Our mum, Bernadette

Moana Maniapoto reflects on the life of her mum, Bernadette, who passed away a month ago, aged 89.

 

‘Bigger than a breadbox’

My mother had a bunch of funny little sayings. As hundreds of people rolled into Waitetoko Marae near Tūrangi to pay their respects to her, the saying “Bigger than a breadbox” popped into my mind. By any measure — and this was one of her favourites — Mum’s tangi was overflowing.

Our beloved matriarch, Bernadette (“Bernie”) Maniapoto, passed away on April 9 at the age of 89, while she was staying at home with me in Muriwai.

I drove the hearse from Muriwai Beach to Waitetoko while my sister Keri-lee pumped out a playlist from Mum’s era. Tom Jones. Englebert Humperdinck. Tony Christie. Prince Tui Teka and John Rowles. Very blokey, but great voices. Dramatic string arrangements.

As we cruised toward Taupō, none of us envisaged that our quiet, unassuming, petite, ever-smiling mum would be farewelled by so many ope from Whakarewarewa to Rotoiti, Waikato to Whanganui, Bay of Plenty to Hawke’s Bay. Mum’s cousin and his wife arrived from Motueka, while my mate Maui rode his Harley up from Wellington.

Educators and orators, hunters and gatherers, musicians and neighbours, academics and activists, legal and political figures, workmates and schoolmates. Big groups from Te Aute College, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Koutū, Raglan and Whangara Schools. (Someone asked me if Mum was a teacher. No, but two of her children, Lisa and Maru, are, and Keri-lee is a kaiwhakahaere at Te Aute.)

There were friends and cousins we hadn’t seen for ages. In-laws and outlaws. Manuhiri bearing flowers, venison, trout, baking, groceries and cash. Carrying framed photos of deceased relatives, which they placed next to Mum’s coffin. Sharing waiata, tears, laughter, haka and stories.

People from all walks of life who had melted into our whānau through whakapapa, friendships, mahi and relationships with our parents and their children. I sat beside our mother’s coffin, caressing the delicate kiwi feathers and beautiful taaniko of our kuia Mamaeroa’s cloak, thinking how tangihanga draw people together.

On the last day, the day of her burial, Whakarewarewa Rugby Club held a minute’s silence before kick-off to honour one of their biggest fans. They won. No surprises there. Bernie would have been cheering from some ethereal stand, drowned out by our father, Nepia, and his siblings, Hitiri, Huriwaha, Manu, Girl and Jimmy.

That week of her tangihanga, we heard orators note that parliament voted down the Treaty principles bill. The bill was dead. It seemed fitting. Former son-in-law Willie, who’d been booted out of the House, said Mum’s tangi represented a kind of “Tiriti partnership” in action. True.

This particular Tiriti partnership was born of a loving, mana-enhancing relationship between Bernie, a smiling Catholic woman of English and Irish stock, and Nepia, a not overly religious man with Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Te Arawa whakapapa.

Marrying into the large Maniapoto whānau was a gift our mother openly celebrated — one that kept on giving through her six children and numerous mokopuna who are confident in who and what they are, with values that reflect the best from both cultures.

Might there be a lesson in that for the rest of the country?

As her moko Puna Whakaata said during the service: “Nanny Bernie might not have turned out to be that kind of Pākehā. She could well have been the other kind.”

‘Proud as punch’

Bernadette Elizabeth Margaret Honywood was born in Winton, in rural Southland, in 1936. She grew up and went to school in nearby Lumsden. One of my school teachers in Rotorua insisted that there was no such place as Lumsden. I reported this back to Mum. She responded with a haka. Impressive, seeing she wasn’t Māori.

In 1983, the Lumsden BNZ was robbed. Mum was openly over the moon — the event put the tiny settlement on the map.

Years ago, my sister Trina and I produced a hardcover book called Under The Apple Tree, printing off 50 copies just for our whānau. It was a collection of stories written with two things in mind — first, to remind Bernie and Nepia’s six children that their parents had a life before our arrival. And second, to capture family stories, whakapapa and photographs for future generations. We interviewed Mum, Dad and his siblings. They’re all gone now.

As kids, we grew up knowing our Ngāti Te Rangiita, Tūhourangi, Ngāti Pikiao, Raukawa whakapapa. Then Mum quietly handed over her family tree, captured in glorious calligraphy. There was a collective jaw drop. It turned out that on her English side, Bernie was descended from knights and baronets whose roots were traced back to 1169.

Warena, another of Mum’s former sons-in-law, won top marks at the tangi by reciting her genealogy from memory. One helluva mean feat given every second name on the tree seemed to be Thomas, Guy, or Anne. The Honywood family has its own coat of arms — three hawks and a wolf’s head — and a motto that reads: “Every good thing is from above.”

In 1883, my great-grandfather on Mum’s side, Henry Molloy, left County Antrim in Northern Ireland and sailed to New Zealand on the Victory. After a stint on a sheep run and marriage to an Irish lass named Ellen Connolly, the couple bought the Imperial Hotel in Oamaru. According to his wife, it was sold after Henry had drunk all the profits.

Their daughter, Anne Gertrude Molloy (“Mamie”), married Thomas Guy Honywood, whom I met a couple of times after their divorce. The couple raised their two children, Bernadette (sporty one) and Barry (brainy one), on a sheep station. Mum described her father as a “gentleman farmer” who never mounted a horse in his life. Grandad was more interested in his huge library. It’s probably where our love of books came from.

‘He’s a ticket’

In the 1950s, Nepia Tauri Maniapoto joined the migration from Te Arawa to Invercargill in search of work. Fresh back from the Korean War, our father ended up at the Ocean Beach freezing works in Bluff. Later on, he would work on the wharf where he cheerfully described himself as a “cargo-ologist.”

Dad was a former member of Guide Rangi’s “concert party” in Rotorua, which entertained tourists and visitors with kapa haka. After moving to Invercargill, he and his brother Huriwaha set up their own group. They asked their Tūhourangi aunties to send down 40 piupiu for a set of packed-out concerts at the Invercargill Civic Theatre. Dad was so proud of those performances.

In our family book, Bernadette recounted how their stars aligned one fateful night.

“I was working as a receptionist in an Invercargill hotel when my girlfriend asked me to a party. She said these five Māori boys would be there. So I went along and met Nepia. I remember he had on a blue jersey with stripes on the top half, and I thought he was very nice. Of course, he was singing up a storm and playing the guitar, so that was a big plus for me as well.”

Dad wooed Mum with a Dean Martin hit, which has this line: “When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.”

Dumbest lyric ever. But it did the trick.

They shared a passion for music and rugby. They were married in the registry office with no objection from either set of parents. No photos either. The running joke in our family was that there was no proof that any wedding took place.

What wasn’t a joke was the reality for mixed-race couples in the 1950s. No surprise to Dad. A big shock for Mum.

‘A rude awakening’

Mum told us stories about the early years of her marriage.

She said: “One time we wanted to get this flat, and I went down and had a look and it was nice, and I said, ‘Can I bring my husband?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ So I took him down and showed him through. That night, the landlord rang up and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve made a mistake. I’ve already let it to somebody.’ Nepia said, ‘I know why he said that.’”

Dad told Mum to ring up and see if the flat was still available. So she phoned, and it was. “It was horrible! I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it went on until it happened to us.”

Mum also said that one of her aunts made it clear that she didn’t approve of the marriage. “She told my mother, ‘Oh, she’ll be living up there in a pā with sticks around it and in grass skirts.’”

The aunt was nice to Dad’s face, but we discovered after her death that the old lady had cut our father out of every single photograph sent to her.

‘For crying out loud’

Mum also told us: “I had never had anything to do with babies. I soon managed to get into the swing of having a baby, and life carried on as normal.”

Her “normal” was six children in 10 years: me, Trina, Niki, Keri-lee, Maru and Lisa.

Hard to believe, but back then, new mothers had to stay in hospital for 14 days. When a baby arrived, Dad would farm the rest of us out to friends so he could still go to work. No problem. “Neighbourhood watch” was a different concept back then. Everyone looked after each other’s kids. We loved our neighbours and their children. Even now, as adults, we visit them when we go south.

With a growing family, Mum was on a steep learning curve. A hotshot when it came to numbers, she did the household accounts but was initially a failure on the culinary front. It was rumoured that the Honywood family had a live-in cook on the sheep station.

“Nepia must have wondered what he had taken on,” she told me. “I had never cooked a meal in my life. He gave me corned beef, and I roasted it in the oven.”

‘Whatever’

Bernie was drawn into te ao Maōri by joyful osmosis. Some would say “assimilation”.

Dad would take his brood to Oreti Beach to collect toheroa, and we’d trail behind him as he gathered watercress. He’d get hōhā because none of his kids could tell the difference between pūhā and any old weed. He’d go pig hunting and deer stalking. There’s a photo of him clutching a bunch of dead kererū. (Disclaimer: I don’t recall ever eating it myself.)

Mum ended up with a rēwena bug from the whānau next door. She set the bar with that bread. Nothing ever came close to it. Honestly. We could barely contain ourselves as we waited for it to come out of the oven, to be sliced up with butter and golden syrup piled on top. We had that bug for years until one helpful visitor noticed the jar of gooey mess at the back of the cupboard. They tossed it out.

No more rēwena.

It was Nepia who taught Bernie how to cook, and she got right into it. Put her foot down at kānga pirau (rotten corn) and pig’s head, though — wasn’t having that in the kitchen. Dad’s specialty was fried bread, scones, and golden syrup dumpling pudding.

Mum nailed shortbread. American crunch. Chocolate Afghans. The names sound a bit off now, but her tins were the go-to. You knew the in-laws felt at home when the door they opened after entering Mum’s whare was the one to the pantry.

‘On the smell of an oily rag’

Mum and Dad had very little money. No washing machine for a long time. They grew all their veggies. Once, I found a bike under the Christmas tree. The note from Santa read: “Please share.”

Dad was fit as hell. Every day, he’d cycle the 50-kilometre round trip to work from Invercargill to Bluff. No car. One year, a relative visiting from up north left them one.

Mum knitted, sewed and made all our clothes. Dressed us all exactly the same. We hated it. Our brother was cut a break, something he continues to rub in when he can.

‘Six of one, half a dozen of the other’

One day, while Dad was at work, our Catholic mum rushed her brood off to the local priest and had us baptised. Dad clammed up for a bit, but came around. Reckoned it was good we were “something.” Next minute, we were off to our first Holy Communion.

‘Don’t know if I’m Arthur or Martha’

After our Nana Mamaeroa died, Mum and Dad drove us six kids from Southland up to Rotorua in a station wagon. I remember a mihimihi in the hallway of the Old Taupō Road homestead with Koro, uncles, aunties and cousins welcoming us.

Our grandfather was a tall, gracious, gentle man who spoke less English the older he got. I’d won an essay writing contest in te reo but would freeze if he spoke Māori to me. Mum managed to pick up a few kupu herself. “Hōhā” (annoying) got the most use.

I knitted Koro colourful scarves and hats he’d wear to numerous land meetings at Mokai or Te Rangiita. He taught me to cut flax and weave. We started going to tangi and marae, slowly assimilating into te ao Māori. Mum got so used to tangi styles, we’d hear her muttering at Pākehā funerals if there was no singing or karakia at the graveside — a far cry from when we were growing up in Invercargill.

Back then, when Mum told me her father had died, I thought of his kind eyes, nicotine-stained fingers and the huge box of biscuits he once brought us. I told Mum I wanted to go with her. She pulled the black veil of her pillbox hat over her face and shook her head.

“Children don’t go to funerals,” she said as she walked out the door.

‘She was a mass of dash’

Eventually, our parents bought two adjoining units in Owhata in Rotorua. They flew Mamie, our beloved Pākehā grandmother, up from Invercargill to live in one. We were in the other. We’d hear a knock at the door and open it to a plate of cinnamon toast on the step. Mamie told Mum she loved being part of the big Maniapoto whānau.

Mamie was really classy.

Even when dining alone, she would sit down to every meal with a crisply ironed linen napkin threaded through a monogrammed silver serviette, bone-handle cutlery placed perfectly beside her china plate. A stickler for manners, Mamie taught us never to put our elbows on the table and how to place our knife and fork after eating. Watching one son-in-law of Mum’s lick his dinner plate felt like a call to war. Honestly.

When Mamie died, Mum was really sad. She assumed no one would turn up because our grandmother had lived a fairly quiet life, just with us. Bernie was blown away when Dad’s Tūhourangi aunts turned up en masse to our whare, wailing and singing. It carried on into the Catholic church, where Mamie was celebrated and mourned, hybrid styles.

Mum knew how everyone was connected at Whaka. Rugby and tangi did the trick. She spent heaps of time in the kitchen at Waitetoko making sammies, baking pavlova, doing the dishes and tidying the cupboards while Dad was out back by the hāngī pit.

A renowned neat freak, Mum had the ”cleanest oven in the world”, according to her niece Daphne. It’s been noted that her offspring have failed to equal Bernie’s record.

‘Please yourself’

Bernie supported her children and moko to dive deeply into te ao Māori. She only hesitated when Willie and I announced we would speak only Māori to our new son. To be honest, both sets of parents rolled their eyes.

“Great,” my Pākehā mum muttered. “How’s that going to work? I can’t speak Māori.”

“Mum,” I replied. “Just speak English and we’ll take care of the Māori. It’ll be fine.”

Not that we actually knew this. It was all new territory. We’d never even met anyone who’d raised their child speaking only Māori. My son’s Māori koro, Bob, huffed, puffed, and delivered the biggest eye-roll of them all.

“Jeez. You two? You’re both hopeless at the language.”

Hard yakker. But Mum and Bob eventually came on board. Funny to think how radical it was back then. Now, many of Bernie’s mokopuna are bilingual.

After our dad died, Mum remained in their Rotorua home. Our sister Trina moved in when she left Auckland. Trina gave her flattie rave reviews. After work, she’d find her “live-in cook” had placed her neatly folded washing on her bed.

‘Wouldn’t know him from a bar of soap’

Mum was the biggest fan of my current affairs show. Musicians, activists and politicians — she’d met a few in her life. She had a soft spot for Jacinda, and Winston, too. No matter who was on, every Monday night without fail, she’d watch us, and I’d get a text.

“Great show. Nice guy that one you were with, eh? And you looked so lovely xxx.”

Bernie was quite good on her phone. Paid all her bills online. But her emojis were all up the wop. Someone would announce a death on the family messenger chat. If a laughing emoji or red heart popped up, we knew it was her.

‘Give me strength!’

After a family event in Rotorua around Waitangi Day this year, I talked Bernie into coming home with us for a holiday. It was cool. Her mokopuna visited to play cards. My lovely neighbours and friends from Muriwai dropped in. We took her to see the movie Tinā, then she watched our band play and hung out at our office with my son and our Te Ao with Moana crew.

Mum tuned in to watch her three mokopuna perform at Te Matatini. My partner Toby whipped up treats while our daughter, Manawanui, fluffed around her grandmother. Mum sat at her favourite spot on the couch with a cup of tea and a chocolate Afghan biscuit, looking out to sea. If there was even the hint of a leaf fluttering, we all knew what to expect. “It’s so windy,” she’d tut-tut. She had missed her vocation as a weather girl.

But she was frail. I knew she wasn’t herself when she didn’t feel compelled to tidy my linen cupboard. Mornings were the worst. She’d be breathless and confused.

“I’m over this,” she’d mutter, with heartbreaking honesty.

“It’ll be okay, Mum,” I’d reassure her. “Mornings suck, but it’ll get better later on.”

But I was worried. So I took her to the Kumeu Medical Clinic, where we met Dr Nathan Joseph. He’d spent many years at Te Puia Springs Hospital before coming to Kumeu.

That’s the thing about MAPAS graduates like Nathan. They get out and about into rural areas.

Nathan did some tests and hustled her into Waitākere Hospital ED. I found myself sourcing medical info from Mum’s usual doctor, the lovely Dr Roz in Rotorua, to pass on to Nathan, then doing the same at the hospital, parking up bedside to help the poor staff join the dots. The lack of an info pipeline between DHBs and GPs is a whole other story.

After a week, we were back at Muriwai. Seventeen of us welcomed her home. Babies, toddlers with golf clubs, aunties and uncles. There was as much laughter as there was kai.

We got Mum into a routine. She was cheerful, eating, and up and about. The mornings were better. My siblings were tag-teaming visits. Two weeks later, after an episode of Coronation Street, Lisa told me Mum had walked off to bed clutching her hot water bottle. Smiling. I’d flown back from a hui in Wellington. For the first time ever, I don’t think I even said goodnight, something I deeply regret.

In the morning, she was gone. Worst moment of my life.

My son contacted Tipene Funerals. They were incredible, manaakitanga personified. They said they were happy to drive Mum to Waitetoko. Or . . .?

I reached for the keys.

It was quite a flash car, so Keri-lee helped with all the bells and whistles.

Some of our dearest friends farewelled Mum at home before we left. Realising that downing a coffee and brioche (my usual go-to on a big trip to the shores of Lake Taupō) wouldn’t be the ”tanga”, I parked a block away from the café where I used to take Mum. I left Keri-lee in the hearse to chat away to Mum and had my kai before we set off.

‘What a scream’

Arriving at Waitetoko, we saw a truck pull in with deer hooves poking out from the back. The trout was already in the cooler. Cousin Lorraine was co-ordinating the kitchen, preparing for the hundreds who would arrive at the marae. In-laws and nephews were out by the hāngī pit. Others were hovering by the pae and setting up inside the wharenui.

Ariki Tā Tumu Te Heuheu and Lady Sue were there. I’d take Mum to visit Tumu every Christmas. They’d laugh away and gasbag for ages. Sue and I were “spare legs.”

I don’t know if Mum’s cousins David and Julie had ever been on a marae. But like Mum, they threw themselves into it. Hunting out jobs, mopping the floor. Helping coil the microphone leads. “We do that with fencing wire,” they explained. “Keeps the kinks out.”

David was teary-eyed describing the joy of being welcomed into a whānau they had barely met. There was so much love and joy in the air.

‘A good innings’

I drove the hearse back to Auckland with Manawanui. We played “Mum’s songs”, like “I Did What I Did For Maria” (Tony Christie) and “Delilah” (Tom Jones). Listening closely to the lyrics for the first time was honestly like listening to a murder podcast.

“She stood there laughing,” sang Tom in “Delilah”. “I felt the knife in my hand, and she laughed no more.”

We switched to “The Last Waltz” and “The Way It Used To Be” by Englebert Humperdinck. The stories of loneliness and abandonment felt cathartic. We dropped the hearse off and met my son and his family at home for the takahi whare, led by our lovely neph, Takoha Ropati. We gazed at the ocean just as Bernie had, and smiled.

“For today, I remember your smile . . .”

Trina and I sang that song at her tangi.

That night, I filled Mum’s room with fragrant freesias and a scented candle. It felt warm and peaceful. I thought of everyone who had performed or spoken that final night inside Te Kapua Whakapipi, a space where our mother felt so at home. I smiled at the memories of funny, kind and articulate mokopuna who are the sum of the best parts of their grandparents.

Mum used to say: “Dad and I were so lucky. You kids all turned out fine. The moko, too.”

I’m not sure if our mother realised how much of that was due to her. Her greatest gift was being a genuinely good person. A kind and reliable force who could let go of the leash, knowing she had passed on a good moral compass to guide and hold us together. We were the lucky ones.

I counted my blessings that we had her in our lives for so long and that she was parked up in my home for two months before she left us. Such a privilege. I went to sleep in her room that night with the feeling of Dad whispering in my ear: “She had a good innings.”

And I thought of the whakataukī my sister Trina delivered at the end of our eulogy.

“Mate atu he tētēkura, ara mai he tētēkura.”

When one fern frond dies, another fern frond rises to take its place.

On the same day our 89-year-old mother died, a baby girl was born into our whānau.

 

 

E-Tangata, 2025