Biography

Walter Frederick Grueber was born 15 Dec. 1879. He arrived in New Zealand from Tasmania in 1900. He worked at several Canterbury stations for seven years when in 1908 he won a ballot for a block of land in Culverden, unfenced and uncultivated, and named it Bexhill Pastures. He served with the NZ Expeditionary Force 1914-1918 and was discharged wounded. He met his future wife, Ethel Elizabeth Willy, while convalescing in England. She joined him in New Zealand and they married in June 1919, the first wedding ceremony at St Mary's Anglican Church, Culverden. Later two of his sons helped him farm the property until April 1957, when it was sold to a family company, the Grueber Estate Limited. He died there on 16 June 1968, having worked in Culverden for nearly 60 years and was the last of the 29 original settlers residing in the district.

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