Newspaper Article 2017 – The house of memories

The house of memories

Hundreds of guests, including swaggers, once enjoyed the hospitality of the owners of an old huse [house] at Bridge Pa, reports Marty Sharpe.

Where others see a sun-faded crumbling wreck, Hinekirunga Hapi and Doreen Tipoki see the ebbing glow of a home filled with love, laughter and a door open to all.

The house sits in the middle of a large unfenced paddock in the small settlement of Bridge Pa, 10 kilometres west of Hastings.

Surrounded by dusty earth and golden close-cut straw, it appears at once perfectly at home and yet wholly incongruous.

It looks like time forgot it.

And well it might, but not these sisters or their whanau.

Hinekirunga, 84, the oldest of six kids, was born on the trailer of a truck in a shed behind the house in 1932. She, Doreen, 75, their siblings and a slew of cousins, aunties and uncles, once lived in that long-gone shed and a large tent alongside the house.

“There were about 20 people living in that shed and tent out the back. We had a big fireplace with a couple of railway irons to hold the pots over the fire. It was lovely,” Doreen said.

Living in the house were their grandparents Hemi and Keita Puriri. It was built for them with help by Mormon missionaries, probably in the late 19th century. No-one knows exactly when and, because the council records were lost in the Hawke’s Bay earthquake of 1931, the date may be lost forever.

Many years before the house was built, the Puriri whanau lived in a settlement on productive land nearer Hastings. At some stage the council of the day relocated the people to Bridge Pa, so named because there was once a stream there, with the eponymous bridge.

Hemi and Keita raised 11 children on this plot of land. Eight of their own, three adopted. Those children married and had children of their own, all living in the shed and the tent before gradually moving out to homes of their own, mostly nearby.

Hemi died in 1966, three years before Keita.

The old house “kind of became nobody’s but everybody’s”, said Hine. Her uncle and his family lived there for a few years after Hemi and Keita died but after that it was used by whoever happened to be passing, or whoever needed a roof.

It’s been boarded up from time to time over the past few decades, the boards coming down each time someone moved in.

The last time anyone lived in it was probably about 20 years ago, Hinekirunga said.

“There’s been nothing really done to it for more than 50 years. Everything has been taken out: the hot water cylinder, the stove, windows . . . it’s a bit far gone now.”

A family committee was formed a few years ago to see what could be done about it, but it all became too hard. The property has multiple owners, so getting a unanimous decision was tricky.

Then there was the question of who would live there.

“We had a nephew who’s a builder come and look at it a few years ago. He said the floor’s a bit rocky in places, but the piling is good,” Hinekirunga said.

The future of the house remains vexed.

“Some would like to see it burned down,” Doreen said. “Some think it’s an eyesore.

“If I won Lotto I’d do it up. But that won’t happen because I don’t buy tickets.”

Small black and whites in the family albums show the house and property at its height.

Keita was a house-proud woman, a gifted gardener, a firm but fair nan, and her home was known to be open and welcoming to allcomers.

“We used to have a lot of swaggers in the old days. She used to take them in and feed them. She was like that.

“She’d get them to do a bit of work while she cooked for the family. I remember them well. Some would come back every year,” Hinekirunga said.

“Keita was a lovely lady. She was a bit Scottish, a Goldsmith. She was quite a fair-skinned lady. You’d have thought she was a Pakeha until she spoke.

“She spoke Maori fluently. We weren’t allowed to talk Maori at school, so sadly we lost the language.

“She always had lovely gardens, beautiful roses and flowers. We’ve taken clippings and managed to grow them in other places.”

Small rose plants still crop up beneath the house, the deep green leaves a striking contrast as the [they] poke through faded weatherboards.

Hemi was a shearing contractor. He planted a sizeable orchard and vegetable patch in front of the house, and when he wasn’t out shearing he was tending to his garden too.

“They were hard workers. They had to be. They had 11 kids,” Doreen said.

Hemi and his children would often spend days out in the back blocks shearing.

The house is a stone’s throw from Korongata Marae. “We were brought up in the shearing sheds, but when we were little all the grandkids would be dropped off at the marae meeting house and nan [Keita] would look after us,” Hinekirunga said.

“There were way too many of us for the house. We had beds in the meeting house.

“In the late 40s and 50s, family would always come back to the house and pitch their tents on the lawn. Everything used to revolve around that house. Not always inside it, but around it,” Doreen said.

All the kids went to Pakipaki school, about 4km away. There were so many kids in the family that Hemi bought an old bus to ferry them to and fro.

“There were quite a few of us,” Doreen said.

The house has been a constant in the sisters’ lives. For Hinekirunga, it draws diverse feelings.

“It brings back lot of memories . . . many good times. But I can’t help feeling a bit sad about all those people not with us now, and sad to see how the house is now.”

Doreen said she saw more that just a decrepit shell of a house.

“I see what used to go on inside it. With my own imagination I go past the outside, because it’s from the inside that everything used to come out of.

“To me it’s still a beautiful place. To me it’s the inside that counts.”

Photo captions –

Hinekirunga Hapi and Doreen Tipoki treasure their memories of growing up in a shed behind the old house that their grandparents owned.    PHOTOS: ANDREW BROWNE

Keita Puriri, centre, and her daughter, Hana Cotter, with family friends Rangi Kamau and Marutu Hapi in the 1950s.

An early photo of the house that “became nobody’s but everybody’s” in the family photo album.

Hemi and Keita Puriri, who died in 1969, in another photo from the album.