Family reunions usually happen once every five years and when it does happen, the content feeling of being surrounded by family is indeed beautiful. A feeling that one would not want to get out of.
The Rounds family got to experience this feeling on August 3 when the children of the late Thomas Isaac Rounds and Nira Mere Hughes got together to reunite their beloved mother’s ashes with their father’s.
The Rounds lineage goes all the way back to Nadarivatu, Navai. Thomas, who was the son of Jessie Moce Lakolako and Isaac Rounds, used to work on a merchant ship that travelled around the Pacific.
After his time on the ship, he decided to settle down in Nadarivatu and take up a job at a sawmill.
“While in Nadarivatu, our father met our mother Nira who had gone to Navai to visit her mum,” said Yvonne Rounds, the eldest of Thomas and Nira’s six children.
“They got married in 1941 and had six children – me, Shirley Kings, Thomas Rounds, Virginia Rounds Griffiths, Marie Pusinelli and Tanya Rounds.
“Before my other siblings were born, we came down from Nadarivatu and my dad got a job at the Vatukoula Gold Mines. I was six years old when I started school in Vatukoula and then we had to move to Suva because there was no high school on this side of the island.”
In 1952, they moved to Suva. “By this time, it was my parents along with my three siblings – Shirley, Virginia, Thomas and I, the others were born in Suva,” Yvonne says.
“We started at Pratt St Convent and when St Joseph’s opened, I was one of the first to attend the school.”
Just like many other families growing up in the 1940s, the Rounds upbringing was no different. The siblings, however, described their childhood as the “best”.
Five of the siblings, excluding Thomas, flew over to Fiji in August to celebrate with family the reuniting of their mother’s ashes with their father’s, who had died in 1986.
Marie, who is the second last born of Thomas and Nira said the trip was two years in the making and it finally brought the sibling’s closure.
“Our mother died in February 2021 in Hawaii. That was during COVID-19 and because we weren’t there to honour her, we had to wait until this year to bring her ashes back to Fiji – home,” she said.
“Our mother was an amazing seamstress, and she was an amazing singer.
“She would play the ukulele and sing all the old Fijian songs.”
Marie said the last time they were altogether with their families was in 2005.
“What we were trying to do over the years is we’ve bonded in different countries wherever we could because we all live in different countries.
“Through this we had our family reunion which was all about re-bonding and bringing the young ones together too so they could experience the culture for the first time.
“It was beautiful meeting our family from both our mother and father’s side.”
The Rounds family spent their last days in Sigatoka before they flew back to their respective homes.
They described their 2023 family reunion as one they will “never forget” and they look forward to more in the future.
