Gisborne woman Alva Langford turns 100

Gisborne's Alva Langford turns 100 today. Photo / John Gillies

Alva Langford was a 29-year-old mother of sons aged 5, 4 and 3 when she fell ill with polio in October 1955.

Today, she turned 100 and could look back on a life in which polio was the catalyst for her to train as a piano teacher.

For 10 days before Gisborne’s A&P Show, Alva thought she had flu.

On show day, she went to hospital, where polio was diagnosed.

She had been in Cook Hospital “for ages” without making much progress when her husband, Ernie, arranged for her to be treated at the Duncan Polio Hospital in Whanganui.

“The [Sister Kenny] treatment was great ... hot packs and physio,” she wrote in a memoir. “Ernie used to drive over most weekends.”

By the time Alva returned to Gisborne, about a year had passed since the disease struck.

Alva Langford with her daughter Jenny (Shaw) and sons (from left) Tim, David and Clyde at the birthday party held at Wainui Surf Life Saving Club on Saturday, two days before Alva turned 100. Photo / John Gillies

Alva’s mother, Kathleen Morrison, and Ernie had looked after the children with help from friends.

Although Alva had recovered well, her fingers were bent towards her palms. She played the piano to free them.

She had started piano lessons when she was 12.

“I had longed to learn for ages,” she wrote.

“Mum said if she ever once had to tell me to practise, that would be the end of it. She needn’t have worried – I practised at least two hours a day. I usually did over an hour before going to school.”

After her polio illness, she took Trinity College London examinations for playing and teaching. She taught piano from 1966 until she was in her early 90s – a 50-year career, begun at the age of 40.

Alva was born in an Ormond Rd nursing home and was the youngest of three daughters raised by Kathleen and William Morrison.

The others were Brownie and Neva. Another daughter, Lilah, was born three years after Alva, but died at nine months.

Neva’s son, John Clarke, created Fred Dagg and was a successful satirist in Australia.

Clarke, who died in 2017, said his humour was influenced by that of his uncles, Alva’s husband Ernie and Brownie’s husband Bill Aitken.

Kathleen (Alva’s mother) and her sister Mabbo were the daughters of William Fox, a Catholic from Dublin, and Eliza Jane (nee Keys), who in Gisborne was part of the movement seeking votes for women.

The cover of the stapled edition of Alva Langford's handwritten memoir. The year of birth can be corrected to 1926 in subsequent editions. Photo / John Gillies

The Fox family had been landowners who came to New Zealand having lost their money in bank failures.

Kathleen and Mabbo married brothers William and Robert Morrison, who were raised as strict Presbyterians in a large family on a farm in Crossgar, near Belfast.

William and Robert came to Gisborne, married the Fox sisters and remained close.

William bought a farm just north of Ōpōtiki, and he and Kathleen were joined by Robert and Mabbo for a few years. Both families had children there.

When they came back to Gisborne, William bought a riverside house in Stafford St.

“Dad used to put a rope round me, throw me in the river where I dog-paddled round, and when I got tired he’d pull me in,” Alva wrote.

She attended Central School in Derby St.

In 1938, William sold the Stafford St house and bought a big old one in Sievwright Lane that came with nearly two hectares of land. He did the house up, planted vegetables and a citrus orchard, and had two cows and lots of hens. Kathleen made their own butter.

Alva recalled going with her parents in their Plymouth car to Rotorua. It took all day to get there. They crossed more than 40 open water courses in the Waioweka Gorge, and the Ōpōtiki straight “was all corrugations”.

In 1939, Alva was in the last Standard 6 class at Mangapapa School, and was dux. Gisborne Intermediate opened in 1940.

At Gisborne High School, she took the professional course: English, French, Latin, arithmetic, algebra, geometry and science.

She loved school and sport. She was in the A basketball (netball) side and led a drill team.

She trained in Wellington for two years to be a school dental nurse, and was posted to Wairoa. After her father became ill, she swapped places with the dental nurse at Te Karaka.

A copy of a page of Alva Langford's handwritten memoir, in which she describes her husband Ernie's experience of encephalitis. Photo / John Gillies

Family friend Tom Langford would take Alva and her mother to see William in hospital. When Tom had to go away, he got his brother Ernie to look after them, which he did until William died.

Soon after, Alva was sent to the Mangapapa clinic, where Ernie would pop in on the pretence of checking sheep in Valley Rd. They’d go to his parents’ farm at Matawhero and dances in the Makaraka Hall.

They were married on January 29, 1949.

When Ernie’s parents moved into town, Alva and Ernie shifted to Matawhero. Clyde was born in April 1950, David in June 1951 and Tim in October 1952.

In April 1960, the Langford boys were joined by a sister, Jenny, and made a big fuss of her. Their other enthusiasm was riding horses.

Ernie Langford milked cows at Matawhero for town supply and grew crops for Wattie’s, but horses were ever-present. One of the farm workers told Ernie and Alva that Clyde, just before he started school, had said he really didn’t have time to go to school because he had too many horses to break in.

After his father died, Ernie sold his share of the Matawhero farm and they moved into town. They had a house built in Sievwright Lane next to what had been Alva’s old family home.

They moved to a house on nine hectares next to the airport, eventually swapping it for a Tukura Rd house (plus some money for the land).

Ernie died in 1990 after five years of heart problems.

Alva kept active by teaching piano, taking part in her church community, keeping tabs on her growing progeny and being interested in people.

Family and friends gathered at Wainui Surf Life Saving Club on Saturday to celebrate Alva’s imminent 100th birthday.