Guinevere Rattenbury of Matua loves gardening so much, she talks about it in her sleep.
“Apples are much nicer when it is cold. It’s the sweetness.”
Despite having eaten apples for close to 100 years, Guineveere Rattenbury still loves the taste of the simple fruit.
The Tauranga woman, who lives independently, will celebrate her 101st birthday on February 13.
During World War II, American troops in the Pacific were stationed in New Zealand. During this time, she met her first husband.
“I was just a young lady then and in 1944, I married him.”
But a love of adventure took the Matua woman from New Zealand to Lake Champlain, Vermont in 1945.
Vermont sits on the northeastern edge of the continental US, straddling the border of Quebec, Canada and New York State.
Rattenbury would encounter frozen lakes solid enough to drive on.
“I’d only been there about four months, and my husband’s friends came around and said, ‘We’re going frogging tonight’,” she said.
“I said, ‘Frogging? What’s frogging?’”
During the summers in Vermont, frogs would inhabit the pond around her house, and when winter hit, they would duck under the water in the lake, she recalled.
“That lake used to freeze solid.”
In spring, the frogs knew when to wake up – and Rattenbury’s husband’s friends would set traps nearby to catch them so they could sell them as a delicacy.
The men had to hurry because the last train would go through to the next town around 10pm.
“They had to have them across the lake, and they’d be in New York City for the fish markets in the morning.”
In those days, she said, the Vermont and New York State border was dotted with orchards before Plattsburgh Air Force Base overtook them.
She would go on to have six children, but three of her children moved out of home as the years went by in Vermont.
Eventually, her marriage fell apart and she left the frozen lakes and apple orchards behind, heading west to California in 1965.
“I just decided to get on with life – I’ll care for myself, raise my children, and off we go.”
She packed up her three youngest children and drove across the great American freeways. She likened the experience to driving across Australia, albeit with much less desert and more houses.
“You go where the money is. And I had heard about California and the jobs,” she said.
Once she arrived in California “sight unseen”, she worked for a medical company and stayed there for 15 years.
“You can see I was happy.”
She returned home to briefly New Zealand in 1980 to see her mum and dad and, after this trip, her father wrote a letter asking Rattenbury to return to help care for her mother.
Rattenbury relocated to Tauranga in 1983 with her second husband, inspired by her life-long passion for gardening which she inherited from her father in Shannon.
“I love gardening so much. I talk about it in my sleep,” she said.
Gardening also helps to keep Rattenbury moving, which is half of her secret to a long life. And the other half?
“Keep smiling,” she said.
Rattenbury never thinks about her age or how old she is, as she is far too busy with her garden.
“I’ve always got so many things on my list to do,” she said.
“When I clean the list today, tomorrow, there’s another list.
“That’s the thing about gardening.”
'He was well-liked and respected in the community, or was until this happened.'