A Hawke's Bay family has marked the rare gathering of five generations.

The gathering, of the eldest of each generation, took place on Saturday at Napier's Princess Alexandra Retirement Village where 97-year-old Alice Monk held 3-month-old first great-great grandchild Elqui Windsor-Salinas for the first time.

Making up the rest of the chain was Ken Monk, 77 and eldest of Alice and late husband Ernie's five sons, his daughter, Lisa Skjottrup, 51, and her son and proud new dad Daniel Windsor, 25.

The descendants of Alice Monk include 10 grandchildren, and 19 great-grandchildren.

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Daughter-in-law Shirley said Alice Monk had been looking forward to the gathering since Elqui was born in Wellington in August. "She was really loving it," she said.

Lisa Skjottrup said: "It was the first time she's met him. She was thrilled. It was a really big deal for her."

The matriarch, who has lived in Hawke's Bay all her life, was on Saturday still sharing vivid memories of growing-up in Havelock North where she was a 9-year-old at primary school at the time of the Hawke's Bay earthquake in 1931.

She spent most of her adult life in Hastings, widowed since her husband died about 35 years ago.