PAEROA NOTES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 987, 2 June 1930, Page 13

PAEROA NOTES

The Hikutaia quarries have again opened for crushing, the output being used for patching and top-dressing the stretch of the Paeroa - Thames Road between the Hikutaia bridge and the asphalt portion. An old identity, Mrs. G. J. Fisher, celebrated her seventh-fifth birthday last week. At the age of 19 Mrs. Fisher arrived in Paeroa, and has lived there for 56 years. Mrs. Fisher sews and reads at night without the use of glasses. She remembers her husband conveying the first white women to Waitekauri. and also bringing into Paeroa the first gold mined in that locality. She recalls the fact that the first race meeting was held in Paeroa 51 years ago, the course then being round Fisher’s Hill. She remembers when the white men were drilled to bo in readiness for the hostile Maoris, and the great sensation caused when the late Daldy McWilliams was shot when accompanying a survey party to Kurangahake. Mrs. Fisher has had 16 children, and gave birth to the first twins in the district. There are 53 grandchildren and 15 great-grand-children, many of whom were present at the birthday-celebrations.