Papua New Guinea Photos 1972 (Family)
(this page created 5/22/08)
Papua New Guinea Photos 1972 (Family)(this page created 5/22/08)
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Quick Explanation: in 1972 my family lived in Papua New Guinea. These are some of the old slides from that time scanned in for safe keeping. Click on any picture for the VERY LARGE original. The comments around the pictures are gleaned from an old notebook of my Dad's hand written notes plus hand-written comments on the borders of the slides. Click here to go to the top level of all these pictures.
Below is Brian (me) on the left, Randy (my brother) in the middle, and Cheryl (my sister) on the far right. This is the first day of school.
Ralph Wingfield and family. Ralph and Jane Wingfield are the parents, and the 3 boys are Richard, Max, and Ben.
The Davis family. They were British and lived directly across the street from our family in Goroka, Papua New Guinea. The husband (in glasses) was Mike Davis, his wife Brenda on his left in pink. The youngest child was Ritchie (for "Richard") and the little girl is Jill, and the oldest son is Stephen, and I'm not sure about the other lady in the picture. Update Sept 8, 2010 -> Jill contacted me because she found this website! Her new last name is "Sherrington".
"District Superintendent (Austrialian governing the district) and Howard at the Scout Camp". On the right in the picture is Howard Wilson (my father) who would be about 40 at the time of this picture.
On the far right washing dishes is Randy Wilson (my brother) who would have been about 7 in this picture. Scout camp in Papua New Guinea.
The Johnson girls and Cheryl Wilson (my sister) at Halloween. Cheryl is on the far right with the red hankerchief. This film was developed November 1972. Cheryl would have been about 10 years old in this picture.
The notes say "kou kou in our home garden" (would have been in Goroka). "Kou Kou" is sweet potato (also known as yams).
Paw paw tree. "Paw Paw" is essentially Papaya, although there are more variants than we call papaya. Here is a Wikipedia article on Paw Paw.
Randy (my brother) with "Cholso" ?? The "Cholso" is hard to make out in the notes, so it might be "Choko" or "Chabo" or something else? My father says it was boiled and then eaten and almost flavorless, but the local natives liked it as a carbohydrate.
Paw paw (variant of papaya) on chair in Goroka.
Brian (me) with banana stalk.
Our garden pineapples in Goroka, Papua New Guinea, film developed in June 1973.
Pig rooting damage in Goroka, Papua New Guinea. Domestic pigs (owned by some local natives) were allowed to run lose at night and foraged for themselves. Thus the fence (see next picture) along the side of the garden. Other three sides was hedge.
"Sayu and kids splitting fence." The fence wood cost $10, Sayu bought a tree from a farmer in his village which he cut and split. The kids are Randy, and Brian (me). Sayu was our "house boy", which meant he worked for our family mowing the lawn and doing odd jobs a few days each week. Sayu lived not far from our house, just outside the Goroka town limits, in a little cluster of grass huts with no plumbing or electricity. He would come to our house to work and FIRST take a shower and put on his clean clothes he kept at our house, then do the odd jobs for our family. Sayu really enjoyed mowing the lawn with the gas powered lawn mower. Sayu was around 16 years old in 1971 in this picture in Gorka, Papua New Guinea.
Sayu on the left, Randy, and Brian (me) on the far right. Standing in front of our finished fence.
Our backyard in Goroka, Papua New Guinea right before we left. You can see the reeds woven as rope then woven into the fence stakes.
Same thing: our backyard.
"College girls digging bananas." Banana “trees” produce one bunch of bananas and then “die” (are cut down), but regenerate from “suckers” coming up from the root stock. These are college girls from the home economics department who wanted to plant some banana “trees” at the college. There are later pictures showing them planting the suckers up at the college.
Poinsettias and our wash line in our yard. That's our septic tank cover in the lower right.
A picture of our house from across the street. The tall flowering tree is a hibiscus tree.
Our house with Nevi (our second houseboy), Sayu (our first houseboy) , Brian (me) and Randy (far right).
Our house with flowers around it.
This is the back of our house, that's a Belladonna tree. The two corrugated cylinders held our drinking water, which is caught from rain water on the roof. During the "dry season" in Goroka we would run low on water and hire a tanker truck full of water to come out and refill the cylinders, but during the wet season we were self sufficient. Also notice the stilts. The houses were built on stilts to help keep down the bugs in the house. The stilts were sprayed with poison periodically so the bugs couldn't crawl up them.
A picture of the right side of our house from the back.
Left side of the house in Goroka, Papua New Guinea.
"Front yard lilies". The lilies were Amaryllis, they popped up any-old-where, obviously planted by the previous house tenants.
"Our house and car in dry season." This is a good picture paired with the next picture below.
"Our house and car in the wet season." There are only two seasons in Papua New Guinea - "wet" and "dry", and you can see the difference. I believe that was a 1970 Toyota Corona or there abouts?
Our car and house in the dry season. This picture taken standing on the front porch looking cornerwise towards the street.
Cheryl (my sister), Randy (my brother), and Brian (me) in our front yard on our bicycles in Goroka, Papua New Guinea, about 1971. This picture was developed in November, 1972.
Richie Davis (neighbor from across the street), Randy in the middle, and Brian (me) on the right holding Easter eggs.
Cheryl's birthday party. UPDATE January 9, 2012: I got an email from one of the members of the party: "My name is Christine Hayes, and my brother Joe Hayes has sent me the link to your photos. Our parents worked in Goroka, we were a family of ten children, me the youngest. I believe this is a picture of me (blue dress hair in pony tail in the bottom right hand corner of the photo) and my friend Elizabeth Fowke (blonde hair yellow collar on her dress ), the girl at the end of the table next to me might be Donna Kwan."
Another picture of the same birthday party.
Kittens playing on a chair in our house in Goroka.
Cheryl, Brian, and Randy playing with kittens in Papua New Guinea.
Decorating Halloween cupcakes. That's Virginia (my mom) on the left, and Cheryl on the right.
Randy, Cheryl, and Brian opening Christmas presents in our living room in Goroka, Papua New Guinea, probably December 25, 1971 (or 1972?) My mother Virginia is on the far right on the couch.
Cheryl, Brian, and Randy in front of the Christmas tree.
End of this group! Click here to go to the top level of all these pictures.