| Notes |
- Newsletter of the International Haskell Family Society
Volume 13, No. 2, June 2004
Francesca Kate Elizabeth (Bess) Rutherford, the last survivor and youngest of the children of John Victor Haskell, native of Fontmell Magna, Dorset, England, has recently died at Whangarei, New Zealand.
Bess was born in Greymouth, New Zealand while her father was a surveyor and civil engineer with the Public Works Department of New Zealand. He pioneered the surveying of New Zealand's railway lines and supervised their construction, including bridges, tunnels, and viaducts, in various parts of New Zealand.
At the age of nineteen months, during Easter 1912 while her family was traveling from Te Puke to Northland, Bess suddenly developed diphtheria and had to be rushed to Auckland hospital for treatment. The nurses there took a great fancy to her and wanted to keep her. It was they who decided she should be called Bess, not Betsy as her family had called her until then.
On 3 February 1931 the family was living in Hawke's Bay when the great earthquake struck. That morning Bess and her father were outdoors together, and the quake was so violent they were unable to remain standing, though holding onto a fence. Bess, who adored her father and thought he could do anything, cried out, "Dad! Make it stop!"
Elsewhere that day in Hawke's Bay, Bess's civil engineer brother, "Doc", was supervising construction of the Mohaka railway viaduct foundations. Some of his men were working in a caisson 21 metres (83 feet) under the bed of the Mohaka River and were lucky to escape with their lives.
By 1932 Vie Haskell had retired and was living in Auckland with his family, including Bess.
In 1934 Vie and his family moved to Toatoa, Eastern Bay of Plenty, to manage the farm of his deceased half-brother, Tom King. It was there that Bess met the man she later married, a young Scottish farm manager named Renton Stewart Rutherford. By the time of their wartime marriage, in January 1941, Ren was in the Air Force and on his way to Britain after training in Canada.
Ren survived two operational tours over Europe, flying in Blenheim and Boston aircraft. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his part in the Dieppe raid in August 1942. A navigator-bomb aimer, he later instructed the Free French airmen in these skills in Britain and once shook hands with General de Gaulle.
In 1945, at the end of the war, Ren returned to New Zealand to resume his life with Bess and his career as a farm appraiser with the State Advances Corporation. After moving from place to place over the years, the Rutherford's finally settled in Whangarei, where Ren became district farm appraiser for Northland. He retired in 1966 and died in 1973. Afterwards Bess lived a busy life with her family and many friends. In her late eighties she went with her daughter and family to Disneyland in California and enjoyed walking around the establishment on her own.
Bess is survived by two sons and one daughter, all of whom have childre
- By Alister Matheson
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1910 - 2004 (93 years)
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