Later Years of the Young Qualtroughs from the book "A Quota of Qualtrough" Pages 48-70

 

Emily Qualtrough (1855-1941) - professional nurse

Following her parents' deaths in 1881 EMILY QUALTROUGH became a professional nurse. Photo taken about c.1890

 

EMILY, the youngest Qualtrough child, also remained single but we know more about her because she lived to the age of 86 and was a very family-conscious person who kept in touch with kith and kin.

 

She learnt nursing skills and, following the death of her parents, went out on private cases, looking after patients in their own homes. She moved about the countryside attending cases as far apart as Hamilton, Thames and Auckland. 

 

 

Her patients included some notable people of the day for not only was she regarded as a good nurse but as a very special sort of person.

 

Fair-complexioned and blue-eyed, she was gentle and smiling, devoted to her church. "Saintly" and "angelic" are words often used to described her nature and she abhorred vulgarity.

 

A great-niece, Mary Gavin, recalls that it distressed Aunt Emily to hear people swear. Why, she would ask, could they not give vent to their feelings just as easily and far less coarsely with, "Oh, scissors! Oh Needles! Oh, Pins!"

 

As well as a good nurse she was a good cook, though it was said that when Emily baked there would be a trail of flour from one end of the house to the other.

 

After retiring from nursing Emily gave much of her time to church work and took an interest in the Auckland Manx Society. She was living with her nieces Evie and Bell Haddock in Pratt Street, Ponsonby and to those of us who can remember her in those later years, she was the epitome of the 'little old lady passing by' of a song popular at the time, dressed formally in gloves and with a hatpin holding a modest black straw hat on her silver head and smelling faintly of lavender water.

 

She would clasp teenage relations to her bosom and murmur, "Dear child!"

 

Following her parents' deaths in 1881 EMILY QUALTROUGH became a professional nurse. Photo taken about c.1890

 

Ever family-conscious, it was a sorrow to her that the Qualtrough name would die out with the demise of her brother Thomas only son, Jim. Of her brothers, only Willy and Tom had produced families, and Willy's brood of eight were all girls, Tom's five other children daughters.

 

Jim Qualtrough had married in 1927, but nearly 14 years later he was still childless. Then came the news that a baby was on the way. Aunt Emily's delight could hardly be contained with the news, " It's a boy!"

 

Emily asked Jim and his wife Minnie a special favour - could the baby be christened in the family church at Pakuranga? Arrangements were duly made and baby Malcolm James Qualtrough was welcomed into the Methodist Church on Sunday 12 October 1941.

 

But his little Great-Aunt Emily was not there to savour the moment. She had been ailing for some months and perhaps the excitement of it all had been too much. for her for she collapsed and died on the Saturday night prior to the christening. The family carried on with her wishes, however, as all arrangements had been made. It was a poignant hour though for relations who had attended the christening to see Emily's coffin resting on the spot beneath the altar where the longed-for male descendant had been baptised only the day before.

 

Emily was interred in the graveyard beside the church she had loved all her life. She had, in 1929, set up a Trust of £100 (sterling) for the upkeep of the property as it had at that time, through disuse, become neglected. The interest on this money was used for the purpose until the building was officially handed over to the Howick Historical Society.

 

(See Genealogical Chart 4)