Rebecca Bond (nee Rumbell) was born in Melbourne in 1843.
In 1862, aged 19, she married Irishman George Bond and their first child, George Butler Bond jun, was born a year later. Gold brought the Bonds to Otago and by December 1863 they were running a store at Arthurs Point.
About 1867, the family moved to Cardrona to set up the Empire Hotel.
Mrs Bond managed the hotel while her husband became involved in unevenly successful mining ventures.
In 1869, she gave birth to twins, which took the brood up to five children under the age of 7. Most of the uninsured hotel burnt down that year but it was rebuilt.
The Bonds had another two children, the last arriving in 1874.
In 1871 and 1873, police charged Mr Bond with drunkenness.
In 1876, he had brief stay in Cromwell Hospital. He then went to stay at Goodgers Hotel and disappeared the same night, his body found many kilometres down-river several days later.
At the age of 33, Mrs Bond was left a widow with seven children and a hotel to run. She took over the Ballarat Hotel in Arrowtown in 1880 then Queenstown's prestigious Mountaineer five years later.
In 1893, after 30 years in the Wakatipu, Mrs Bond moved to Invercargill and managed the Crescent Hotel. She retired to a son's home in Palmerston North in 1904 and died that June.
