Draft Creative Writing in Social Studies

In Social Studies, we have had to write up a piece of creative writing, based on someone who departed England for New Zealand, this is set in the 1880s when work was tougher and paid less. We are instructed to write about someone who sets off for the paradise of New Zealand. We were also asked to both write the first draft and then a final one, later on, this post contains the original draft.

We were asked to make a plan before writing the actual piece so here's what I wrote.

Nora Minnie Hill is a seamstress of the age of twenty-four. She lives with her husband Jonathan William Hill, an abusive man who both verbally and physically abuses her and their three children, Audrey Beryl Hill, Mary-Anne Elsie Hill, and Jonathan James Hill.
After years of abuse, she is convinced to leave her husband in England and take her children to the so-called paradise of New Zealand.

Names -
Nora - Short for Honora, which is Latin for honour, also short for Eleanora, a Greek name for 'light'.
Minnie - A Hebrew name meaning 'of the mind', 'intellect', 'rebellion'.
Audrey - Old English name meaning 'noble strength'.
Beryl - Greek name meaning 'sea-green jewel'.
Mary - Name of Hebrew origin meaning 'bitter'.
Anne - Hebrew name meaning 'gracious', 'full of grace'.
Elsie - Scottish origin meaning 'pledged to God'.
Jonathan - Hebrew name meaning 'gift of Jehovah'.
James - Of Hebrew, English origin meaning 'supplanter'.
Martha - Aramaic origin meaning 'the lady', 'the mistress'.
Harriet - Name of French, English origin, meaning 'estate ruler'.

Last Names -
Milton - Comes from the words Mill-Town referencing to a family that had a mill. Believed to be of Irish origin.
Hill  - A last name meaning ‘A person who lived on a hill,’ it is of English origin.

Actual Writing
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It was all planned. John would leave, and she would too. Off to work as the Noble's Seamstress. As she threw on her cleanest dress, her eyes flitted towards the cot tightly pushed against the wall. Her breath, that she hadn't even realised she was holding released. Her beautiful baby boy. Gazing at the sleeping twins in their bed calmed her as well.
The crashing that came next told her one thing, the Smith family was awake.
Mr Smith yelled hurriedly to his wife, who was busy scooping up and preening her four boys. Off to work every one of them went. It was the only way to afford food and rent.
Mrs Hill soon would too, she would take her baby, wake her twin daughters and walk them to the Noble's house. The three children would then have to stay quiet as their mother tailored a dress for the Noble's daughter. The girl got a new dress each week, and although it was little work, it paid twice what her husband made as a telegraph operator.
Her thoughts snapped her back to reality as she heard the thunder of footsteps.
"Up, up!" she cried to her daughters.
"Daddy's coming," she continued, "Get up!"
The girls drearily rose and stood from the bed, their mother rushing to hold her baby. In case of John being in a bad mood this morning.
The door slammed open, a ragged lanky man standing in its frame.
"I hope you're off to work, Nora," The woman shook her head, spittle rained from his mouth as he spat her name.
"I'm just gathering the children love."
"Damn the children!" John yelled, raising his voice enough for the neighbours to hear. They wouldn't do anything though. Yelling was usual for Mr Hill.
"Get to work already woman!"
She nodded and held her baby tighter as she stared at her daughters, who had pressed themselves against the edge of the bed, getting as far away from their father as they could.
Smart girls, the mother’s mind chided. Only five and they understood how horrible a man he was.
Now to get them away.
John had walked away to prepare himself for work. Mrs Hill strode across the small room to her daughters and, setting down her baby, helped dress them ready for the day.
As the family approached the Noble’s house Nora’s shoulders seemed to relax.
Away from my husband, she thought.
Work was a better time for her, doing what she loved, with her children close to her, and the young girl talking of horses and her readings to keep her distracted.
She couldn’t have a better job.
Like every Monday, the doorbell rang and the butler escorted them to the small corner of the house where the youngest of the noble family had her dresses tailor-made for her. The white patterns of the walls didn’t wear a single stain, nor did the glossy wood that surrounded each and every edge of the room. A platform stood in the centre of the room and to each wall stood new materials and fabrics each week. Needles and pin placed gently into cushions that laid upon the wood of the dresser, and stringed pearls and jewels left to accessorize the girl’s dress placed in the dresser draws.
Nora sat her self on the chair to the corner of the room, placing her fragile baby into the bedded cot that rocked and lulled him gently to sleep. Slowly, she turned to her girls who had taken the box of games and books and had begun to play chess against one another.
The door tenderly slid open as a young girl peered into the room, curiously watching the mother stare lovingly at her children.
Realising her mistake, she quickly knocked on the door. As her tailor looked over to her, she smiled, Martha loved to be around Mrs Hill. She listened to her ramble on about anything she wanted, not interrupting her to present opinion after opinion.
After ten minutes of Mrs Hill checking that her measurements were correct, Martha began to ramble on.
“Mother says if my hips grow any wider, people will begin to suspect her to be a grandmother,”
Nora’s head shook, the girl on the podium was barely smaller than every girl her age.
“How rude,” she agreed, “You’re a growing girl, Miss Milton.”
“You don’t have to call me that,”
“Nor do you have to call me Mrs Hill, yet you do,”
“Fine,” the girl reluctantly gave in, “Shall I call you Nora then?”
The woman shook her head as she wrapped the measuring tape around the girl's hips. They’d gotten wider.
“Call me Minnie, it’s my middle name, only my husband calls me Nora,”
“What’s your husband like?’ Her curiosity got to her.
Mrs Hill never talked about her husband.
Nora’s breath caught in her throat, the girl was thirteen! How was she meant to understand her bruises' true origin?
“He’s… lovely,” The rehearsal coming to mind. My husband is a wonderful man who treats me and my children right, John had drilled the words into her head. But before Nora could say her rehearsed words her baby began to cry.
“Jonathan James Hill, what do you think you’re doing?”
As Nora cradled the crying baby, her mind thanked him for being able to change the subject for her.
When Nora returned the next day, Martha no longer stood atop the platform. Instead, on the days after measuring, and talking through her dress design with Minnie, she would sit with the Hill twins and their younger brother, reading and playing games with them. All the while Nora pinned and cut the fabrics. Only occasionally asking for design preferences from the young girl.
“Martha, would you prefer cuffed sleeves or no?”
“Could I have lace on the cuffs? Mother loved the last dress with those.”
“How about a dress jacket for the cold?”
“That would be perfect, Father just adored how practical it was.”
Mrs Hill turned to the girl who rocked in her chair with a thick clean book cradled in her hands.
“It isn’t your parents dress, don’t let them pick your design.”
“Oh but it is,” she sighed, “I have the Milton name, all my decisions and words and clothes reflect them.” She sighed once again and placed the book on the dresser’s only empty space.
“Then when I marry, all of that will just apply to my husband’s name, it will not end till my death,”
Nora stared at her, her dull stared into the even duller brown ones.
“Can’t you leave this awful cycle?”
“No, I don’t think I can, Minnie,” the young girls face flushed red and soon an ugly sob choked her words.
“I don’t think I’ll ever escape,”
The tears made her eyes glisten, as Nora wrapped her arms around her, she whispered words of comfort.
“You’ll beat it all Martha, one day you’ll run and never look back and I’ll run with you,” her words were foolish. She couldn’t leave much less with her three children and the thirteen-year-old Noble’s daughter.
“Me, you, Jonathan, Audrey, and Mary-Anne, we’ll all run away,” What was she thinking? John would find her. Martha’s parents would find her.
“You want to run away?”
“I have wanted to leave this awful place for so long, Martha. You don’t know how long.”
“But your hus-” Nora’s sharp words cut her off.
“Is a lowly bastard who beats his wife and children.”
Martha’s eyes looked to the twins and cradle, all of them were asleep soon after she had read them a story.
How vile was a man who beat such beautiful creations? Martha’s mind wondered upon the questions Nora’s single sentence had brung.
“I’ll go with you,”
She wouldn’t let such a man treat these people, who, for once, treated her as one of their own, not a prize or trophy.
Nora didn’t know what she was saying anymore, but looking at her children, she couldn’t be more confident. The lingering thought of leaving for a new place had always dwelled on her mind. The money stored away in the dresser drawer proved it.
Now it had a use.
It would pay for her to leave England forever.
Staring at her children as they peacefully slept, she began crying as Martha did.
An escape was right there.
And the newly formed family would take it.
The next day, when she arrived at the house, she slid the money from the drawer.
It was enough to take them anywhere.
But they knew where they were going.
After Nora and Martha had cried, Martha placed the book she was reading in Nora’s hands.
“The Paradise of New Zealand?” Nora questioned.
“It’s meant to be the most beautiful place on Earth,” she claimed, “Lakes and forests,” she sighed whimsically.
“You want to run here?”
“Why not? The settlers say the views are beyond compare!”
Nora focussed on everything for a moment, there were a thousand things to push them away.
Nora’s abusive husband.
Martha’s expectant and judgemental parents.
The horrible future the children would have.
How cramped the city was.
How little money Nora got for herself.
The paradise had nothing to give them, but neither did their “home”.
After Martha convinced her parents to let her take the seamstress’s family on a carriage ride to the wharf, the hardest part was over.
They approached the booth, Jonathan swaddled in the thickest blanket to be found and the twins with only the clothes on their backs to carry. Nora carried a large brown case packed with a small amount of clothes for the four. Martha carried her own handbag and was wrapped tightly in wool and thick materials.
When they took their steps onto the swaying ship and continued into steerage, the stuffy and sweaty air didn’t stop Nora from breathing in the air, as if she stood atop a mountain on a warm summer’s day. Audrey and Mary-Anne, in all their excitement, jumped atop the stiff bunks and the thin blankets that laid on them. The men, women, and children that sat near stared in astonishment.
These children leaving their home were happy?
After a month of sickness, boredom, and horrible storms, Nora began to learn everyone else's stories. Mary leaving to meet her husband and brother, after she had missed the first boat. Arthur, who, after his whole family died of scarlet fever, sought out a paradise.
Martha memorized each one and even told her own.
Each and every night was cold, most ended up in another’s bed, desperate for the warmth, Martha often found herself crawling over to huddle with the twins or Minnie.
No one knew Nora as Nora, everyone called her Minnie, no one knew a Mrs Hill either.
Both seemed to have faded from existence.
As they got closer and closer to the “Paradise’s” coast they never knew of what lives they would live, they only wanted a new beginning, one without pressures, one without expectations to meet.
Yet life in Paradise would never meet their expectations. The forests would fade, lakes become unswimmable, and the air turn unbreathable.
Paradise would turn to Hell and they didn’t even know it yet.