For education

women had doctorates, they were considering offering a masters course on Ma¯ ori studies.

Her other two children were studying teaching too, she said, conceding education was in the blood.

Barcello-gemmell grew up in Blenheim and went to St Mary’s School, but her parents moved to Wellington and she went to Naenae College at Lower Hutt.

‘‘They taught me how to cook, and how to sew. But they really set me up by doing typing and shorthand.’’

Barcello-gemmell met her husband Sam in Wellington and they started a family and moved to Australia.

‘‘I must acknowledge my husband, who for over 40 years of marriage has totally supported all my efforts,’’ Barcello-gemmell said.

She had an office job in Sydney where her boss would ‘‘bring back computers and tell me to figure out how to work them’’, she said.

But as the children got older they decided Sydney was ‘‘a big jungle’’ and moved home to Marlborough in the 1990s.

Barcello-gemmell got involved with the treaty settlements by collecting oral histories from kauma¯ tua (elders).

Her Nga¯ti Ra¯rua, Nga¯ti Toa and Te A¯ tiawa ancestors had been in Marlborough since the 1800s.

‘‘I was fortunate. I was raised with the older people, who generously fed me information and knowledge. And now they’re all gone. My mother passed away 15 years ago but she left so much knowledge with me. So I’m lucky.

‘‘One thing I did pick up on was here, in Marlborough, we had the influence of the European a lot earlier because we had the whalers, and our iwi had moved into the European ways. By 1839 most of our children already read and wrote in English, and English was spoken in the home. We lost a lot of the reo (language) that way.

‘‘Then the treaty came around and we lost so much land, because there was that thing of owning land and giving land. People were just grabbing whatever land they could.’’

Barcello-gemmell said she was honoured that the kauma¯ tua shared their memories with her.

Later Barcello-gemmell was a historian and head negotiator for treaty settlements in Marlborough.

Her work with the treaty settlements had influenced her work as a kaiako and on her PHD thesis, she said.

She was at a loss as to who nominated her for the Queen’s Birthday honours, when she considered all the people she had worked with, she said.

‘‘I’m just overwhelmed, quite shocked, pleased, excited ... This is such an exciting and humbling recognition of the fantastic Marlborough community which I have had the pleasure to serve.

‘‘It’s been a long journey to get here.’’ A Marlborough woman who believes housing reveals a lot about a country has been recognised for her contribution to seniors and housing.

Katherine Saville-smith, known to her friends as Kay, has been made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours.

The Centre for Research, Evaluation and Social Assessment (CRESA) research director and sociologist said she was ‘‘humbled’’ and ‘‘pleased’’ to be given the award.

‘‘When you get an award like this I think it really reflects not so much what you’ve done – although that’s obviously important because a lot of people who get these awards worked really hard and have been really dedicated – but it’s really [for] all the people around you that supported you to do that work,’’ Saville-smith said.

‘‘I’m mostly pleased and excited because it recognised the fact that housing is important and that unless we have a housing system that works for people, not just older people, but for all people, then New Zealand will be in a very difficult position for the future.’’

Saville-smith said she had been ‘‘around housing, housing research and housing services’’ for almost four decades.

Originally drawn into the housing industry by an old teacher, Saville-smith found the profession ‘‘very addictive’’.

‘‘It’s an interesting thing