Mortified, but undaunted, she's entertained ever since, for the past 10 years as a member of the Glitter Grans - a group of in-tune women who perform around Rotorua rest homes "for the heck of it".
For Vera, the group's name couldn't be more apt. Talk to her and she positively glitters - focus on her theatre days and a life force grabs her.
Life's very precious to Vera - 18 years ago she came close to ringing down her final curtain. "I was talking on the phone and suddenly my head felt it was going to burst. I was taken to [Dr] Mark Irwin (Our People, October 25, 2014), the next thing I remember was waking up in Auckland Hospital looking like a Hare Krishna with my head half shaved. They said I'd had a bit of a brain haemorrhage, since then I can't stop talking."
It's an endearing trait, especially when she's on a roll about her theatre days.
Vera's no one-trick pony, theatre's only one of her numerous interests and pastimes. Bowling's been another. She was president of the Rotorua Women's Bowling Club when her illness overtook her. "After that, if I played a bad bowl I'd say 'they didn't put my brain back in the right place'."
The brain business wasn't her first hospital stay. At 17, she was knocked off her bike at the Victoria-Ranolf St intersection .
"They put me in the children's ward, when I woke up I thought I was in heaven."
Vera had been on her way home from work at Dennison-Smith's haberdashery, (such a quaint old word that), selling hats, gloves and buttons.
Mathias', another of Rotorua's then landmark businesses, came next. Famous for its luxurious lingerie, Vera was sent to Bendon's fashion school to learn the tricks of the under things trade.
"I loved fitting girls with their first bras, helping shy husbands buy underwear for their ladies."
Some weren't so shy. "They insisted on going into the fitting rooms with their wives to see their ladies in the sexy silks and satins."
At 19, Vera married, the couple had two sons before their partnership disintegrated. "My daughter was a twinkle in my eye, I didn't know I was pregnant when we separated."
She subsequently met John Ibbetson, an accountant boarding with her mother.
They married in the Tirau registry office "but stood outside the church for the photos".
"I thought he was a brick taking on a ready-made family, he was wonderful, never discriminated between my other children and the two we had together."
John died suddenly after 40 years of marriage. "He had a cardiac arrest in Dr Irwin's rooms, when one of the grandchildren heard that he said 'what's Poppa been arrested for?' If it wasn't so sad it would have been funny."
John wasn't a theatre man.
"I think he was a little bit suspicious of what we got up to so I had a picture taken of us chorus ladies doing what we always did off-stage, sitting knitting."
Vera hadn't long been in the then Operatic Society when one of those "only in showbiz dream moments" came her way. She'd been cast as a maid in Flora Dora when the female lead chose a weekend's skiing over rehearsals.
"Connie Haggart [show director] said 'You're going to have to play the part', I couldn't believe it, I went from being nobody to leading lady, I absolutely loved it."
She's played alongside, and been directed by, two of Rotorua Musical Theatre's legends, Rob Guest and Robert Young (Our People, August 25, 2013), both who died early deaths.
"I was in Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Rob, one performance I was upon a table dancing, took a bigger step than I should and fell off but jumped right back up. Rob said, 'you are such a trouper, you didn't miss a beat', I didn't even know he'd seen me."
Such stories are the stuff of theatrical legend. Vera tells a great yarn how, in Casa Blanca theatre's early days, cast members had to run around outside the building to get back on stage. "One chap slipped and broke a leg, we all just filled in for him ... the show must go on."
Going outside to get back inside wasn't the only hurdle Casa Blanca's founding performers had to conquer.
"The dressing rooms were a tent out the back, the toilet a long drop, to get to it we had to wade through grass up to our knees."
Vera's a behind-the scenes person as much as performer.
"I make the tea, do waitressing ... I still bake for the cast and crew."
Singing remains her passion. "I sing all the time, heaven knows know what my neighbours must think."
