Celebrating their heritage
Hastings.
“On our one day off, which was normally a Friday, we all assembled in Hastings. The bus cost sixpence I think. There were a lot of girls working in Hastings. In those days the Cook Island girls didn’t smoke or drink. We went to the pictures a lot and if we stayed the night, we went out for ameal. We went to lots of dancing [sic] too.”
There were also lot of Cook Island men working on properties in CHB at the time, she remembered.
“There were a quiet a few us. The Hunters had a lot of Cook Islanders working for them. And [Wallingford] owner Lady Ormond, John Ormond’s mother, had quite a few working for her, and that carried on when John inherited the property.”
Elizabeth worked for the Carlyons for four years, during which time she met her husband, Ngavii Snr, who was born on one of Rarotonga’s outer islands, but through his sister had come to work as a shepherd for Tim Wilder on Ugly Hill Rd.
They began to have children after leaving the Carlyons, and went to work for the Chambers in Havelock North. With the first of their children starting school, they returned to CHB to work for farmer Allan Spiers on Ugly Hill Rd, with Ngavii working as fence builder.
Like many Cook Islanders, Elizabeth said she and her husband formed strong, loyal bonds with their employers.
“We worked hard and did very well for the farmers. And I think we were very loyal too. They not only became workers for the family but they became friends,” she said.
As the couple began to have more children, Ngavii— who started building fences for the local council and later himself— built the couple a house on Windsor Rd in Waipawa in 1962, where Elizabeth still lives today. “It’s not big. But it’s home.” Over the years it has been home to a remarkable number of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Elizabeth and Ngavii raised 14 children and have nearly 200 descendants, natural and adopted.
“It could be even more than that. I think I’ve got 50-something grandchildren and the great-grandchildren top that [number],” said Elizabeth, whose husband died in the 1970s.
“He passed away 41 years ago. It’s a long time on your own bringing up all those children,” Elizabeth said.
Some of her children now live in Australia and in Rarotonga, where Elizabeth travels every year to visit her three sisters and brother, all also in their 80s, who still live there.
With most of the Cook Island families she had met in CHB over 70 years now moved on to places like Auckland, Elizabeth felt a sense of duty to attend the reunion planned for Easter at Porangahau.
“It’s not because Iwant or don’t want [to go], it’s because we have to go. It’s based on us people that came here to CHB at that time. There’s only a few of us left. All I can do is talk to them and explain who I can remember was here.”
Her son Ngavii Jnr said an official photographer would be capturing images at the reunion, and family histories would also be recorded for a book to be published about Cook Island Migration to CHB from 1920-50.
He said the reunion would start with a powhiri at the marae at 5pm on April 14 and would include visits to some of the farms the pioneers worked on.
The plan was for the event to become an annual celebration, to be held every year on the Cooks Island’s Constitution Day.