The Theomin Family Tree

Born on 12 October, 1855, Marie Michaelis was the second child born to Moritz Michaelis and his wife, Rahel, [nee Gotthelf]. A daughter born earlier than Marie did not survive so she became the oldest child in a big family of eleven others younger than herself. Mr Michaelis was a prominent Melbourne businessman who later joined with his nephew, Isaac Hallenstein in a tannery business at Footscray. The Michaelis family home called Linden still survives in St Kilda as a community arts centre, and a fine photograph of the house in its hey-day is on display in the reception area at Olveston. It is of particular interest to visitors from Melbourne.

Marie Michaelis married David Benjamin at Linden on 31 January, 1879 and later in that year, the couple moved to Dunedin. Marie was not without family in the town for two of her six sisters, - the twins Helene and Florence were already there, married respectively to Jack Isaacs and Hyam Hart. Both men were partners in Hallenstein Bros. Company of Dunedin.

For more than twenty years, Marie and David lived in a house which was on part of the present Olveston site and there, she raised their two children. That house seems also to have been known as Olveston. The grand new house began to rise in 1904, the year when the couple, by then known as Mr and Mrs Theomin, celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

Throughout the last two decades of her life, Marie Theomin was fully occupied in a voluntary capacity with public and charitable works. She is particularly remembered for her involvement in the Plunket Society. Very soon after Olveston was completed, she was hostess at a small dinner party and the guests around the table were all influential in the formation of the Society which came into being about a month later on 14 May, 1907. She remained actively involved in the Plunket Society which became internationally famous for its work in support of mothers and young children. In Olveston, we sometimes set the main table to commemorate that dinner party which took place during the first year of life in the new house.

Mrs Theomin was a founding member of the Victoria League, active on its committee and a vice-president at the time of her death.

Edward, the only son of David and Marie Theomin was born on 29 January, 1885. He was educated at Otago Boys’ High School which he attended in the years 1899-1901. After leaving school, he took up employment in his father’s business as a warehouseman. When the Great War commenced in 1914, he was working at the Sawyers Bay Tannery and his responsibilities there would have been officially viewed as being essential to the war effort. However, he enlisted for military service in January 1917 and underwent training at Trentham during that year, earning his sergeant’s stripes in September, attached to the Otago Regiment. He was posted overseas with the second draft of the 31st Reinforcements, sailing in the “Wallachia” in November 1917. By March 1918, he had been transferred to the Wellington Regiment and preceded to active service in France. For two months, he experienced field duty with No 1 New Zealand Infantry Battalion before being evacuated with bronchitis. He was back on active duty in Etaples late in May 1918 but his health problems persisted and he was discharged medically unfit in December. His disability was diagnosed as being nasal catarrh. Presumably because of his health, his final demobilisation date did not come through until February 1919.

At the end of the war, he met Ethel Grace Mocatta in London and the couple was married in May 1919. They returned to Dunedin and Edward resumed his duties as Manager of the Sawyers Bay Tannery.

In 1922, it became apparent that he was in the grip of a debilitating disease called Lethargic Encephalitis. For about a decade from 1917, this disease caused a world-wide epidemic which was thought to be of viral origin though it does not seem to have been medically proven. The syndromes demonstrated many of the characteristics of Parkinson’s Disease and its progression from earliest onset to death was slow but inevitable.

Ethel Grace Mocatta was born in London in 1889 to Charles Mocatta and his wife, Sarah. The Mocattas were a distinguished Sephardic Jewish family of City brokers and bullion dealers, whose ancestor was one of twelve Jewish brokers admitted from the Lowlands into England by Oliver Cromwell in 1656.
[Sephardic Jews are those who trace their descent from Spanish and Portuguese origins.]

Ethel Mocatta received her early education in London and attended finishing school in Switzerland. Miss Mocatta showed her strongly independent nature early by insisting on being permitted to pursue a course in Chemistry at London University. Family approval appears to have been given with the proviso that she be accompanied by her maid. She was awarded a B.Sc. Degree and worked for a time as an analytical chemist. She met Edward Theomin through her brother Frederick Mocatta who had known him in the later stages of the War.

The only daughter of David and Marie Theomin was born on Christmas Eve, 1888. Her early education was at Miss Miller’s School, Braemar. Between 1902 and 1905, she studied at Roedean on the Sussex Coast, a new school founded in 1885 by Dorothy, Penelope and Millicent Lawrence. Roedean broke away from the stifling restraints of later Victorian education for women and encouraged its pupils to develop inquiring minds and self-reliance, both physical and mental. Dorothy Theomin returned to Dunedin at the time when Olveston was being completed. The house quickly became a centre of social activity generated by business connections, involvement with the arts and with the Synagogue as well as numerous philanthropic enterprises. When Mrs Theomin found herself taken up with Plunket Society affairs and those of other organisations, Dorothy fell naturally enough into the role of running the busy house.

This was not allowed to stand in the way of her developing her own life. She was keenly interested in outdoor pursuits. As a member of the New Zealand Alpine Club, she climbed and tramped in the Southern Alps over many years. Olveston has on display a record of her climbs and transits in the Alps. When her climbing days were over, she continued to spend time at Franz Josef and its environs where, during much of the year, the air was friendlier to her asthmatic condition than that of the East Coast. Photography was one of her many talents and she was recognised as a skilled mountain photographer. Much of her photographic work is lodged in the Hocken Library.

She enjoyed playing golf and she rode, often in company with her sister-in-law. She was a member of the Otago Hunt Club.

Dorothy Theomin followed her mother’s interest in the Plunket Society not merely as a public duty but because she had a genuine fondness for children. It was one of her specific wishes in offering Olveston to the citizens of Dunedin, that children should be encouraged to enjoy the Theomin family home.

During the war of 1939-1945, she was active in the Red Cross and there are still people about who remember with warmth her food parcels and her letters of encouragement, especially to prisoners of war. All her life, Dorothy Theomin continued the interest of her father in art and music. Like David Theomin, she had a good singing voice and she was a competent pianist and accompanist. She was a member of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Council and was Vice-President from 1954 to 1957 and President from 1957 to 1959.