Robyn Mortimer's Blog (7)

THE MARIE LOUISE – TROOP CARRIER

A war of attrition had started over the murder of one man, Koroi i Latikau, a man from the powerful kingdom of Bau.  The murdered man together with Captain Harmon of the schooner Isle of Beauty, have been negotiating in the area for labourers to work on plantations.  The labourers were to be…

THE MARIE LOUISE-LIFE AFTER DEATH

Fiji has long enjoyed a proud affiliation with the sea. Like all the island nations of the…

A QUESTION OF AUTHORSHIP

Levuka

Consider: If someone you knew had…

LIFE & TIMES OF THE MARIE LOUISE

It’s no surprise that the two men most important in Grandmother Maggie’s life arrived in Levuka by ship.  After all the first, her father, arrived sometime in the early 1870’s, the other her husband to be from America  around 1897.  No air travel in those days.…

TREASURE AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW

For Frank and Lucy Fleming living back in Suva, the years following on from the 2^nd World War slipped slowly by.

Noel Coward kept in touch, arranging, as promised, a Royal photograph to be forwarded from the Queen.  Coward even wrote a story loosely based on the Flemings that he called…

FRANK FLEMING

Levuka where it all started

My numerous forebears, it seems, were predestined to roam far from their birthplace.  Great Grandmother Geraldine I always thought was the…

GRANDMOTHER’S COUSIN

Chance, serendipity, coincidence... there’s no denying luck does play a big part when you set out to explore your ancestors background.  

I started with virtually nothing, a few tattered letters and clippings, my grandmother’s maiden name, my grandfather’s alias, two small towns on a world map, Levuka in Fiji and Peru, Indiana and very little else. Then childhood memories kicked in, followed by search…