Credit to sweet tooth

Press, 25 September 1984, Page 17

Credit to sweet tooth

PA Rotorua New Zealand’s oldest resident, Mrs Parewahawaha Ranginui Leonard, aged 112, puffed on a cigarette on Saturday and wanted to know where her sweets were.

News that the Rotorua District Council would bestow the freedom of the city on her at Rotorua Hospital yesterday to mark her 112th birthday failed to impress Mrs Leonard, who has made a lifetime habit of defying doctors’ orders.

Though the honour is reserved only for Royalty and the most important VIPs, Mrs Leonard was not nonplussed. She preferred to know where her sweets were.

Mrs Leonard partly attributes her longevity to her sweet tooth. She happily defies doctors’ orders, and medical logic, by puffing her cirarettes although relatives, concerned about her health, forced her to abandon her pipe and tobacco when she was 103. Her cigarettes remain a small consolation.

From ’the age of five Mrs Leonard was content to puff her pipe, filled with tobacco she prepared herself, weaving the leaves of a flax bush, stripping it through a bag and pounding it when dry. The secret of the formula, however, is denied even to members of her family.

Her memory may fade, her blood become thinner

and her bones more fragile but Mrs Leonard remains as alert and strong willed as she was in the days when her husband farmed at Ngongotaha and she raised a family of six daughters and four sons.

One son and a daughter died in childhood, another was killed in World War H, and a third son, a former Deputy Mayor of Rotorua, Pakake Leonard, died about six years ago. The surviving children— Mrs.Rangimahora Mete, of Foxton, Mrs Kura Whiteley, of Te Teko, Mrs Maggie Rodger, Mrs Millie Flavell, and Hiwinui Leonard, all of Rotorua, and Mrs Heitiki Blair, of Te Teko — are still expected to obey Mrs Leonard’s commands

instantly. “She is still so bossy she thinks we are still children,” said Mrs Whiteley. Her mother lived with her and other members of the family until 15 months ago. Mrs Leonard did not go into Rotorua - Hospital because she was incapable of looking after herself. “We are all growing older, and we thought it would be better for mother to be given the proper care and attention the family could not always provide,” said Mrs Whiteley.

At the hospital she still has a constant stream of visiting relatives. She has six generations of them, numbering about 450, living in all parts of New Zealand and many in Australia.