Obituary: Still working right up until her death

HONOURED: Lily Baker received the Queen's Service Medal in the 2000 for her voluntary service. PHOTO/FILE

It's more than 15 years since Lily Baker received the Queen's Service Medal in the 2000 Queen's Birthday Honours, recognising what might have seemed already a full book of voluntary service to the communities in which she lived in Hawke's Bay.

But she kept going, and despite deteriorating health in recent months was still making plans for the community almost right up to the time she died on Wednesday, aged 81.

A notable example came when she and fellow Keep Hastings Beautiful founder Megan Williams presented a $3538.89 cheque to the mayor of Hastings to kick-start a fund to reopen the Hawke's Bay Opera House.

The donation was founded on a $1000 investment she made from KHB funds as the volunteer organisation's role was taken over by the Hastings District Council 13 years ago. "I was just the dumb old treasurer who had to do something with it," she would say.

Raised in Otane, a daughter of builder and building inspector Henry Lionel Priest and his wife Janet (nee Jenkins), her forte became things historical, noted in the bestowing of the QSM for which a citation recognised her service to the Hawke's Bay Cultural Trust and Regional Archive, the Historic Places Trust, Heritage Trails, Friends of the Library in Hastings, the Hastings 2000 Millennium Committee and the New Zealand Society of Genealogy.

In more recent times she was foremost in encouraging the council to buy the historic Stoneycroft homestead off Omahu Rd in 2005 and the establishment within of the Knowledge Bank and the Lily Baker Library, including a collection of Hawke's Bay genealogical records. She was also heavily involved with the Raureka Townwomen's Guild.

Sons Peter and Malcolm recalled many other involvements of a mother who always seemed busy, doing it for others, including the Hawke's Bay Car Club, with which she and husband Edward (Ted) were members for over 40 years. "It was one of her first life memberships," said Peter Baker.

Close to home and family she traced family heritage back to the Shetland Islands, from where descendants had arrived in New Zealand in 1878, and helped others from throughout New Zealand to do the same by organising tours to the islands. She also ran classes helping others trace family histories.

She also had active roles on the parent-teacher associations at Ebbett Park School in Raureka.

Named after a relative who died in the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, Mrs Baker had a variety of jobs, working at Hillsbrook children's home in Havelock North and at Hastings Memorial Hospital (now Hawke's Bay Hospital), as well as Raureka Drapery and Starlight Foods.

As well as raising two sons, she and her husband also raised two of their nieces.

Sadly, she was not around to accept the Supreme Award at the Landmark Trust Awards on Thursday. It was accepted on her behalf by her sons.

Mrs Baker's funeral will be held at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Hastings, on Tuesday, starting at 11am.