One of my distant cousins, Austin Strong, designed a park in New Zealand. I checked to see if it was yours but no, it's Cornwall Park in Auckland. His family sailed the South Seas with Robert Louis Stevenson when he was a little boy. It's an interesting story...
Stevenson's Pillow: A Sketch of Austin Strong
By Joseph Theroux
nha.org
Once he stood before a grand carriage in fear for his life. As a child in Honolulu, he was walking near Kapiolani Park. In his hat he carried contraband — one of the king's goldfish. He had purloined it in a fishing expedition, defying the sign that banned the activity and promised punishment to "the full severity of the law." Seven-year-old Austin knew that the "full severity" meant death, yet he had caught the large goldfish anyway.
Imagine the boy's shock upon being confronted with the king's own carriage on the roadway. He saw the royal crest on the carriage door and heard the king's booming voice: "Austin!" (for the king knew his parents) "What are you doing so far from home?"
The boy blurted out his guilty secret, adding, "Oh, please don't cut off my head!"
King Kalakaua replied, "I have no intention of cutting off your head."
But the goldfish — really a carp — was revived with a calabash of water, and later a royal decree was delivered to the terrified boy at the Strong household. It gave Austin Strong permission "to fish in the Kapiolani Park for the rest of his days." It was signed with a flourish, Kalakaua Rex.
P.S. Another of my distant cousins, Anna Louise Strong, escaped across the Gobi Desert to Russia with TJ's dad. |
