• ‘Camp Vagabondia’: Kitty Bullen’s summer holiday stories, 1926 – 29

‘Camp Vagabondia’: Kitty Bullen’s summer holiday stories, 1926 – 29

20 December, 2018     SHARE:

These beautiful hand-written and illustrated books documenting summer holidays at camp ‘Vagabondia’ on the East Coast between 1926 and 1929 were made by Kitty Bullen (b.1904, d.1981)

Kitty Clara Frances Bullen was born in Gisborne. Her parents were Henry (Harry) and Frances (nee Mansfield). She had two brothers William John and George Francis Vacher (who married Hermione Kathleen and farmed in Tolaga Bay and on Darwin Road) and a sister Rosa Mary Sarah.

Kitty was a teacher and taught French at Gisborne Girls’ High School in the 1950s and 1960s. Electoral Rolls record her living at in Wellington and Martinborough in the 1920s and 30s, in Gisborne in the family home at 59 Stout Street in the 1930s and 40s and at 16 Mill Road from the 1950s – 70s. She died in Gisborne in 1981.

Girls’ High School Teachers, Miss Bullen, front row (fourth from left), 1967. No 158 : August 9, 1967 GPN158_19670809_068a

Did you know Kitty or do you know of any descendants of the Bullen family? Although she did not have children we would like to find out more about her and if possible identify the people featured in the books.

Can you help us work out the location of Camp Vagabondia?

Eloise Wallace, director

Vagabondia 1926

1996.79.1 Collection of Tairāwhiti Museum

The Lonely Vagabonds, 1927

1996.79.2 Collection of Tairāwhiti Museum

Some Pages from a Vagabond’s Diary, 1929

1996.79.3 Collection of Tairāwhiti Museum

Vagabondia Buggledoria, undated

1996.79.4 Collection of Tairāwhiti Museum

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