Obituary: Red Cross stalwart Amita Mukherjee

She came to New Zealand when she was 64 years old and settled quickly into a life of helping others.

Amita Mukherjee arrived in Tauranga from India in 1995 and settled in Greerton, where she soon devoted her time to supporting the local Red Cross.

She had no family in New Zealand, but her friends and colleagues said that did not stop her from being eternally pleasant.

Gladys Mulholland, who used to socialise with Mrs Mukherjee at the Greerton Care and Craft Centre, remembers her fondly. "She was a lovely lady. A lovely, little, quiet lady. She was a very gentle woman. She came every Wednesday. We all loved her very much. She was a dear," she said.

But it was Mrs Mukherjee's volunteer work at the Red Cross store that will remain her lasting legacy in Greerton.

Born in Chinsurah, in India, on August 30, 1931, Mrs Mukherjee was the oldest of two children. In her youngest years, she lived in a large communal home with her immediate family as well as her grandparents and her uncle's family all under the same roof.

She went to college and on to university, where she gained a Masters degree in ancient history.

In 1954 she was wed in an arranged marriage to Tarun Kumar and two years later they had their only child, a son. Her husband passed away in 1976 and soon after Mrs Mukherjee took a job as a teacher. In 1995 she followed her son to New Zealand where he had found work, and it was in Greerton that she lay down her roots, staying on even after her son moved on to the Unites States.

A colleague, Heather Dabrowski, said Mrs Mukherjee stayed in Tauranga because she loved her volunteer work and the new friends she had made. "I think Amita settled in Tauranga in 1995, and started volunteering in Greerton in early 1998. She continued working there right through. She usually worked Mondays or Fridays, and sometimes both.

"She was a really honest and loyal supporter of the Red Cross. I think a lot of her week was planned around her commitment to the Red Cross," she said.

Being in a new country with a different culture may have created some minor problems, but it couldn't dampen Mrs Mukherjee's youthful verve for helping others.

"She hated the cold weather. In the winter she'd be rugged up," said Mrs Dabrowski. "[But] she was always bright and friendly. She was a very caring, generous sort of person. She put a lot of time into the Red Cross.

"She was one of those volunteers that in the early days, if she thought she might have made a mistake on the till, she'd make a donation to the Red Cross, if she thought anyone might be disadvantaged."