Mary Wallis - Opunake

Mary Emma (nee Vickery) married Thomas Wallis, a boot maker of Christchurch, in 1882. They lived at Ferry Road, Christchurch, until 1897 when they brought their five young children to Taranaki. The journey was made by ship and then by bullock wagon, to Otakeho where the sixth child was born.Their next move was to Opunake where Thomas's brother Abraham, and Mary Emma's cousin Ben Vickery lived.Thomas established his boot maker's shop in Tasman Street, then called Main Street, and an old resident of Opunake still remembers how Thomas put a supply of tacks in his mouth and pushed them out with his tongue on to the hammer, one by one, where they were held by magnetic force, so freeing his hands for the operation in hand.As the Wallis family grew up they took their place in the community at various, trades Bill was a baker, Fred a publican, and Ted was a saddler whose business eventually became a sports supply and book shop in the premises now occupied by Karam's in Tasman Street.The youngest of the Wallis children, Grace, became a tailoress who worked for Mr R. E. Peat, one of the rapidly disappearing breed of tailors who worked from the first measurements to the finished suit of clothes. Mr Peat worked in true tailor style sitting cross-legged in the middle of the table, with thread, needles, scissors and pins within reach.Mary Emma Wallis had always wanted to be a nurse and when her family grew up she trained as a midwife, and served the Opunake district for almost 30 years.She travelled by whatever means became available to "live in" with her patients until she had ensured the safe arrival of a new life, often on almost inaccessible country roads and always in homes with little or no convenience. She was present at the birth of each of the Yep family, and was most proud of her "Chinese Cherubs" as she called them.In 1929 ill-health caused her to give up what had been a very dedicated career, and Mary Emma Wallis died on 18 April 1930, just six months after the death of her husband Thomas.