Family and friends of Margaret Phillips watch her funeral car retreat. Photo / Janna Dixon
Even as the first words of eulogy were spoken for the sole victim of Gisborne's earthquake, a fresh tremor struck the town.
At the funeral of Margaret Phillips, 78, friend and neighbour Brian Shepherd had barely begun speaking when a 4.8 magnitude quake shook Evans Chapel and the
80 mourners.
The aftershock was centred 30km south-east of Gisborne at a depth of 30km, and happened at 11.35am.
It caused no damage.
Shepherd, looking about the chapel, smiled, took a breath and continued.
"The first thing I did was run down the road," he said of Thursday night's quake. Poor Margaret was lying on the floor. She would have passed away from the earthquake and the shock. We put her on her bed and she looked very peaceful."
Family believed the shock of the quake was too much for their matriarch, who had previously had heart trouble.
Shepherd said Margaret's last evening would have been spent watching much-loved soap opera Coronation Street and drinking tea.
The funeral, held just two days after the quake struck, was how his friend of more than 60 years would have wanted it, rather than have it dragged out through Christmas. Shepherd said Margaret had left school at 13 to care for her father. She went on to raise single-handedly her four children, Eric, Graeme, Lynette and Michael.
They survived her, as did her five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Margaret had been a member of a girl's marching team, played bowls and joined the Evergreen Lodge in 1976. Her lodge-mates placed sprigs of green on her casket.
Grandson Jared Phillips also paid tribute to "our Nana", who was "the backbone of the family".
