Pipiwharauroa He Raumahara - I Whakaaronuitia
Page 5
Memories From His Whānau
Emere (Emily) Gaskin nee Kouka is the eldest daughter of Wiremu and Ani Kouka and her eldest daughter, Dianne quickly jotted down her mother’s memories of her grandfather when she was reminiscing about him some four years ago.
Wiremu Kouka
Ani Paku Taiapa-Kouka
treatment for his health problems at the Gisborne Hospital. In a story written by Elaine Bell for the Dairy Exporter after talking with one of Wiremu’s sons, Abel about his father’s war experiences, she noted that:
Māori Pioneer Battalion After Gallipoli the native Contingent, along with the shattered Otago Mounted Rifles, was re-formed into a Pioneer Battalion participating in the rest of the war in a support role. They were responsible for digging the trenches, building roads and other duties behind the front line, and were expected to have fewer causalities than the infantry units. In spite of this, the unit suffered heavily in France. It was here in France on the 2nd of May 1916 that Wiremu relinquished his appointment at Lance Corporal due to war injuries. He had been severely gassed and had to be treated for hypertrophy of prepuse. Not only did the gas affect his breathing, he had suffered gas burns over his body that took time to heal. Wiremu was hospitalised many times during 1916 – 1918 and was even treated at the Australian Dermatological Hospital Camp, Abbassai, Cairo, Egypt. War’s End When the armistice was signed, the Battalion was heading towards the German border to become part of the Rhine garrison. However, the British high command decided not to use ‘native troops’ to garrison Germany. Although they resented this attitude, many of the Pioneers were pleased to be heading home. On the 15th January 1919 Wiremu was promoted to Corporal. In March 1919 the unit sailed for New Zealand aboard the Westmoreland. Wiremu arrived in Gisborne abroad the SS Ayrshire on the 26th August 1919. Before he was finally discharged from Military Service on the on the 19th October 1919 he was authorised as an in-patient to receive
Wiremu Kouka and his son, Bill Kouka, lay down a hangi
“… after a lengthy stretch of combat (following the armistice in 1918) he was enlisted with the Military Police and given (the NZ Provost Corpse Working with the ANZAC Mounted Division) one of the 1000 horses to help with his duties. But it was his stamina and can-do attitude that saved him when disaster struck in 1917. World War One was known as the chemical war as both sides used gas and chemicals housed in mortar shells to fire at each other. The Germans marked their shells yellow so the contents were named mustard gas which disabled and harassed their enemy. The gas could stay active in the ground for days or weeks causing the victims’ skin to blister and their eyes become sore. They also suffered internal and external bleeding and it attacked the bronchial tubes causing great pain. Fatally injured victims often took four or five weeks to die. Wiremu came in contact with the gas but suffered only a ‘mild’ attack, allowing him to stay on in Europe until the end of the war. Back home with his family Abel remembers his dad trying to get relief for his breathing from a strange contraption involving a tennis ball and a glass tube which his dad pumped and squeezed in his mouth. He received a war pension and occasionally would get a bit of fencing work. Their happiest times were when they were sitting on a wooden bench out the front of their Gisborne home in the early evening when the Salvation Army Band came by on the back of a truck and played hymns and war songs right outside their house. They felt really special.”
“After surviving the War my father Wiremu met his future wife, my mother Ani in Tikitiki, they married and I was born at Ongaruru, Tokomaru Bay on 27 December 1923. We were brought up on a farm in an old villa style house which had a tennis court in front and a whole line of flax along the fence line facing the beach. My mother used to sit there and attempt to teach her older daughters including me to make kete, but I was not skilled and would get hoha and give up. My father was much older than my Mum and, as I recall, he was the one to control us, his children’s upbringing in almost every way. My mother just worked in the garden while we, the older children, looked after the younger ones. I remember my father saddling up the horse and taking them over the hills to collect firewood and sometimes we would go with him around the rocks to collect kaimoana and he would go diving. There were times when we would get very excited but he would warn us not to shout in the area where he was diving and we were not allowed to swim there either because the rip was too dangerous. The horses were scary at first and he made us wear dungaree trousers so we looked like boys. My sister Kath and I, being the eldest, would do most of the housework and make Māori bread, fried bread and the likes. We also used to help get the garden ready for planting and I can remember Mum making jam and fruit puddings out of the many fruit trees we had on the property. We had many many animals which also had to be looked after. Helping on the farm was just second nature to us. Once a year at Xmas time we headed to Tokomaru with Dad to catch the bus to Gisborne, it was called “Duko.” We stayed with some of Dad’s relations in Manutuke. I still remember the tomato sauce and tennis shoes which were bought only at Xmas time. Dad also bought a bag of flour, sugar and rice and a big can of treacle. After the flour was all used the bag was cut up, put in boiling water, dried off and made into panties for the girls. What memories … The house in Ongaruru burnt down whilst we were at a Xmas get together at Tuatini. I remember that day clearly, I think I was about 11 years old at the time. We then moved into a tent on the site attached to a lean-to. I remember the hill at the back of the house and how we gathered the leaves off the cabbage trees and sat on them to slide down the hill.
Due to his war injuries Wiremu was not fit enough to enlist in the Second World War. However like many Compared to Mum, Dad was very very possessive Māori during that time he played an active role on of us girls especially me and sister Kath when we the ‘home front’ serving in the Home Guard and were young. Unbeknown to us, when we went to Emergency Precautions Scheme which Ngāti Porou the movies at Waima, Dad was also in the hall and formed to guard the East Coast from the threat of a Japanese invasion. Many Māori moved to the cities for the first time to work in the munitions and other factories thus beginning the pattern of urban migration that would accelerate after the war. He ran a small subsistence farm of sheep, cattle and crops in the Maungahauini Valley, Tokomaru Bay next to Ted Walsh’s place on the way to Te Puia where many of his and Ani’s children were raised. In 1948 he retired, sold his farm and moved to live in Manutuke where he built a two bedroom home for his whānau in Tuaraki Road. Even though the older ones had grown up and many had moved to Wellington for work he still had a large family to provide for. In 1949 he was discharged Top Row Left to Right - Andrew Kouka, Mrs Emily Gaskin, Hemi Kouka, Mrs Mere as unfit from the Home Guard and died Knight, Rongowhaakata Kouka and Mrs Betty Campbell Middle Row Left to Right - Mrs Lydia Tansey, Mrs Millie Brown, Mrs Lena Riki, Mrs Ani four years later aged 70 years. Paku Taiapa-Kouka and Mrs Kerina Pohatu Insert Left to Right - Bill Kouka, Tom Kouka, Mrs Nellie Hokianga and Abel Kouka