Centenarian looks back on life filled with love and music
Shirley Houston has been “full of music“for 100 years.
She started out with singing as a child, dancing and marching as a teenager and young woman, then took up drumming at the age of 80.
Today is her birthday, although she celebrated the milestone on Saturday with a large party that included her three sons and their families, friends and other relatives.
She lives at the Eltham Care Rest Home, after moving back to Taranaki, where she grew up, two years ago to be closer to her youngest son. “I’ve lived half my life in Taranaki and half in the Waikato, and I’ve done a full circle,” she said.
Drumming, dancing and marching are all activities she has enjoyed throughout her life, most of them with her late husband, Allan.
Back in 1945, it was love at first sight when she met Allan while visiting the sister of a man she was seeing at the time.
“I knew from the word go. This other fellow asked me to get engaged that night, but I said no, I had my eye on Allan.
“We got engaged three months later on VE Day in 1945, and we got married at the end of 1946 at St Mary’s in Hāwera.”
They caught the mail car and a bus to Wellington for their honeymoon in a borrowed flat, and started married life with “10 quid” between them, she said.
Although they had arguments over the years, they always made peace the same day, she said.
“We never went to bed without saying goodnight.”
Allan died four years ago.
“He was a great guy, he was a darling,” she said. “We packed a lot into those 73 years, we did everything together.”
They both loved music, with Allan being a bass drummer and band master in brass and pipe bands for 60 years.
He worked as a plumber and later in hardware companies.
The couple and their three sons, Warren, Grant and Craig, lived in Whanganui, Hāwera, New Plymouth and Hamilton, following Allan’s work.
Shirley had jobs, once her boys were older, in the massage department (now physiotherapy) at Hāwera Hospital, and later in supermarkets and pharmacies.
In her 50s, she rekindled her love of marching, and founded a senior marching team. The sport had gained popularity all of a sudden, she said.
“People were going for their health’s sake, to keep fit.”
She asked Allan, who knew all the marching patterns from years in bands, to coach her new team.
“He said no way, I’m not going to coach a bunch of women, no thanks,” she said.
Fortunately, he changed his mind and over the next few years they enjoyed travelling to many marching events.
The team, the Hamilton Evergreens, was still going, and several members attended her party on Saturday.
After they retired to Cambridge, Allan was part of a band who met one morning a week to practise.
“They used to take sandwiches. I thought it was such a giggle – I called them Dad’s Army, cheeky me,” she said with a smile.
One morning, while waiting for them to stop for lunch, she fished a pair of sticks from Allan’s bag.
“I went over to the table where they practised and started to drum.
“I went to town with those drum sticks, drumming away quietly, and the head drummer heard me. He said: ‘Looks like we have a new drummer’, you’re in the band, and I was.
“I was 80 when I joined. I played the tenor drum until I was 93.”
The couple passed their love of music to their three sons, who are all musicians.
Shirley also has three grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
She keeps in touch with the rest of her family using Skype and Facebook, and credits her long life to her marching and positive outlook.
“I’ve had a lot of fun in my life. “I love fun, and I love music. I’m full of music.”