Joyce O'Hara, nee Hudson, was proud to have been born in a paddock. Now, almost two years after her death, aged 85, and 17 years since her husband Bill died, paddocks will be part of her charitable legacy. The O'Haras' two blocks of land in Waiuku, a total of 35.8ha, will be auctioned on October 31. Ten charities will receive proceeds from the estate, including St John's Ambulance and the Anglican Church.
Joyce and Bill had no children themselves, but details of how Joyce came into the world were read out at her funeral in January 2011. On Christmas morning in 1925, at the Hudson family farm in Aka Aka, Joyce's mother Florence went to help milk the cows.
"But Joyce decided to arrive earlier than planned, her mother not even making it back to the house," the eulogy written by Bill's cousin Peter Sands and others says.
Joyce married Bill O'Hara in 1947. The couple worked on the O'Hara farm at 92 Constable Rd, living in the farmhouse villa on the property. Bill's father George had bought the farm when he had returned from service in World War I. Bill took over the running of the farm with his mother Bertha after George's death in 1939. Bertha died five years later and Bill spent his whole life on the farm, before he died in 1995, aged 72. Joyce continued to manage the property until she went into care in 2002. It has been leased for the past decade.
