Over dinner last night, as the conversation turned to Israel, my dad started reminiscing about his father‘s first cousin – Hugh (Tui) Haswell, who was killed in 1917, in an Arab village in (then) Palestine called Ayun Kara. That village is now Rishon leZion, part of greater Tel Aviv.
Tui used to love to imitate his father, Henry Haswell, when he was in full flight complaining about his dinner table. To tell the story, my dad started putting on the accent of Henry Haswell and quoting him – who apparently had the scottish accent common to the people in their part of New Zealand at the time (Henry’s parents were part of the great Nova Scotian migration to northern New Zealand in the 1850s).
So my father was imitating the voice of a man who died more than a hundred years ago, which had been passed on to him by his father, via Tui. It is quite amazing to see oral history in action like that.
Dad finished up by saying that Tui had been such a part of family folklore around the family dinner table that he was astonished to find out in the 1950s that Tui was dead.
According to Mexican legend, there are three types of death: The first occurs when all bodily functions cease and the soul leaves the body; the second occurs when the body is interred, returning one’s physical shell to the earth; and the final, most definitive death, occurs when no one remembers you.
Tui must have been a remarkable man, to have lived so strongly in the collective memory.
[…] Penguin unearthed writes, “Oral History“: […]
Hi, Tui was my great-uncle and I grew up with stories about him from my grandmother for whom Tui had been her favourite brother. I love your stories about my great-grandfather Henry Haswell. His mother tongue was Scottish Gaelic and while I did not ever meet Henry, I knew many of the next generation who still spoke with a beautiful Gaelic lilt. You can find a story I wrote about Tui on the NZ Mounted Rifles’ website. The Waipu Museum has recently installed a story board about Tui, using my story, at Langs Beach where his mother — Elizabeth Matheson Haswell (nee Lang) grew up. His story board is adjacent to one about his cousin Willie Lang who I knew as a child. I’d love to be in touch — we are clearly related! I’d like to know the connection. I live in Canberra and am just completing a PhD in history.
Well, it’s clear I didn’t click on the active links in your story before writing my response! So Willie Lang was your grandfather! I knew his sisters, my grandmother’s cousins, Myra, Elsie, Hilda and Annie very well and adored them. I look forward to hearing from you.
[…] we’d seen on a recent holiday to Langs Beach where a storyboard stands by the surf about Private Hugh ‘Tui’ Gordon Haswell of the Auckland Mounted Rifles going off to war with his beloved horse. Neither made it […]