A Slice of Lebanese life. The George Family in the Catlins and Dunedin

A Slice of Lebanese Life: The Joseph George Family in the Catlins and Dunedin. By Suraya Langston

 Before my father, Allan Langston, passed away nine years ago I made a promise. He asked me to look after his old photos and stories of his Lebanese grandparent's (Joseph and Nora George) life in the Catlins many years ago. Perhaps he knew it was a unique pocket of our family history that could easily get lost as we have all moved towards life in cities and warmer places. He also knew I loved learning about our family history and hearing the stories of the past. Perhaps it is no co-incident then, that twelve years ago I chose to move with my husband, Kovido from Dunedin to live in the Catlins area of South Otago, completely out of the blue. Ostensibly, we had fallen in love with an old and somewhat run down two-story boarding house beside the water and forests of Pounawea when we had just gone for a weekend camping. Much to our family and friends surprise we bought it and moved in and began life in a rural landscape for the next six years. Quite a shock for a couple of townies! After all my father’s Lebanese grand parents and off-spring had left the Catlins in the late 1930s to return to Dunedin when great-grandmother Nora (Nurr) had gone nearly completely blind from untreated diabetes. No one from our family had ever lived there again but I had grown up visiting the old farmhouse at Kahuika, inland from beautiful Papatowai beach with my family many times over the years. Even though dad was born and brought up in Dunedin he visited the Catlins regularly all his life with our family and many of his Lebanese cousins, aunts and uncles. He cherished many special memories of his childhood spent down there with his beloved grandparents, Jhidi and Sitti George. So somehow I felt a sense of destiny in moving there. It felt like a beautiful peaceful retreat after a busy and active decade living in the city of Dunedin. Before that I had spent nearly seven years working and studying in London whilst traveling a lot in Europe and Asia. Now I felt as though I wished to take stock, slow down and reflect on what was most important to me. So began the gentle meandering through the beauty of the local Catlins landscape as we worked to make our 100 year old house at Pounawea more habitable! Our house was only 36 km from the Tahakopa/ Kahuika area where the old George farm house stood. My dad would come to visit us from Dunedin and share stories and memories of the George family's life there at the turn of the twentieth century. We visited the old George farm land, the old Tahakopa railway station and the tiny school at Kahuika where my grandmother (Katie (Soraya) George) and her sisters and brothers attended. It seemed amazing that my great grandparents could come all the way from Lebanon to live in this remote, rugged and albeit, very beautiful part of Southern New Zealand. Thus I wanted to explore the Catlins and learn more about how it was for them to live there, as well as having a break from city life. But first a little bit more about me and my family...My name is Suraya. I took the name of my grandmother Soraya over twenty years ago in honour of my special memories and great love for her. Suraya is an Arabic name meaning light or sun. Even though this was my grandmother’s given name, she spent most of her life being called Kate, why I’m not sure? But it would seem that 100 years ago it was probably important to blend in with the predominant English speaking culture of that time, to not stand out and be too different! My father also told me that many of the surnames of our Lebanese ancestors were changed when they arrived here, often probably because they were unpronounceable for English speakers! Our great great grandfather in Lebanon was Geryes Boulas Fakhry. Joseph George (our great grandfather),took his surname from his father's first name Geryes when he arrived in New Zealand. His first name Yousef became Joseph. My great grandmother Nurr became Nora. The Fakhry clan became Farry or Farr. The Khouri families became Coory. There are many more. So I grew up in Dunedin within the warm embrace of the Lebanese community that immigrated and settled here. I was the fifth child of eight born to my mother and father over an eleven-year period. My twin brother Richard joined me for the ride. Whilst my dad had the colour and drama of Lebanon in his blood, mum was a sensible, quiet woman who immigrated to New Zealand as a nurse from Great Britain in 1950. Perhaps having that quieter English blood was a good counterbalance to the Lebanese passion and eccentricity I saw about me! I remember being surrounded by cuddly, dark eyed, olive skinned great aunts and uncles who smothered us with kisses and Arabic endearments and wonderous amounts of Lebanese food. Even when we were groaning with fullness they continued to shovel it on our plates. Strangely enough my husband tells me I often do the same to my poor polite guests even now, though they’re clearly saying no more! My great grandparents, Joseph (Yousef) and Nora (Nurr) George immigrated from Lebanon to the Otago area in 1899 -1901. No one in the family seems sure of the exact date. Joseph's older brother Michael George and sister Christina, settled in Dunedin like many other Lebanese from the village of Becharre in Northern Lebanon. But Joseph, a strong, earthy character according to my father, chose to go farming, after ten years in the Dunedin area working as a hawker like many other Lebanese Immigrants. First he had a small parcel of land at Tewaewae Point in Southland where he ran a few sheep, felled trees and worked for the local sawmill. Then in 1914, when he had saved enough money, he bought 110 acres of land on Mouatt-Saddle Rd in the Tahakopa area of the Catlins, South Otago. He ended up farming there for twenty years and he and Nora had eleven children in total, although sadly two boys and a girl died as babies. However their first daughter Mary was born in Lebanon and accompanied her parents on the long journey from Port Said in Egypt to Port Chalmers, Dunedin where they arrived by ship over 100 years ago. My great aunt Jessie (Yasmine) Paget (nee George), their youngest daughter, recalls being told that they experienced some very rough seas on the journey. At one point Mary, only 1 or 2 years old nearly pitched overboard after a big wave and was only saved by Nora grabbing her dress and dragging her back from the edge! My grandmother Soraya, the fourth born child was brought up in the Catlins with her siblings where they attended the Kahuika school. I look back on photos of Soraya and her sisters at their local school and see dark eyed little girls gazing out. Some of the children have bare feet and I wonder if they are hardy characters and it is summer or is it the economics of large families and the difficulty to have enough for even the basics? After all this was the time when the Catlins area was considered an impoverished area of N.Z. I also look back at photos of my great grandmother and grandfather and wonder how it was for them to live, work and bring up their children in the often harsh climate of southern New Zealand in a simple two room farm house. Great Aunt Jessie said they worked very hard on the land and she even remembered how her mother Nurr would push her young children in a pram and accompany Yousef to sell goods in the to the local people of Tahakopa to supplement their income. I also remember my grandmother Soraya, told us how she and her sisters,Jean (Jamille) and Margaret (Molki) would often ride to school on a horse, particularly when it snowed and there was no other way to get there! There are quite a few photos of Joseph and his sons John (Jock) and Joe, felling trees and working hard on the land with cattle, sheep, vegetables and an apple orchard. Great Aunt Jessie said they had to be a 'hardy lot' to survive in the Catlins at the turn of the century. My great grandparents only spoke Lebanese Arabic when they arrived and must have been unusual and strangely foreign to the predominant flow of English speaking immigrants from England, Scotland and Ireland into Otago at that time. My father remembers his grandfather (jhidi) as having very olive skin, a big bushy moustache, hazel eyes, short but stocky stature and was “strong as an ox” as he worked so hard on the land for many years. Dad also remembered that he had a warm and loving nature but was firm with discipline and rules with his children and grandchildren.He would ask my father run to the local store at Kahuika to buy his pipe tobacco and time him with a stopwatch! Dad's grandmother Nurr was tall for a Lebanese woman and, was also very warm and nurturing. She worked hard bringing up eight children with the very basic amenities of their farmhouse and cooked many traditional dishes of Lebanon. Kibbi, made with minced lamb, bulghar wheat and herbs,was a favourite dish and still much loved today by the Lebanese community of Dunedin. I There was also imjudra (rice, onions and beans),lahie illos (potato, onion and tomato), mishee (cabbage rolls stuffed with minced lamb and rice), and fasulia (green beans and tomato). Great Auntie Jessie recalls how her mother also made her own flat bread (man'oushe), yoghurt (luban), butter (sumnee) and white cheese (arishi) whilst her father Joseph raised pigs and cured his own bacon. She remembers being aged five or six and “running a mile” when he came to kill the pigs! She also remembered they had large amounts of apples every year from their orchard on the Catlin's farm and many were preserved by an old drying method, such as they had done with the abundant fruits growing in the fertile mountains and hills of Becharre. My father said his grandparents always spoke in broken English despite many years in New Zealand as they mostly spoke the colloquial dialect of Arabic at home. Despite learning to speak English he never learnt to read and write and signed his name with an ‘x’ on any legal documents. Dad remembered that they were hilariously funny in some of the things they said and told me that jhidi often told him how he hated bloody 'Bort' Chalmers as as that is where he first arrived in New Zealand on a cold, grey and windy wet day in 1901. Apparently there is no 'p' sound in Arabic so he always used a 'b' sound instead! Then there is the funny story of Nurr. She and Yousef shifted back to Dunedin in 1934 because of her deteriorating eye sight and the wish to give their now grown up children more opportunities in the city. She was returning from town one day to her Dunedin home in Whitby St in a taxi. When the taxi driver had difficulty following her instructions because of her broken English, he drove past her house. She called out “You bast it, you bast it!” and the taxi driver looked aghast and said “There's no need to swear at me, lady...”Clearly the 'p's and 'b's had got mixed up again! Nora Newman (nee George), daughter of John (Jock George) and granddaughter of Jhidi remembers him many years later when he lived in the George home at 110 Stafford St. Nurr had died in 1944 just before they shifted there. Nora remembers Jhidi as being a 'lovely old man' who enjoyed going to movies and being with his family in his retired years. Even though she was only 3 or 4 years old she can remember he had scrambled eggs for breakfast every morning made by his daughters Jean and Margaret. He also had a cup of tea with a special wide brim to accommodate his large bushy moustache! He would always pour some of the tea into the saucer and give it to his grandchildren. He was also very playful and she remembers, on hot days he would often pretend to catch flies in his hands and put them in his mouth to the delight and horror of his grandchildren! They all adored him. He loved to take his grandchildren to the movies. Sadly he died at the movies in 1949, his grandson Michael, only a toddler on his knee. The ushers found him. Nora remembers him being in the open coffin at his home in Stafford St for some days. She remembers picking yellow buttercups and putting them in his hands. So why did they leave Lebanon to come to such a new and faraway landscape? There are many stories about this. Lebanon is a tiny country, about half the size of Otago and resources were scarce for the growing population. There was also a large famine in the nineteenth century which killed an estimated 50,000 people in the Mount Lebanon area. Thus opportunities to travel to new countries with green and fertile lands were probably very enticing. This was also the time that gold was discovered in Otago so Dunedin was prosperous and word spread about the opportunities in Southern New Zealand. Perhaps most importantly, my great-grandparents were Maronite Christians, as were most people dotted through the villages and hills of Mount Lebanon and the Kadisha Valley in northern Lebanon. The Maronites are followers of St Maron who was a priest and catholic monk born in Antioch (now part of Syria). They lived mostly peacefully in this area for many centuries but Lebanon came under the control of the Ottoman Empire from the 16th century until the end of the first world war. As the Muslim religion became more dominant, particulaly in the nineteenth century, there were increasing threats to the security of the Maronites. In fact this tension culminated in three wars between the Druze (a Muslim sect) and the Maronites with the largest one in 1861 where an estimated 12,000 Maronites were killed. So the call of safer pastures in other Christian lands must have played a strong part in the diaspora of Lebanese who immigrated to many countries of the world, including New Zealand. But why the deep south of New Zealand when many Lebanese went to the warmer more hospitable climates of Sydney and Melbourne? One funny story I heard is that the Lebanese from Becharre were so busy playing cards below deck on the ship that they missed getting off at the Australian ports so ended up in Port Chalmers! It seems the Lebanese have a penchant for cards and a spot of gambling and perhaps that also contributes to the entrepreneurial spirit they are well known for in setting up and succeeding in new ventures. Many started out as hawkers with little but the clothes on their backs. My father says that comes from their Phoenician blood as merchant traders who travelled throughout the Mediterranean buying and selling various goods. He often said, rather imperiously I fear, “We are not Arabs, we are Phoenicians!” One hundred years on our Lebanese community is well integrated and respected in New Zealand society in a diverse variety of professions. This did not happen without hard work though, the first Lebanese immigrants of the late 1890s and early 1900s had to face great hardship in their impoverished beginnings. They faced racism and misunderstanding from the dominant cultural groups around them. They were not allowed to vote or draw a pension until 1935 when the Labour government finally changed the laws.Most of the Lebanese immigrants lived close together in the Southern part of Dunedin city, and thus looked after each other in a 'ghetto like' extended family. My father remembered how lovely it was to walk down Carroll St,and get many hugs and treats from his beloved aunties. He also remembered a few spats on street corners when the local school kids called them “Dirty Syrians” and he and his cousins would end up having a few 'punch ups'. Perhaps that was where his love of boxing began! Dad remembered that despite the hardship of those early years, there was always warmth, love and great food and socialising to be found in the Lebanese community. The sense of playfulness and fun was important too with many social events, whether weddings, funerals or Christmas parties and picnics, would bring people together to share, dance and sing. Uncle Victor Coory could always be counted on for showing us old movies and teaching us a few more Arabic words! My journey to our ancestral village of Becharre in Lebanon in1999 was a wonderful and moving experience for me. I was the first member of our immediate family to go there nearly one hundred years after my great grandparents immigrated. I can never forget the “deja vue” experience I had of seeing all these people around me who looked exactly like my cuddly aunts and uncles in Dunedin! Many even had the same surnames…Khouri (Coory),Fakhry (Farry) etc. I remember feeling both overjoyed and amused to realize my relatives were no longer in the minority. We were touched by the warmth and hospitality of the local people and were often invited to eat with people when we had barely met them. We lapped up the great food and I basked in the familiarity of great balls of kibbi, fasulia, mishee, falafal and homous just as my relatives make in Dunedin. Clearly these warm-hearted people were so happy to have visitors in their village again and I remembered they had been through 17 years of civil war where very few people dared to visit Lebanon. Becharre seemed remarkably untouched by war with its beautiful old houses, churches and abundant fruits growing in the gardens and steep valleys below but my few halting sentences of Arabic was not enough to truly find out how it had effected them. I had seen the horror of machine gun holes all over walls of once grand buildings in Beirut, tanks rusting away in disused gullies and massive amounts of demolition and rebuilding going on. But here in northern Lebanon it felt very peaceful. Even though I visited Becharre in the warmth of summer I heard how cold it can be up there in the mountains in the winter, sometimes covered in snow for 3 months or more. This helped me see how my great jhidi and siti would have adapted well to the cold, wild weather of the Catlin's area in New Zealand! They were definitely hardy mountain people who had a strong pioneering spirit to take to their new land in the South Pacific! I had learnt the ancient art of Middle Eastern dance (Raqs Sharqi) or belly dancing in India in 1994 and it had become an important part of my life as I introduced classes in Dunedin. As well as being a wonderful form of exercise for women I explored its history and found it is one of the most ancient dance forms in the world dating back to sacred dance rituals for women and a way of taking care and honouring the sacred aspects of fertility and childbirth. Since this dance originated from many countries of the Middle East I decided I would find out if it was still part of life in Lebanon. I was disappointed to see little evidence of it in the public world but I had not stayed in Beiruit long enough to see if there were any remnants of the once famous shows of the 1960s where women in spectacular costumes rode on stage on colourfully decorated elephants! I decided it was highly unlikely as the civil war had reduced much of Beiruit to rubble and rebuilding was still evident from the heat, dust and chaos we saw there. Lebanon was once known as the “Paris of the Middle East” in the 1960s when many rich and famous sailed there in their yachts to attend these amazing nightclubs and soak up the Meditteranean climate and great food. Clearly those days were over. I now suspected the old dance, Raqs Sharqi, was only part of family rituals, weddings and celebrations. When my husband Kovido and I happened to end up lunching with a large group of Lebanese students in a restaurant in Becharre one afternoon I was delighted to see some women in the group spontaneously jump up, tie scarves on their hips, click their fingers and start to dance the wonderful curving hip movements. Their fellow students, including men, went mad and jumped on tables to join in! So although it is not so obviously part of life in modern Lebanon,the dance certainly pops its head out on such social occasions.This reminded me of the social gatherings at the Cedars of Lebanon Club in Stafford St, Dunedin, where my great aunts and uncles loved to share stories and dance and sing. Uncle Victor Coory showed us old video clips of many of the first Lebanese immigrants to Dunedin speaking and singing in Arabic, dancing the dubkee, and making music with the classical Arabic instruments,the ney and the oud. Clearly we have lost a lot of these old traditions from “Bledna” as we have integrated into New Zealand society over the last one hundred years but I believe we have retained the playful spirit, pride and tenacity of our forebearers who came from the mountains and villages of Northern Lebanon. We have much to thank our Lebanese ancestors for, what ever the struggles we face in this modern world. Thank you Great Jhidi and Siti George and all the other brave Lebanese people of our community, for having the courage, faith and strength to cross the world a century ago and pave the way for us to live in a peaceful, safe and beautiful land. [b]Suraya Langston. 26/04/2016 Also a special thank you to Phillip George, Nora Newman, the family of the late Jessie Paget (nee George),Sue Idour and Cheryl La Hood for helping with my information gathering. Phillip George has done some meticulous and wonderful research on our family tree, history and relatives we still have in Lebanon. Shookran Jazeelan.[/b]