Like many locals, Lucy Tucker loves Hawke's Bay and has lived here all her life - but not many can claim to have lived here quite as long.
Miss Tucker celebrated her 100th birthday yesterday with dozens of friends and family at the Eversley Rest Home in Hastings. Among them was her brother and only surviving sibling, Bill Tucker, who turned 88 earlier this year.
Miss Tucker said the secret to her longevity was "a lot of hard work".
Postcards from the Queen, the Governor General, Prime Minister John Key and local MP Craig Foss all arrived yesterday to mark the occasion. "They're just looking for votes," she laughed.
Miss Tucker was a student at Napier Girls' High School, and as the oldest surviving alumna she cut the cake last year at the school's 125th anniversary. She worked at Farmers in Hastings for 50 years, starting out in the old grain building located just across the road from the modern department store on Market St.
The early weeks of 1931 were a double blow, with her father passing away just a week before the Hawke's Bay earthquake on February 3, leaving her the only working member of the family. When the quake struck Ms Tucker was at work in the Farmers building, which fortunately had been built sturdily only months before, but falling debris opened a nasty cut on her arm. "I had a gash from a roll of linoleum," she recalled.
Miss Tucker's great-grandmother, who came to New Zealand from Belfast, also lived to see 100.
At this rate, Ms Tucker looks set to do better.
Lifelong Hawke's Bay resident celebrates 100 years
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