Bill Crooks - Marriage and Children

Marriage and Children

Bill Crooks married Josephine Inez Richardson (Gisborne, 17 December 1910) who was the youngest daughter of a pioneer farmer at Wharekopae, not far from Ngatapa. Her father was Eric U'Ren Richardson and her mother Florence Adelaide Richardson (née Davies).

Douglas Cook organised Christmas and Guy Fawkes parties at Eastwoodhill, to which the locals were invited. Bill and Jo met here. They married in March 1940 at the Cook Street Anglican Church in Gisborne. When Crooks had plucked up enough courage to tell his employer about his marriage, Douglas Cook was furious at first, but after a while he wrote to Jo and said “he would welcome her to Eastwoodhill, that Bill was like a son to him. The flowery words were probably the only onse of such a kind promising nature that Jo received from Douglas Cook and did not portend the nature of the life she was about to lead”.

Bill and Jo had four sons and a daughter. They lived in a small, two-bedroom cottage at "Pear Park", with little comfort. A poor water supply, never more than an outside toilet, and no laundry facilities, apart from a copper.

“The wages paid to Bill were meagre and did not go anywhere to meeting the needs of the family. Jo's two sisters Phyll and Helen used to pay for the children's clothes. Over the years Bill was promised much by Douglas Cook, a home for Bill was supposed to have been built opposite McLean's, in amongst the trees that had been planted there. Later Douglas Cook said that he was going to buy the hills that are now Eivers' and Sherratt's as a farm for Bill. None of this eventuated. Douglas Cook had money to spend on furniture, antiques, trees, rugs, crystal, silver, paintings, book etc. but Bill had to wait. On Douglas Cook's death he received the contents of the house. That though was hardly compensation to either Bill or to Jo and the children for the years of frugal living”.