Still knitting: Carter House resident Barbara Falconer turned 100 on Tuesday. Photo / Stuart Whitaker
Carter House resident Barbara Falconer has a lot to show for her 100 years.
Barbara celebrated her 100th birthday on Tuesday. With her late husband Dick, she had five children who have produced for her 15 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
She was born and spent the first 60 years of her life in Wanganui. She had an older sister, Tish, and a younger brother, Tony.
“I was the little child, cheeky, talkative, hyperactive,” she says. “I rode my father’s old boneshaker bike. I had to sit under the bar and sit sideways as I was so small. And I had to ride it early in the morning as he was going to ride it to work.”
She was, she says, a bit of a tomboy, climbing trees and seeking out birds’ nests. She was also argumentative — but creative.
“I was knitting from the age of 10, knitting my own garments and I’m still knitting — I knit for Plunket.
“We were taught to be creative and make things and we were taught home skills, although cooking — I’m not so sure. I’d disappear where cooking was mentioned. And housework.”
Barbara was born just as the world was heading into depression in the 1920s.
“Things were very tight. You never got anything new, everything was a cast-off or hand-me-down.”
She remembers, because a friend had some, yearning for a pair of black, patent leather, ankle-strapped shoes that she admits would have been totally impractical.
“I had one pair of shoes and they had to do for school, although we were barefoot most of the time.”
She did have a skipping rope — and would have loved a better one with ball bearings.
She never got the shoes, never got the expensive skipping rope or the gold bangle she craved.
“Those were the things I remember I would have loved, but you didn’t miss them when you didn’t have them — you learned to go without.”
Her first school was a “little private church school with two teachers”.
“They were very good teachers, they were particular about grammar, spelling, arithmetic. We were very lucky.”
For her 11th birthday, she was surprised by a bike of her own — but the reason for the present soon became clear.
“You didn’t get a two-wheeler bike until you were going to college and I thought, ‘I’m 11 and I’ve got a two-wheeler bike for my birthday!’
“Then they told me that the next term, in a few weeks’ time, I was going to a different school.”
The private schools were closing down.
“Being depression time, everyone was taking their children out of the schools because they couldn’t afford the £3 [term fee].”
Wanganui Girls’ College started a junior department to accommodate the displaced students.
“I went to a school with 3[00] or 400 girls and I’d never seen so many girls in black uniforms and black stockings — I didn’t know so many girls existed. It was a bit of a shock. I was there until I was 17.”
By the time Barbara left school, World War II had started.
She wanted to be a Karitane nurse, but was too young to be accepted for training. Instead, she worked in an office — where she met Dick — until she was old enough, at 19, to start training.
The nurses would travel to the places they were needed so Barbara travelled extensively at a time when mothers were often alone because their husbands were away in the war.
Dick had joined the air force after a brief time in the army, and was stationed in the Pacific, periodically returning to New Zealand
“Whenever he came back to New Zealand I wasn’t in Wanganui — so our courtship was by snail mail, by letter, I always wrote letters.”
Marriage came after the war and the couple built a house in Wanganui.
“We had five children and every time we had another child, he added another room to the house, until we ran out of flat ground.”
At 40 Dick decided, with building work getting scarce, he would train as a teacher. He spent a year in Christchurch while Barbara remained in Wanganui with the children and a dog.
“We couldn’t afford to go to live in Christchurch. But he knew I would cope — I was very resourceful.”
When Dick took early retirement at 60, the couple moved to Taupō
“We bought a little holiday house and he altered it.”
The couple lived in Taupō for 23 years before Dick died unexpectedly.
“I said I don’t need to be in Taupō — I can move to Te Puke to be nearer to one of my daughters [Judy] who was building up here, so I knew they would be staying.”
While she wanted a two-bedroom unit with a garage, she had to settle for a single-bedroom unit without.
“It was delightful. It had a garden shed and a conservatory — and I said ‘the car can jolly well stay outside’, which it did for a few years.”
She spent 16 years in the unit and moved into the rest home in only February this year.
“I had a vegetable garden — we’ve always had vegetable gardens right from the time we were children.”
Earlier this year she got Covid.
“That sent me to hospital and I knew I was past looking after myself, but I am more than happy with my choice.”
As for the secret of reaching triple digits, Barbara says she is a very positive person, “if that helps”.
“And I think probably the genes in the family have been sound.”
“I’ve never smoked, and partying wasn’t really on the scene. In the first place, we didn’t have any money, but we weren’t party people, we didn’t live high at all.”
With her family, she has always enjoyed exercise, especially walking and cycling.
“We’ve always exercised, we were never idle. We’ve done all the tramps — Tongariro, Milford, Routeburn, Heaphy. Our hands were always busy, we’d always find something to do and we had a basic, sensible diet. We had a wonderful family with no dramas.
“And I’m a Christian — my faith has always meant a lot to me.”