Centenarian gets gift of more family
Among the gifts Wallace Price received for his 100th birthday was a whole new side to his the family.
Mr Price turned 100 on September 2 and celebrated with a family gathering in Dunedin with family coming from all over the country, his son Graeme Price said.
‘‘[We] saw cousins we hadn’t seen for 40 years so yeah, it was a good time.’’
He also held a smaller celebration with close friends in Invercargill.
A photo of Mr Price celebrating his birthday was published in a newspaper the following week and, as a result, a new branch of the family was discovered in Australia.
They were contacted by a man from Brisbane whose daughter-inlaw saw the picture of the birthday celebration and alerted him.
‘‘We’ve got a whole new side to the family now,’’ Graeme said.
It was quite the birthday present, he said, though his father quipped that they would have to see them first.
Mr Price has been living in Invercargill for 66 years after moving to the city with his wife Lilian Clark, who was originally from there.
He was born in the small rural community located halfway between Whangarei and Dargaville in Northland and grew up beside the Waikato River in Mercer.
‘‘I learned to talk and walk there.’’
His great-grandmother Sophia Hinerangi was one of the first guides on the Pink and White Terraces and was there when Mt Tarawera erupted on June 10, 1886.
It is through his grandmother that Mr Price has links to Taranaki iwi Nga¯ti Ruanui and Nga¯ Puhi.
At the age of 14, Mr Price moved to Dunedin.
He has worked most of his life as a labourer.
He met Lilian at the Centennial Exhibition in Wellington in 1940 and the couple had two children - Graeme and Valerie.
In 1951 he moved to Invercargill and spent a good amount of time working as a carpenter on ships at Bluff. His wife died in 1990. There was no secret to his old age, Mr Price said. ‘‘That’s out of our control.’’ He was not sure why he came to Invercargill and stayed for 66 years.
Something must have guided him here, he said.
‘‘There must be something in the air.’’
Though, when he did come here, he found the friendliest people he had ever met.
And he couldn’t forget Bluff either, he said.
These days, Graeme looks after him in their Waikiwi home.
‘‘The two of us manage pretty well,’’ Graeme said.
He helped his father vote in the 2017 general election, casting his vote on the Maori roll.
Mr Price still remembers the first vote he made, for Dr Gervan McMillian in Dunedin West in 1938.