often impassable mud. After Frank Trolove died in 1950 Rika moved in with her daughter and helped run the farm and household, despite being already in her 80s.
Fredrika Trolove was an accomplished artist. The Alexander Turnbull Library holds two of her watercolours and descendants have other small paintings proudly on display.
Rika was not quite five feet tall and had an 18-inch waist. Often called ‘‘Little Lady’’ by family and friends, she had fine delicate features and wore her long hair swept softly into a bun. She died in 1956 and was buried at Ruapuke Cemetery alongside her husband and daughter. She is remembered by her grandchildren as being a very special person.