The Faheys - Part I: Ruby's family

My father's mum, Ruby Ethel (Nana as we kids knew her) was a Fahey. Her father's side of the family is the only Irish streak in our otherwise Scots-Anglo gene pool - and the least known of my four grandparent's family lines. 

I have recently looked at Irish records to try to trace their origins. Fahey is the most common name in Ireland (and many birth and marriage records were lost or destroyed) so I didn’t hold much hope of finding anything solid. But, after a little sleuthing, I found some interesting results.

I'm thrilled to have found out more about these Irish roots or ours, and I can definitely confirm that although our Scottish tendencies are strong, our family carry more than a few traits of Ruby's undoubtedly Irish soul. 

Ruby Ethel Templeton (nee Fahey)

Ruby married William Henry George Templeton in Dunedin in 1929. This is the two of them on their wedding day. They had one son, William Young Templeton, my father, on July 18, 1933.

William & Ruby on their wedding day, 1929.

William was worked in the Postal Service until his retirement. Ruby was employed as a housemaid in a Queenstown boarding house for a time. It is likely they met in South Dunedin. Both Ruby's parents and William's mother Eliza Jane were living in the same neighbourhood - just streets apart around that time.

Ruby's father

James Hugh Fahey, was originally from Balclutha, South Otago. Her mum, Florence, also raised in Balclutha, were Presbytarian Scots farmers from the Isle of Bute in Argyllshire on her mother's side, while her father's family were Catholic farmers from Ireland.

James Hugh and Florence were married in St Andrews Presbytarian Parish, Balclutha in 1895.

James Hugh was born to Martin Fahey and Emily Sale in Warepa, on the South Otago coast. James grew up and worked on the family farm, 'Rockview' at Four Mile Creek and after marrying Florence started a family there too. 

James Hugh left the farm abruptly around 1915, allegedly a little aggrieved by his father’s decision to pass the farm onto his brother John. He shifted his young family to Dunedin. This family disagreement must have made life quite difficult for James and Florence, without support from family and being apart from the community they had known. 

In Dunedin, James struggled to provide for his family for some time until, finally, he secured work as the Sextant at Dunedin's Southern Cemetery.  As Sextant James was responsible for preparing the graves and maintaining the cemetery grounds. The family lived with him in the Sextant cottages, which have since been destroyed. Ruby was a young girl then and had memories of her and her sisters being allowed to ceremonially throw rose petals on the freshly dug burial plots. (I am on the hunt for a photo of the girls in front of the cottage which my sister remembers seeing).

Here is the family, circa 1917, presumably to mark the occasion of their son Jim leaving for military service. The infant Dorothy was born in 1916, (their youngest, Joyce, was not yet born).

James Hugh FAHEY (1863/4-1935)  m. Florence MACKAY (1874-1955)

Married 18 December 1895 in St Andrews Parish, Balclutha, New Zealand.

Children: 

1. James (1896-d. ? Chch)

2. Florence May (1903-1973

3. Ruby Ethel  (1907-1991)

4. Ivy Evelyn (1910-1992)

5. Dorothy Henrietta Cavell (1916-1999)

6. Joyce Gwendoline (1919-1989)

Southern Cemetery in Dunedin

Photo courtesy www.tinker.net.nz

James Hugh retired about 1925 and moved to a house very close to the cemetery, in Maitland St, Dunedin, where they lived until his death in 1935. Following his death, Florence moved to live with Ruby and Bill at their Four Square grocery store (in the Northeast Valley on the other side of town). She died twenty years later in 1955. 

James Hugh, his wife Florence and their children:
[from left] Ruby, Ivy, James (Jnr) [in army uniform?], Florence (Jnr) and Dorothy [on Florence's knee].
 c.1916/7.