1917 is the name of a movie everyone seems to be talking about this month, set in the trenches of the First World War. It also happens to be the birth year of our most senior Village resident, Nell Graveson. This month she reached the ripe old age of 103. The first powered flight had taken place just 14 years previously. The Titanic had sunk just five years before. Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather was King. And Pavlova had not yet been created!
Nell remains fit, well and an active member of the wider Kerikeri community. To mark her epic milestone earlier this month she threw a sausage sizzle for forty of her closest friends. And made sure there was plenty of wine to wash them down with.
Nell isn’t just our oldest independent living resident. She’s an institution. She’s lived in Kerikeri since 1946, just after the end of yet another World War. Her father established a citrus nursery here which Nell took over in due course, along with her late husband Jock Graveson.
In those days Kerikeri had just five shops and no more than a dozen cars. There were 78 pupils and two teachers in a school across the river from the Stone Store.
She and Jock owned a large home in Riverview. After his death in 1978 she remembers discussions in that house about how his estate would help establish the Kerikeri Retirement Village. And about the designs of the original eight cottages. One of which she now lives in.
It was clear even back in the late eighties that there was growing demand for retirement care and accommodation in Kerikeri. None of the mainstream providers were interested in building this so, as with so many things in this town, the community took it upon itself to build the village.
The venture was made possible only through generous bequests from Nell’s Jock and another Kerikeri resident, Mr Herbert Murray. In 1983 Kerikeri Village Trust was founded as a not for profit community venture between Presbyterian Support Northern, the Murray-Graveson Trust and the Auckland Methodist Mission.
Land was purchased and construction of the first cottages was completed in September 1986. The Care Facility opened in April 1991 and the 30 rooms were soon full.
Nell has lived at the Village since it opened in 1986, so she is our First Resident in more ways than one.
She says she’s “thrilled to bits” with how the Village has developed since then. She had no idea that it would grow to the extent it has.
So what’s the secret to her longevity? I said I thought it might be her tough, north of England heritage. “No dear,” she said. “It’s 34 worry-free years of Village living.”
Happy Birthday, Nell. I couldn’t have said it better myself!
Back
