On October 24, 1924, Conrad Eilken was born at home in Lincoln, the town he has called home for the past 100 years.
Conrad is Lincoln’s oldest resident who was born in the town and has lived there his entire life.
“I didn’t want to move, I was happy where I was,” Conrad said.
“Lincoln was a lovely wee township in those days. It was good.
“I knew who lived in every house in Lincoln, where today you don’t know your neighbours hardly.”
With money short for Conrad and his late wife Lillian, they bought the former Greenpark School house in 1952 and relocated it to Lincoln with a traction engine.
With a bit of work, the former schoolhouse became a home.
As children were born, Conrad, who was a builder, made additions to the house, which included a second storey.
“And now it’s all too big for me,” he joked.
“We used to hate the Motukarara races because this road was shingle and if there was a southerly, we used to get dust all day long.”
It was at the races where he met Lillian, who was performing as a gymnast at the same time Conrad was there with the City of Christchurch Highland Pipe Band.
While at the races, Lillian, from Christchurch, won two tickets to the movies and chose to take Conrad.
They were together for 70 years and married for 65 until Lillian died in 2018.
Subdivisions and new homes now surround the house. Conrad regularly gets offers from property developers wanting to buy it with plans to subdivide, but he’s determined to stay put.
“I’m not going anywhere any time soon.”
Conrad and his four siblings were the first of now four generations to attend Lincoln Primary School.
He remembers his first day at school as if it were yesterday.
Conrad said his two brothers had to drag him all the way down Gerald St to school.
“I had the brakes on all the way.”
Conrad recalled one unique ‘bring a pet to school’ day.
“We took a cage full of bantams and got as far as where the Hammer Hardware is now and the cages collapsed. There were feathers flying everywhere.”
When he started at the school, there were three classrooms with only two in use, one for primers and one for standards.
Converting a rugby try on the school field was done by kicking the ball over a section of fencing, out onto Boundary Rd at one end or into the neighbour’s paddock at the other end. A lack of traffic meant retrieving the ball from the road was not a problem.
For much of his childhood, Conrad was without his dad, Karl, who died when he was four. That left mum Sara Jane to raise the family.
“Mum was left with five kids in a little house and she never complained.
“She used to make rag mats to make ends meet and every night she’d be making a mat.”
Conrad was 13 when he first went to Christchurch, catching the train to the city for polytech.
While in the army, Conrad would also bike from Burnham to attend pipe band practice in Christchurch.
“I remember once we were on Old Tai Tapu Rd and my job was carrying the legs for the gun. We got to the gate where we had to go into the paddock and I threw them over the gate and bent the legs.”
Aside from the army, Conrad also worked operating a dragline excavator, in a butcher’s shop, and as water joey on a traction engine.
When he was 37, Conrad started his own building company, which son Ian took over.
These days, Conrad lives a far quieter life but still keeps busy.
One of his annual tasks is to grow a few rows of potatoes in his garden which he sells at his front gate. As part of the process, Conrad still uses a rotary hoe.
“The rotary hoe is as old as our youngest daughter (61) and it’s still going.”
Conrad said his secret to a long life is keeping busy.
“My life’s always been busy. I’ve always had something to do and even now I’ve got jobs to do.”
