Happy birthday to everyone celebrating recent birthdays.

Ivy McGaughey celebrated her 96th birthday with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who are all very proud of their Nana reaching this wonderful age. Ivy is the daughter of the late Anna and Pyke (James) Peneamene/Benson. Waihao Chairman Graeme Lane presented Ivy with these beautiful flowers. At 96 years of age Ivy is the eldest kaumātua to whakapapa back to Waihao. [Read more…]

Rā whānau

Ivy Mairoki Patience Mary McGaughey, née Benson (Peneamene) celebrated her 94th birthday on Sunday 29 July.

Family and friends gathered together to celebrate Ivy’s big day and she was presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers by Graeme Lane on behalf of Waihao whānau.

Ivy was born in Ashburton on 27 July 1920. She is the eldest of two children born to James Paiki Peneamene and Anna Crocker.

Ivy’s childhood was spent in Parnassus, where she started school and where her father worked on the railways. The family moved to Waikari in North Canterbury, then to Christchurch where Ivy attended Phillipstown School. Holidays were spent at her Aunty Hannah Benson’s home, where Ivy recalls gathering flax and making mats – as well as enjoying goose eggs and eels. The eels were caught following a walk of approximately four miles to The Box, where eels were caught both by hand and by the use of a whitebait net under The Box. Whitebaiting was also a large part of life. [Read more…]