Rich life to leave lasting legacy

JOYCE WYLLIE

John Henry Park (Jack) passed away at home on 22 April 2023, aged 96.

Jack was born on 26 June 1926 in Milton, where his dad was a pastry cook. The family then moved to Hornby, near Wigram Air Base. Jack remembered playing on the airfield and seeing the early aviators. In September 1928, the first flight across the Tasman landed at Wigram, making aviation history. One day, a fire broke out. Fuel drums that were stored in an old gravel pit, shot up above Jack’s house, across the road and railway line, into a plantation. The noise and sights frightened young Jack so badly that his parents sent him back down south to live with his grandparents for a time.

The family moved to Blenheim during the Depression years. Times were tough, they moved house often, and the shop they had went bust. In 1938 they shifted to Tākaka. The children went to Central Tākaka Primary School, where Roly Papps was sole teacher. There, Jack first met Lois Papps, two years younger, who would later become his wife. Jack went on to Tākaka District High School for two years of secondary school.

Jack had a paper run after school, delivering by foot or bike up Kotinga and One Spec Creek. He sailed with his dad and went whitebaiting with mates, sometimes tying the sleeves of their shirts to carry big catches home. He also played rugby for the Tākaka Old Boys team, sometimes as captain, and was selected to play for Golden Bay/Motueka rep team.

Leaving school in 1942, Jack worked in Hodgkinson’s garage before becoming apprentice electrician with Golden Bay Electric Power Board. One daily task was to bike up the gravel road to take readings at the Pupu powerhouse.

During the war years, his dad joined the army in the mounted rifles. He was in the Home Guard for several years, before going to Italy and Egypt with the 10th Reinforcement in 1943-44. He was away for about five years, and Jack was a big help for his mum. They milked cows, supplied milk to others, and had chooks for eggs. Jack was too young at the start of the war, but in July 1944 was enrolled for National Service. Looking through his records, it seems he was about to apply for pilot training with the RNZAF as war ended.

Lois Papps worked on Baigent’s farm in Central Tākaka and on a tobacco farm in Dovedale. They married in 1950 and lived in an old two-storied house where Anatoki Motels are now, later moving into a Power Board house on Te Kaukau Street (now Reilly Street). They had five children: Ricky, Peter, Dene, Mary-Anne, and Robyn.

Jack became a fully qualified electrician, certified as an electrical wireman in 1949, and later an electrician inspector. He was often on call day and night, required to disconnect power during house and scrub fires. Jack would have been into every house in Tākaka reading power meters, whistling wherever he went so people weren’t surprised. Family remember him in his brown work overalls, belt around his waist, holding a pair of pliers, with a Mercator pocket knife in a leather holster. He retired after 45 years with Golden Bay Power Board.

Jack also ran the projectors at the Tākaka Picture Theatre, two nights a week. He was keen on photography and developing his own photos. In 1962, he was made an honorary member of Tākaka Volunteer Fire Brigade, because of the work he did in the fire station upgrade. That allowed him to play billiards in their new social room, which he often did.

Jack went on a lot of hunting and fishing trips with friends. Even into his 80s, he still had the odd evening hunt. Fishing also played a big part in Jack’s life, with many picnics and fishing trips to Golden Bay beaches and bays, and evenings spearing flounder at the Motupipi river mouth. Jack and his brother-in-law Fred Papps skin-dived for fish, crayfish, and pāua, and were two of the first Nelson men to import and use dry diving suits.

In the early 1950s, a bach was constructed by the Park and Papps families and friends, near Taupo Point in Wainui Bay, on private farmland. The first room was originally part of the Cobb power scheme camp cookhouse: disassembled at Upper Tākaka, carted to Wainui Inlet, then carried by boat to the site. Jack and brother-in-law Ken Scott did a lot of this in Ken’s boat. Other parts of the bach came from Onekaka Ironworks and the showground grandstand. In later years, Wally Drummond helped build a new section and materials were carted around on his launch. Many great times have been enjoyed there over the years.

Jack and Ken Scott had an Idle-Along yacht for fishing, and they were founding members of the Pōhara Beach Sailing Club in 1960; later both made life members. Jack also sailed Moths and OK Dinghy and was commodore for several years. Ricky, Peter, and Dene sailed with the club in yachts provided by their dad. When the children were young, there were trips to Lake Rotoiti for regatta weekends. Jack had an old Chevy truck with a canvas cover over the back where the children rode, covered in dust from gravel roads.

In the early 1960s, Wally Drummond talked Jack and Lois into borrowing to buy their own home. They had been saving for years but inflation prevented them making that big step. They bought their house and large double section in Central Tākaka, where they lived ever since. Jack grew a big vegetable garden and in retirement his property kept him busy. He had a pop-up caravan to go holidaying in and later set up a Toyota LiteAce van as a camper.

Jack loved music and would encourage Lois to play her piano, piano accordion, and organ. Ballroom dancing was a passion for both of them and they were good at it.

They visited Perth three times, where Dene and her husband Graham worked in goldmines. While there, Jack tried his hand at metal detecting for gold. He also panned and sluiced for gold in Nelson and Golden Bay and gave Lois a ring made from his finds.

Model aircraft building and flying was another hobby. Jack progressed to using radio control in his gliders. In his retirement, golf was another passion he pursued until crook knees prevented it. Jack was also a member of the Golden Bay Masonic Lodge for years and was a past Master.

He always made time for his family, interested in what his children and their families were involved in. The losses of son Peter in 1978 and daughter Robyn in 2004, both to cancer, hit both parents hard.

Jack’s last few years were tough, with falls, broken hips, and those painful knees, though he never really complained. When Lois died in June 2022, that was very hard. He put on a brave face, but he was hurting and missing her.

Up until the last few months, Jack still had a good memory and did a lot of reading. Recently, family took him on a trip around the Bay on a Wildcat Charters catamaran. He enjoyed having lunch on the boat, just offshore from the bach at Wainui Bay.

On a Saturday evening, 22 April 2023, he put his shoes on, walked outside in the dark and sat down on the seat of his walker. It was Jack and Lois’s 73rd wedding anniversary. A few moments later, he passed away, with daughter Dene beside him. Gone to be with Lois. Jack was a stubborn man right to the end, but at 96 years and 10 months, what more could he wish for but to be at home, outside, with his daughter at his side.

Jack will be sorely missed by Ricky, Dene, Mary-Anne, his 12 grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren, two great-greatgrandchildren, and the rest of his family and friends. His legacy will live on through his extended family.

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