Centenarian celebrating birthday
The best years to be a child have long passed in one centenarian’s view.
Joan Jeffries celebrated her 100th birthday on September 13 and is delighted to still be living in her own home with her daughter, Joanie.
She believes she was raised during the best time to be a child, when one felt free, safe and able to enjoy childhood without too many pressures.
She takes one pill a day, in the morning, for her heart and is otherwise fit and healthy.
‘‘It’s the best place around in the world. I didn’t surf but I used to swim a lot.’’
Born at the Kaponga maternity hospital, she moved to Opunake aged three and stayed there until she moved to Matamata when she married Gordon in 1935.
She was one of 12 children born to Skaelly and Mabel Olliver and quickly discovered Opunake was the place she felt most at home.
The couple returned to Opunake four years later and had four daughters, Betty, Ila, Joanie and Leonie.
She has never used a computer and enjoyed the era before cars on the road were more common than people.
Joan’s ambition was to always live a simple life by the sea and so far she’s been happy to have fulfilled that wish for 100 years.
She has 113 descendants.