Raetihi community rallies to farewell Jessie Seaman

Raetihi matriarch Jessie Seaman died on 21 September 2019. Photo / Supplied

Raetihi resident Jessie Seaman helped so many during her 70-plus years in town that everyone has rallied round to help with her funeral.

Jessie died on September 21, aged 96, in Masonic Court Home for the Elderly in Whanganui. Her funeral service is at her beloved St Patrick's Church in Raetihi on September 25.

Her daughter Ileen Maklad has arrived from Christchurch to find there's not much she will have to do.

"The amazing thing about this funeral is the community are virtually doing everything," she said.

Up until two months before her death, Jessie was making sandwiches for Raetihi's young rugby players every Saturday in the season. She had been doing so for decades.

In her final six months, she suffered a number of falls and was in and out of Whanganui Hospital.

Jessie Seaman took on the whole Raetihi community as her family. Photo / Supplied

The well-known resident was born on the island of Korcula, in the Adriatic Sea, in 1922. She arrived in New Zealand aged 14 and fetched up in Raetihi not long afterwards to work at the Waimarino Hospital as a nurse.

She married Herbert "Bud" Seaman and they had one daughter. But her husband died of cancer in 1957 and daughter Ileen was sent to boarding school, leaving Jessie to care about the other people around her.

"I think the community became the replacement. They are her family."

Even as a young woman Jessie was sending items back to Yugoslavia to help relations living there. She went on to get involved in every facet of Raetihi life, working first as a nurse and then as a radiographer at the hospital.

She retired at 65 but remained extremely active.

"She was on every single committee you could think of," grandson Scotty Wicken said.

She supported the museum and theatre and volunteered at the information centre. She was a devout Catholic and among those who made sure St Patrick's wasn't moved out of town.

She played rugby and was a lifelong member of the Ruapehu Rugby Club. She was on a kohanga reo committee and had a seat at the marae.

Jessie Seaman's garden was placed third in Waimarino A&P Show competition.

When there was an A & P Show she always entered jams, preserves, crochet and embroidery. And she had flourishing garden that supplied food for herself and others.

Her wood range was always going and she cooked for every community event, as well as making jams and preserves to raise funds for various causes. When her house was broken into and people stole preserves, she wasn't worried - thinking the people must have needed them.

She regularly took "old folks" to Ohakune in her car, so that they could buy groceries.

An energetic person, Jessie helped form Tongariro Tramping Club and was a friend of tramper AH Reed. She climbed Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe many times, her grandson said, and cycled the length of New Zealand on a three-speed bicycle.

Her 90th birthday was a big occasion for the town. She was named Waimarino Citizen of the Year at least once, and received a Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellowship. Aged 83 she was awarded a Queen's Service Medal for services to the Waimarino.

Typically, Jessie was embarrassed by the honour.

"I don't like all that stuff. I love this community. They have always helped me so I will always help them,'' she said at the time.