THOSE with a sharp eye may notice a yellow wooden house next to the Mount St Mary’s parish in Martintar, Nadi.
A convent for the Marist Sisters, its striking red roof doesn’t exactly hide it from view. But like most locations congested with traffic, residential homes and nearby primary schools, it seems to fade into oblivion.
This building faces Cawa Rd and the runway behind, though it may not seem overly significant, is a remnant of one of the town’s earliest established families.
This was the original homestead of the Kennedy clan in Nadi.
It had belonged to Charles Edward Kennedy, a settler of Scottish origin born in Monuherikia, New Zealand.
Despite the years and onslaught of natural disasters, the family abode still stands in order from its panoramic perch, and from where it would have easily overseen its nearby estates in the first-half of last century.
“The family’s estates at the time included the present-day Cawa Rd and Waqadra,” said Charles Kennedy’s grandson Robert (Bob) Kennedy Sr, a prolific tourism figure and operator now based in Sigatoka. Bob’s father was Henry Martin, Charles’ oldest son.
Though Nadi was already considerably settled by the time of Charles’ arrival, his family’s imprints would spread over the town and be responsible for several municipal residential street names. These included Kennedy Avenue, Norma’s Place and Martintar Rd.
“Apparently my father put up a fence to keep the cows in from roaming the estates and which the Hindustani neighbours referred to as Martin ke tar (Martin’s fence),” Bob related.
Across the family home at Cawa Rd was where Bob himself began school at Miss Brewer Kindergarten, before moving on to St Thomas School, and then Suva Grammar School. He finished his tertiary years in Queensland, Australia.
His dad married Jean Anderson, and though a residential street in the vicinity was eventually named Martintar Rd (which coincidentally leads to the adjacent Anderson Rd), the name would eventually refer to a whole strip across town.
Today Martinar is a bustling stretch of commercial and residential plots from Namaka Public School to Kennedy Avenue, another reminder of this family’s early establishment in Nadi.
Down from Kennedy Avenue, towards the sea was their family burial ground, at what is now Enamanu, the town’s main cemetery.
Further along at Nadi Bay was the landing point of Martin’s father, Charles Edward Kennedy and his family in 1870.
Charles sailed into the bay aboard a ship from Auckland with his father, Henry Lamb Kennedy, and his brothers and sisters, and mother.
Records show that Charles’s siblings were namely James Henry (Harry), Catherine Rose and Annie, while two others died in infancy.
Henry, who was originally from Killmarnock in Scotland, had traded in his boat and negotiated with the Tui Ba for Sigawe, an islet now part of mainland Ba.
He died and was buried there in early October 1892, over 20 years after arriving in Fiji.
His wife Annie Dunoon Taylor outlived him by over 20 years. Born in Inverness, Scotland, she died in late December 1920 in Ba.
Though his family eventually settled in Ba, the brief arrival in Nadi seemed to have a lasting impression on Charles as he eventually returned to where he first landed, and lived on an estate which was then surrounded by a mainly canefarming community.
It was in Nadi where he was also given land from his sister Catherine. She had married George Freeman-Martin and after he died in December 1912, gave part of her estate, which included Cawa Rd, to Charles.
Charles died in Nadi in April, 1898, and his wife Ada McKay, who was born on Ovalau in 1869, was also laid to rest in Nadi and buried in Waqadra in 1936.
With its close proximity to the Nadi Bay, the naming of Kennedy Avenue by municipal authorities may very well be a sentimental nod to where the family patriarch first dropped anchor.
If that is the case, then tributes seemed to have flourished for this family, for right behind the avenue remains a residential street named Norma’s Place.
“Norma was my father’s sister and she stayed at the Waqadra estate, and married Douglas Ferrier-Watson” Bob explained.
Martin and Norma’s siblings included Freeman and Dorothy Kennedy and it was also at Waqadra where Martin himself was born in June, 1896.
Norma Ferrier-Watson’s eight children includes Western Cancer Society vice-president, Beverly McElrath, who now resides in Vuda.
The family estates were adjacent to the airstrips used by the US Air Force during the Pacific War that began in 1941 and which would impact the family’s properties.
Fiji’s strategic location made it a refuelling centre during the war and from where the Americans would disperse against Japanese targets in the Philippines and Solomon Islands.
Tragically, Martin, a sergeant with the Royal New Zealand Air Force, perished in a Catalina plane off the coast of Kadavu near Cape Washington in June 1943.
The war would further compound losses for his widow Jean, Bob’s mother.
“We lost 600 acres of the estate at Cawa in the war, as the Americans needed more for the landing strip,” Bob recounted.
Even after the end of WWII, there was no recompense to the family for this wartime acquisition, though they were compensated for a further runway extension in 1958.
By then, the Nadi International Airport was operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, before it was handed to the Fiji Government in the 1970s.
Bob’s mother directed proceeds from the payout to the construction of the Sandy Point Beach Cottages, which opened in Sigatoka in 1960, and from which Robert and his wife Carol Kennedy continue to manage and reside. Other remnants of this family can also be traced from as far as Suva, namely the Dolphins Swimming Club, which was founded by Bob — a former national swimming rep and coach — and a light tribute to the family’s oceanic passion.
“The Kennedys were from the northwest coast of Scotland and were seafaring people that also likely ended up in Ireland,” he added.
Even after settling in Fiji, they seemed to have held on to a natural affinity for the sea.
Over a century later, his descendants have branched out to include members of other early European settlers, such as those from the Powell, McElrath and Watson clans.
Today Bob, a former Fiji Hotel Association president and honorary life member, is based at Korotogo, Sigatoka, where he operates the Sandy Point Beach Cottages with his wife Carol.
His own career began at the Civil Aviation Nadi Airport in 1959, as an 18-year-old files clerk before joining Qantas Engineering as a supplies officer and then traffic officer.
He eventually joined Fiji Airways as a Traffic Officer, though his work was always juggled with coaching the Nadi Airport Club and then Suva Amateur Swimming Club, which he took to Noumea.
Bob also founded and coached Suva’s Dolphins Swimming Club and Suva Sea Baths team, and took the national swim team to the third and fourth South Pacific Games in Papua New Guinea and Tahiti.
He eventually re-joined Qantas as flight catering centre manager in 1979 before managing the Reef Hotel in Korotogo in 1982, a role he juggled alongside consultancy work with Air Pacific.
The founder of Sigatoka’s famous Fiji Day Bilibi Race, he eventually led and remains an honorary life member of the Fiji Hotel Association.
