Staunch advocate for Te Karaka

Barbara Fisher, “The Sheriff of Te Karaka”, in jovial mood. Picture supplied

OBITUARY Barbara Fisher

It was a badge earned but never worn. Barbara Fisher — Serving Sister and Officer of the Order of St John, Queen’s Service Medal recipient, Justice of the Peace (retired) and registered nurse — was the Sheriff of Te Karaka.

Hughie Hughes, her fellow stalwart of the Order of St John, reckoned that was her unofficial role in the community.

Barbara Fisher died in Cambridge, in the Waikato, less than two months short of her 93rd birthday. She had moved there from Gisborne five years earlier to be closer to family. Her husband Mick had died in November 1993, and she moved from Te Karaka to Gisborne about 18 months later.

In all, she spent about 40 years of her life in Te Karaka. She arrived as a stranger, married a local man and — by dint of her nursing skills, community spirit and interest in people — became a champion of the township’s welfare.

And as if that was not enough, she wrote about what happened in the community as The Gisborne Herald’s special correspondent.

Barbara Yvonne Mexted was born on May 21, 1930, in Porirua. Her father was a dairy farmer who had 14 cows and did town milk supply.

“Mum used to go around the neighbourhood with billies and a dipper, delivering fresh milk,” Barbara’s son Dallas Fisher said.

“Grandad’s farm was the first land taken under the Public Works Act to build Ranui Heights (a suburb in Porirua).”

Before she did her nursing training, the young Barbara Mexted worked in the Australian High Commission in Wellington.

She then trained as a nurse in Masterton and Rotorua, the latter being her base for midwifery training.

“Mum had quite a few medals,” Dallas said.

“Of that collection, she was particularly proud of the registered nurses’ medal.

“She moved to Gisborne as cover for the Health Camp while the matron went on holiday. Then she went out to Te Karaka to do the same for the district nurse.”

Mick Fisher, a builder who lived with his parents across the road from the district nurse’s house, struck up a friendship with the locum nurse.

Hughie Hughes takes up the story.

“Barbara got engaged to Mick and he was building a house for her. I turned up and did the initial part of the electrical work. Then the power board started putting in reticulation for Tolaga Bay and through my contacts I got some of the work that went with it. I went there in 1955 and didn’t want to go back to Te Karaka. I had just started business on my own and went up the Coast in an Austin 7. The car wasn’t much good and I didn’t want to start driving to Te Karaka for little jobs.

“John Robinson was starting business — he ended up working there for 40 years — so I gave Barbara Fisher’s job to him. Even up to this year she would say, ‘Yes, and you never finished my job’ . . . 68 years later she still remembered.

“She had the original account I sent her in 1955 for 16 pounds, four shillings and sixpence . . . proof I hadn’t finished the work.”

Hughie Hughes has been in the Order of St John since 1945.

“When I went up the Coast I went into first aid, cadets, ambulance, instruction . . . Barbara Fisher was doing the same thing in Te Karaka,” he said.

“Even though she had the commitment of running a home and raising children, she joined  the Order of St John as a nursing officer, and she was the first aid instructor for the whole district.”

One of her first challenges as an instructor was the tuition of periodic detention workers, Hughie said.

If they thought it would be “a piece of cake” to get the better of Barbara Fisher, they were in for a rude awakening.

She stood her ground, and in the end tutor and trainees had a “fantastic relationship”.

Of the periodic detention first aid trainees that Barbara taught, it was said that none of them ever came before the courts again.

“She was the Sheriff of Te Karaka,” Hughie said.

Dallas Fisher said his parents also found work around the village for the periodic detention crews from town.

Hughie Hughes said Barbara was to the fore in the drive for Te Karaka to get its own ambulance service, not within St John but as a stand-alone entity.

“She was the medical power behind the whole thing,” he said.

“Her service to St John was first recognised in 1984, when she was made a Serving Sister of the Order of St John, and again in 1992, when she was promoted to the position of Officer of the Order.”

In 1981, Barbara became a Justice of the Peace and presided over court sittings for depositions hearings and remands, Hughie said.

In one particularly contentious case, she and a colleague were subjected to threats against their safety.

She weathered the storm and, after 35 years of commitment to the role of JP, Barbara was made a life member of the Gisborne Justices’ Association. (Her son Dallas said that as a JP, Barbara was also a marriage celebrant and “loved marrying people”.)

Hughie Hughes and Barbara Fisher kept bumping into each other over the years.

“We would come across each other at functions in Gisborne,” Hughie said.

“We both ended up with some honours. We instructed ambulance officers. Later on, we were both appointed to the regional committee that looked after St John for the Hawke’s Bay region from Lottin Point to Dannevirke. We used to drive down to meetings. She would make sure I was on the left-hand side of the road. We both got a QSM.

“A couple of times I went to the St John convention and I left my medals in Ruatoria. She let me wear her miniatures . . . she had exactly the same medals. In latter days we used to go to cadet presentations and St John functions. We would always sit together as two old fogeys.

“I would go to lunch with her. I’d come from a basic background and I’d have to remember which was the right knife. Silver service was regular. Someone said after the memorial gathering, ‘Did she ever bring out the gold service?’

“She did . . . knives, forks and plates, saved for special occasions.

“I used to do a bit of work for her. She put in a tree and it grew so well I had to cut it down. I had to put the spade exactly in the right place.

“She was not just your ordinary lady. You didn’t mess with Barbara. She was always setting the standard, and I had to conform to her standards, and I struggled.

“I loved her dearly.”

Dallas Fisher said his parents lived in the same house in Station Road all their married lives.

He recalled a typical scene as he was growing up, the son who was the middle child between sisters Dale and Rachel.

“A car (carrying injured people from a crash) would come roaring over the cattle-stop; Mum would triage the injured, ring the hospital and tell them what was wrong. This was in the days before the ambulance. A couple of people died at our place.

“Growing up, you see your mother deal with this stuff. We have an image of her as an old lady, but she was a force to be reckoned with.

“There would be a call and Mum would put on her white smock.

“I remember when a topdressing plane crashed and she had to go up and find the remains of the pilot, and put them in a bag. She just coped with all of those things.

“We grew up with people needing medical treatment. Often there was no doctor in the village. She had the relationships.

“Dad was very creative and a good artist and potter, and he was a storyteller. While Mum was attending to someone’s ailment and sorting out what needed to happen, Dad would be looking after the pastoral care side of things . . . talking to the rest of that person’s family. Dad had lived in the village his whole life so he knew everyone, knew their parents, their relatives.”

As Barbara became known for helping people get over their physical ailments, she also came to be known as someone with a generous helping of common sense.

“When someone had a problem in the village they would come and see Mum,” Dallas said.

“She would give some pragmatic advice to fix you up if you were injured, or just give you some advice.

“Mum was a staunch supporter of Te Karaka. She stood for the Waikohu County Council. It was dominated by farmers but Mum stood on a ticket of looking after the women of the village . . . she wanted a sewerage system and proper footpaths, and she wanted to stop mobs of sheep being driven through the village.

“Two people stood for election in Te Karaka riding and it was a tie. Both had 210 votes. They had to draw the winner out of a hat, and Mum lost.

“She won the riding next time.

“She was on the hospital board as well. She had a strong sense of public service.”

As someone who kept her finger on the pulse of the community, Barbara Fisher was the ideal choice as The Gisborne Herald’s Te Karaka correspondent, a role she filled for many years.

“Every clipping has been kept,” Dallas said.

“Mum wrote about all sorts of stuff, and the clippings are good to read.

“It is quite a social history of the region. She used to take photos, as well. One of them was of my little sister Rachel and our good friend Richard Jones holding a crow that was shot at Puha. It ended up at our place.”

If it was a crow, its appearance in the district and the potential for crop damage would have caused concern – crows are not supposed to exist in New Zealand; more likely it was a rook, a member of the crow family and also not well regarded by farmers.

Barbara Fisher took the photo, and the reader could decide.

Her three children settled in the Waikato, so about five years ago Barbara moved to Cambridge.

“We took Mum down to Porirua and all her old stamping grounds,” Dallas said.

“We were standing in Wellington Airport at the luggage carousel and she said, ‘In 1955 I caught the DC-3 to Gisborne and never came back”.

Barbara Fisher is survived by her daughters Dale and Rachel, son Dallas, and grandchildren Jeremy and Samantha Friar, and James, Madison and Kate Fisher.