Iris Parkes waving to her friends and Puriri Court staff who made her a 100th birthday cake for morning tea on Monday.
Iris Parkes waving to her friends and Puriri Court staff who made her a 100th birthday cake for morning tea on Monday.
A teapot cake which one of Iris Parkes' granddaughters made for the 100 year old's birthday party celebrated on Saturday. Photo / Supplied
Iris Parkes, who has lived in the Whangārei area all her adult life, has just celebrated her 100th birthday.
Now living at Puriri Court Resthome, Iris played a large part in the Whareora community and local sports scene for nearly 80 years.
Her daughter Robyn Goulevitch said Iris was ''a city girl'' and only 20 when she married Joseph (Joe) Parkes in Auckland then moved with him to a farm at Whareora.
She had been used to the fine things in life, and her celebrated father Albert Adams, a prominent engineer in Auckland, once dined with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
So it was shock for Iris when she moved to a barely developed farm outside Whangārei, without electricity or decent roads.
The farm house the couple lived in had to be dragged down the hill closer to the road to hook up to the first power pole, when electricity finally got there.
Joe died many years ago, but the Parkes had three children, James, Graham and Robyn and they, Iris's seven grandchildren and nearly all of the nine great grandchildren, made it to her 100th birthday party on Saturday.
A teapot cake which one of Iris Parkes' granddaughters made for the 100-year-old's birthday party celebrated on Saturday.
She was a well known breeder and shower of labradors, chickens and canaries, and a willing helper with daughter Robyn's show horses.
Iris also had a lifelong love of sports, playing in New Zealand's first demonstration seven-a-side netball team, a national representative in cricket and captain of the Auckland region team, and a representative hockey player, having to give up that sport when her kneecaps were broken while playing.
''She was fiercely competitive but a good sport,'' her daughter said.
After her city upbringing, Iris took on farm life with enthusiasm, and one time had to run the farm and care for the family while her husband was hospitalised for five months.
The family had many happy holidays at their Ngunguru bach, and Goulevitch said Iris ensured the children ''had a blissful life growing up''.
Iris contracted brucellosis, an infection spread to humans from animals, in her hip, and spent nearly a year in hospital. Even though doctors said she might never walk again, within six weeks of being discharged from hospital she was walking with crutches - with great difficulty and massive determination.
''She had an indomitable spirit,'' Goulevitch said.
During World War II, when husband Joe, a farmer and therefore not in the regular forces, was in the home army and away on training camp, Iris turned up, demanded to see the commanding officer, patted her pregnant tummy and said "I need my husband at home". Joe returned with her.
These days Iris' eyesight is not the best and she is likely to tell the carers off in French, due to spontaneous lapses into the French she learned as a schoolgirl.
''She was a great mum,'' her daughter said, ''but it paid to stay on her good side.''
