Loveday Alice Louisa "Lou" BARKER [666]

  General Notes:

Peter Renshaw remembers his mother - 2000
My mother Louise, called Lou by the family was the eldest child born in 1886. She established a maternity hospital in Upper Hutt 1920 which was actually the first hospital in the district. She worked very hard all her life but she had a very unhappy marriage.
I went to live with my grandparents at Whites Line Road in Lower Hutt after my parents split up and later divorced. Mother married again and lived in Levin.

Reminiscences on Lou by Christine Cole-Catley.
Lu and Walter bought a house in Upper Hutt, Lu operated a maternity hospital from 1920 to 1929. After her first marriage Lu lost her house in a fire, she and Peter lived at 42 Whites Line Rd with her parents. After her second marriage Lu lived in Levin.
Lou, oldest in the family, was good-hearted, practical and kind, but somehow without the spark which all her sisters had. Her brothers didn't have this quality or qualities either, as far as I could see, although the much loved Dick may have, he who died just when I was born.
She like Dor became a maternity nurse although didn't do the Plunket training which Dor did. Lou was a much sought-after nurse, and in the early days of the Parents Centre movement, from 1952, I heard many stories of her great kindness and help to new mothers.
Not an easy life for Lou. She married Frank Renshaw and became stepmother to two young girls, Daisy and Isabel, of whom she became very fond. They had one son of their own, Peter, some four years older than me. The marriage broke up, and Lou became the breadwinner.
2005.

Reminiscences on Lou by Judith McKenzie.
Loveday Louisa (Aunt Lu) was a frequent visitor to 42 Whites Line Rd West. She was small in stature like her mother, lots of curls, warm and loving to me. She ran a Maternity Home in Lower Hutt and talked to me of nursing as a career. When visiting the grandparents two years later, I was taken under her wing and assisted in the hospital taking around cups of tea to the new mothers. I disliked the hospital smell and decided then that I would not be a nurse.
Lou's first marriage was unhappy and she had to bring her only son up on her own. She remarried late in middle age after effectively working all her adult life.
2005.

Loveday Alice Louise Hoare
Birth Date: 12 Jan 1886
Birth Place: Wellington, New Zealand
Death Date: 6 Jun 1954
Death Place: Levin, Horowhenua District, Manawatu-Whanganui, New Zealand
Cemetery: Karori Cemetery and Crematorium
Burial or Cremation Place: Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand
Spouse:
Walter Horace Stewart Renshaw-Cole
Children:
Basil Stewart Renshaw
URL: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/221569030/loveday-alice_louise-hoare

OBITUARY MRS L. HOARE
The death occurred recently at Her residence, Levin, of Mrs. L. Hoare. She was very well known to older residence of Upper Hutt as Nurse Renshaw, and for several years conducted the first private maternity home in the district. Mrs.Hoare was a foundation member of the Upper Hutt Plunket Society. She is survived by her husband Mr. K.Hoare, one son, Peter Renshaw and two stepdaughters Daisy (Mrs. G.Downing) and Isobel (Mrs. J. Neville).
Upper Hutt Leader, Volume ZI, number 25, 17 June 1954.

  Research Notes:

Some images courtesy Johnson Family Tree.

  Other Records

1. Loveday "Lou" Barker: Images from her life.
Lou c 1804 and later & with son Peter

Lou married Walter Stuart Horace RENSHAW (COLE) [667] [MRIN: 205], son of George William COLE [2374] and Eliza Emily BROWN [2375], on 21 Sep 1917 in Kilbirnie Wellington N.Z. The marriage ended in divorced 1933 in 1933. (Walter Stuart Horace RENSHAW (COLE) [667] was born in 1874 in London, died in 1940 and was buried on 9 Sep 1940 in Karori Cemetery Wellington.)

  Marriage Notes:

Walter was a heavy drinker which contributed to the breakdown of the marriage.

Lou next married Kenneth HOARE [2400] [MRIN: 790] in 1949. (Kenneth HOARE [2400] was born on 31 Oct 1891 in Wellington and died on 19 Oct 1969 in Lower Hutt NZ.)