How wrong we all were, Ynys included. She's as stunned as anyone she's spent 100 years on Earth, 98 of them in Rotorua.
Today we're honouring an undertaking we made then (Our People, August 6, 2016) that another instalment of her life story was to come. The reason: There'd been so much to say about her early Rotorua years and her pivotal community role space restraints forced a rather abrupt ending with her marriage to Kenneth Fraser, the Londoner whose eye she'd caught playing leading lady in The Second Mrs Tanquery.
By then he was in khaki and preparing for war in the Pacific.
Until now Ynys has been resolutely private about her family life and there's precious little on record of her Hamurana Springs years, the place that's been her home since the immediate post-war years.
Our People's beyond grateful that it's us she's chosen to share the missing link with.
The whys and wherefores of how Kenneth Fraser came to acquire the Springs is a story in itself. In a hilarious two-way chat with Ynys and youngest son Iain, each out-prompting the other, we discover Kenneth was a 1930s equivalent of a remittance man - those 'chaps sent to the colonies to find their fortunes'.
Unimpressed with his career choice (an ace motor boat racer in Europe) his parents, as Iain puts it, considered him a "bit of a lad, booting him to New Zealand to do something with his life".
He arrived armed with an introduction to a staffer at Rotorua's newly-established Forestry Research Institute; through him it was arranged for Kenneth to take a look at the experimental coastal Californian Redwoods planted at inland Hamurana.
Ynys takes up the tale: "He immediately fell in love with the place, bought the lease from the Tourism Department and a good chunk of surrounding freehold farmland."
Hamurana's fishermen's lodge was part of the deal.
"It had been here since the 1920s, there were several fishermen's baches, the famous Auckland barrister, Sir Vincent Meredith, had one, Albert "Sammy" Samuel, the MP for Thames, another. When I married Kenneth we came to live here."
'Here' is the cottage that remains Ynys' home.
Because any conversation with Ynys invariably meanders off on compounding tangents she takes us back to the earliest days of her married life.
"Kenneth was in [army] camp at Papakura so I got a caravan and parked it up against the fence, he'd sleep there every night, one of his mates would come and wake him and he'd scarper back to base."
The day "the boys" left to board the boat taking them into battle Ynys and a friend walked with them to Papakura railway station.
"She and I were the only two on the platform to wave them off, then we jumped in
Kenneth's car and raced to the wharf in Auckland to say goodbye again . . . the boys all came to one side of the ship making it so top heavy it was listing almost into the water, Kenneth jumped off, we had a cuddle. All his mates were saying 'go Fraser'."
Kenneth returned from combat to meet Christine, the daughter conceived on the couple's honeymoon, ensconcing his wife and child at Hamurana Lodge where a starry-eyed Ynys hit reality head-on.
"I had to provide meals for the fishermen and the farm workers, I was in tears, unable to get any heat out of the wood-burning stove, one of the farm boys had to teach me, I had no experience of domestic life, my mother had always had someone to do the cooking so the lodge was such a struggle for me. I went sobbing to my father who didn't have any sympathy at all, he said 'this is real life, your lot'."
Up at 5am to cater for the fishermen's breakfasts and often working until 10pm, her days were hard yakker, but it was the summers that left Ynys hot and bothered. Those eyes of hers take on a wicked twinkle as she confesses how she coped.
"I'd take off my pants, it used to amuse me no one knew."
Before any easily-scandalised soul asks, we have her permission to share that hidden side of the normally decorous Ynys, and while on the subject of under-things Iain assures us his mother's lingerie still resembles that of a teenager "all lace and frills"; no nana knickers for this centenarian.
Life at the lodge became even more hectic when the Frasers began catering for 'day trippers'. As business grew so did Ynys' family. Daughter Charlotte and son David were born locally, Iain in Tauranga; Ynys' pregnancy coincided with a polio scare.
"As the daughter of a doctor treating polio victims I knew how awful it was, I isolated myself at the beach living on pipis, wouldn't let anyone near me."
Her children were still small when Ynys found herself carless.
"We had this old Prefect, one day going up the Mourea hill I saw sparks coming through the wooden floorboards, I left it on the side of the road, by the time I returned it had burnt out."
How to get into Rotorua for supplies? Simple: Ynys hopped on a bike, peddling there and back.
When family circumstances changed Ynys ran the Springs single-handed.
"I soon learnt the art of day-to-day living with no money."
The Springs have changed hands several times but Ynys remains a permanent fixture, her leasehold property tied into three lots of 30-year tenures.
She gets the giggles talking about it.
"No one ever thought I'd live this long, I guess I've outfoxed them all. As for being 100 all I can say is I certainly don't feel old, Iain says I've got to stop driving ... well, we'll see about that."
YNYS FRASER (NEE WALLIS) QSM
Born: London, August 3, 1917.
Education: Rotorua Primary and High Schools, Woodford House.
Family: Two sons, two daughters, "many" grandchildren, "even more" great grandchildren.
Current interests: "Everything and everybody". Welsh (her name's Welsh), Historical and Music societies, theatre, spinning and weaving, patron Friends of QE Health, Charter member Zonta, member various U3A groups. Since turning 90 has edited and collated four books of fellow Rotorua residents' memories.
Her prescription for others to match her years: "Take deep breaths of pure, beautiful fresh air."
On Rotorua: "The integration of Maori and Pakeha is very special. I'm thrilled Ngati Rangiwewehi now own the Springs."
Personal philosophy: "Live life to its fullest."