Our stories

Domestic Life before Power

This is Lill Parsell photographed in 1934 standing in front of her home.

Lill's home was a tent house. The walls were half timber and half canvas with a roof of double canvas and the floor was just dirt.  

This form of housing was an accepted way of living during the depression years but domestic life was not easy in those days.

Water came from the river. Her husband would fetch two buckets full every morning before he went to work. The buckets being four gallon kerosene tins with number eight wire handles.

Heating and cooking came from a small wood fired stove.

In a recent display, some of the typical household items that Lill would have used were shown, which included a laundry wash board; irons heated on the stove; and candles for light.

Ada Margaret Gordon

Many residents of Te Aroha will remember Councillor Loris Mathew in the 1980s, more recently Mayor Jan Barnes, and of course our current Mayor Adrienne Wilcock, but Te Aroha was leading the way much earlier with a woman Councillor in the 1920s. 

Ada Gordon was the wife of the local doctor, Kenneth Gordon, and was elected onto the Te Aroha Borough Council in 1922. She was an active member of the Council and undertook the role of Mayoress as the Mayor Robert Coulter was a bachelor. She was also the first lady Councillor in the Auckland province outside Auckland City and the fifth in New Zealand.

As part of her council work, she was on the legal and finance committee, and the band...

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The Coastwatchers - Claude Kilpin

A recent "Coastwatchers" display told the story of Claude Kilpin and Robert Hitchon, local men, who were part of the contingent of soldiers who maintained a lonely vigil over 16 million square miles of South Pacific Ocean on the lookout for Japanese activity during the Second World War. 

Radio stations were established in each Pacific island group.  The soldiers that accompanied the radio operators were volunteers.

At the Tarawa atoll the Japanese brought 17 captured New Zealand Coastwatchers.  They bore their suffering with dignity and fortitude before being killed at the hands of their captors on 15 October 1942.

There is a memorial on Tarawa Island dedicated to the bravery of the men who lost their lives.