The roses of Rose Cottage still bloom today. Photo / Claire Bibby
An explosion ripped through Rose Cottage on Rose St, but somehow, a budding rose garden survived. Claire Bibby delves into the history and mystery of the land that defined her ancestors.
In 1859 when there was no road, not even a well-defined track, John Rose drove his horse and dray through the fern between Napier and the Ahuriri Spit.
Perhaps the enterprising Mr Rose, who came to live in Waipawa, was testing the land for suitability for his carrier service as by 1863 he had established himself as the Waipawa Hotel proprietor, advertising his services conveying people, goods and mail between Waipawa and Napier.
In the book Abbott’s Ford, A history of Waipawa, by Margaret Gray, an 1867 census and map shows the Waipawa Hotel marked on the corner of Ruataniwha St and future Waverley St, and on the nearby future Rose St, the home of John Rose is marked.
He is listed as a labourer, with one child. Close to the hotel, at the bottom of the future Rose St, the map shows a house - built in 1858.
It is still standing and is the oldest house in Waipawa.
“In those very early days, 1857-1860, the very heart of the settlement seems to be the area at the base of Rose St,” Gray observed.
When John Rose died in Napier in 1898, the Waipawa Mail noted that he was an old Waipawa identity, after whom Rose St was named, and had a life interest in a property in the vicinity of Rose St. This was the land on which the Waipawa Hotel had stood, before it burned down in 1889.
In 1893, James Bibby (the second white child born in Waipawa, in 1862), and Mary moved into their newly built marital home on Rose St. Their house was simply referred to by family as “Rose St”, the name by which it is called today.
They brought up a family of seven children in the home and the next part of this tale concerns the second child, Edward, known as Ted, born in 1896, and the fourth child John, born in 1899.
The Bibbys’ Rose St home was destined to be surrounded by the vicarages of St Peter’s Church. The first vicarage was to their north, the second on their southern boundary, the third, built in 1906, to their northeast and the fourth beyond that. It followed, the Bibbys being a strong church going family, that there were many visits back and forth between the various vicarages.
At the age of 20, during the First World War, Ted Bibby signed up for military service. He was serving overseas in 1917 when he received a letter from home advising that his young brother John, aged 17, had died of pneumonia in July.
John had played at a rugby game and when travelling home, got caught in the open in the rain without a coat and got sick. He underwent an operation on the family dining room table and was convalescing at home when he died.
At the time of his death, John was secretary of the St Peter’s Sunday School, an enthusiastic footballer and excelled in athletics. He was a district high school senior cadet and remembered in the local newspapers as a bright personality, with a bright career predicted for him.
Ted returned home to Rose St from the Western Front in the winter of 1919.
What thoughts passed through his mind?
It was almost two years to the day that his brother had died.
One bright memory associated with John was to flourish in the summer - roses.
When Ted had been away at war, John had gone down to the first vicarage, taken some rose cuttings and planted them in the Bibby family Rose St garden.
It’s unclear what motivated John to take those rose cuttings. In 1903 the first vicarage had been sold to Mrs Taylor. In 1911 she offered it to let. She later swapped her land with the Donghi family. The date of this transaction is unclear however in January 1917 the Donghis were living at the first vicarage and in 1926 the Donghis advertised in the Waipawa Mail, a house to let on Rose St with the name Rose Cottage.
Emma and Joseph Donghi were Waipawa identities. Emma gave birth to 18 children, one of whom met up with Ted Bibby at Sling Camp, England, during war service.
In time, the Donghis’ parents passed away and Rose Cottage was occupied by their son Bob (Robert). Bob served overseas in the Second World War and returned home to live at Rose Cottage, in Waipawa.
On the morning of New Year’s Day, 1949, Bob’s house caught fire. The fire brigade attended. Gray wrote: “They had just hooked up to the water and began pumping when terrific explosions rocked the area.”
The noise was heard several miles away. Sheets of iron were hurled into neighbouring properties, the neighbour’s windows were shattered and houses within half a mile were struck by small fragments of iron and nickel.
Ted Bibby was standing on the garden path of the Bibby family home in Rose St when the blasts took place.
Years later he showed his granddaughter Jan where he had been standing and described how the sky rained down hundreds of pieces of fragments of wood and dirt.
It was thought that Bob Donghi had brought some munitions home from the war as souvenirs, and these had exploded in the fire.
“When the tumult and the shouting had died, the house was destroyed save for one room at the front,” wrote Gray.
The front room was relocated on to another Donghi section in Waipawa and a new home was built on the site, which still stands today.
Waipawa pioneer John Rose is buried in the old Napier cemetery - there is no marker on his grave.
Brothers John and Ted Bibby are buried in the Waipawa cemetery as is Bob Donghi. Jan Gosling now lives in her great-grandparents’ Rose St home and looks after the garden and John’s roses, which still flourish each year.
Heritage Roses NZ have yet to be able to identify them by name.
'The last two days have been pretty emotional. I’m just crushed by the whole experience.'