Tauranga author and teacher Patricia Brooks died on May 30 while on holiday in Australia.
Tauranga author and teacher Patricia Brooks died on May 30 while on holiday in Australia.
A “passionate” writer, creative teacher, world traveller, devoted wife of 64 years, loving mother of six and proud grandmother of 19.
Tauranga teacher and author Patricia Alice Brooks has been remembered by her family after she died suddenly at Sanctuary Cove in Australia on May 30 while on holiday. Shewas 85.
Patricia, also known as Paddy, was the third of six children of Nell and Brian Molloy, farmers at Pyes Pā in Tauranga.
She went to St Mary’s Convent School in Tauranga and Tauranga College.
She trained as a primary school teacher and held her first teaching job in Waikato. She eventually returned to Tauranga and taught at St Mary’s.
Liz said Patricia was “anticipating with joy” the expected arrival of two great-grandchildren before she died.
Her fondest memory of her mother was her “legendary” hospitality. She loved welcoming people and having them around the table.
“She’d always serve chocolate eclairs ... ”
Tauranga author and teacher Patricia Brooks at a family wedding in January 2025.
Her mother loved gardening and took surplus fruit to the soup kitchen or food bank.
She also took flowers when she visited people in hospital or retirement villages.
“She was always a great one for just doing what she could to brighten people’s days.”
Liz said her mother was a “creative and committed” teacher and a “passionate” writer, including for Amnesty International.
She had a “strong sense of social justice” and wanted to “make the world a better place”.
“She really loved seeing the good in people and tried to find positive solutions to things.”
Patricia Brooks loved gardening, said her daughter Liz.
Liz said her mother wrote and published four historical books: By the name of Mary: Tauranga Catholic Church 1840-2000;With No Regrets;Henare Wiremu Taratoa: Noble Warrior; and Patrick Freeburn Keenan and his Family.
She loved travelling and was “curious and interested in the world”.
Patricia and Norman walked the Camino de Santiago across the top of Spain from the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela, marking a “huge achievement”.
Liz said she and her siblings had a “lovely childhood”.
“We just grew up with enormous amounts of opportunity to just explore, to paint, to make a mess, to write ... and she just encouraged the creativity.”
Patricia Brooks at her 80th birthday party in 2020 with her extended family.
Patricia’s granddaughter Sophie Levestam said her grandmother was the “embodiment of love”.
“She would be out in the garden with us ... she’d be digging a firepit with us, she’d be arming us in all the gumboots and old clothes we needed to go diving into her raspberry bushes ...”
