Samantha McGougan wanted to cry when Arohanui Hospice bought 20 of her hand-reared two-year-old Hereford-cross steers.
Tears were understandable. The Hospice had provided support and care for her father, Brent Ellery, when he died at home from prostate cancer in June 2014. The Hospice had also helped the family with her maternal grandfather’s struggles with kidney failure, in February of 2014.
“They did so much for our family. 2014 was a horrible year for us… we couldn’t have got through it without the Hospice,” Sam said. “The hospice provided us with reassurance and guidance, as well as a gentle, loving hand that we all needed at that time.”
Support ranged from initial help with equipment to the reassurance of day-or-night phone calls, when things got tough for Brent. Staff came immediately when needed to help with pain relief, with care, with advice. And for a non-religious family Sam also noted the kind and guiding hand the Chaplaincy service provided for the whole family through both experiences. They became part of the Ellery family, easing everything for everyone.
“I suppose I was a young 21-year-old, when this was happening. Just finished university, so it made sense for me to be at home with Dad, with Mum and my sister Kate, who were both teaching at the time”. Her mother, Cecile Ellery, was the year 9 Dean at Feilding High School, so Sam being with her Dad during the day worked well for everyone.
The details of cancer were something she’d never thought about before, not until confronted with what her father went through. Every day brought a different change or challenge; new medications or loss of physical abilities.
“We were so very lucky to have Dad mentally with us until the very end.”
Out in the wild blue yonder: Brent Ellery as a young shepherd, horse in hand and his favourite dogs close. Mt Ruapehu is in the background.
Time passed, and the family took up the threads of life again. But grief doesn’t go away; people just learn to live with it, with varying degrees of success.
Sam found she needed grief counselling. The Hospice organised this for her, through Massey University Psycho-oncology services, and her mother and sister were also helped by this service.
Something that arose from that counselling was decisions about how Sam wanted to live her life. Growing up with a father who’d been a farm cadet through the Flock House scheme (near Bulls) in the 1970s had given him huge passion for the land and farming. Sam realised she wanted to live rurally, with space for lots of dogs and other animals.
“Dad had been a shepherd, out the back of Hunterville at Kowhainui Station owned by the Alabasters, and at Waiouru station. He loved the life.” He went on to be a shearer in the Manawatū after his shepherding days.
Her parents met through a cheeky flatmate-wanted ad that Brent put in the newspaper. Remember those? This one went something along the lines of: ‘Couple of women flatmates wanted to make my lunches and have a hot dinner ready when I come in off the farm, free rent provided in exchange’.
“You just wouldn’t do that these days. The farmlet was in Colyton, a piece of land Dad had saved up for through his shearing work, selling horse saddles and a car to be able to make it work… Mum was at teacher’s college… she must have decided this bloke with the mad curly hair was worth cooking dinner for…” Sam laughs at the family story. “My sister and I were both born when Mum and Dad lived in that house, before moving to Oroua road where Dad managed a dry stock farm”
This rural upbringing came to the fore for Sam, and the steers the Hospice bought were the first she’d raised on 100 acres at Kairanga, land she and her husband Pearse recently bought to farm, turning their dreams into reality and being able to live on the land, in honour of her dad. Pearse also runs an earth moving business, ProEx Solutions, creating house foundations and general earthworks in both rural and central Palmerston North and surrounds.
“It was a meant-to-be moment when I found out the Hospice wanted to buy the steers. They were at 550kg weights, so they were split into smaller lots and sent to other farmers to finish to full weight,” Sam said.
She’s raising Angus steers now, and hopes to help the Hospice again by providing quiet, calm two year old steers to be finished on other farms. Those finishing farmers graze steers for the Hospice.
Grazing cattle for the Hospice, being part of that donation cycle, is a plan in Sam and Pearse’s future.
“The Hospice gave us so much help when we really needed it,” she said. “We want to have a lifelong connection to Hospice and do whatever we can to support such a beautiful organisation, and if the farm has allowed us to be a part of that it feels like it was a ‘meant to be moment’ for us”.
At home and in her element: Samantha McGougan shifting electric fencing, with Hereford-cross steers behind her. The steers were bought by Arohanui Hospice, for Farming for Hospice that sees other farmers finish cattle, with proceeds going to the Hospice
