Elsa Hughes has always been a positive person.
It’s something she believes contributes to her good health and longevity.
And while it’s not everyday someone gets to celebrate a 100th birthday, it’s exactly what Elsa did last month at the Paeroa Cooperating Parish Church surrounded by friends and family.
The centenarian, who received not one but two birthday cards from King Charles III and Queen Camilla because one was lost in the post and arrived later, told The Profile she couldn’t believe the large crowd at her celebration.
“The hall was full,” she said, with around 80 guests there to celebrate Elsa.
It’s evident Elsa is cherished by many.
She is a mother of five, grandmother of 10 and great grandmother of 25.
Elsa, who lives independently in Paeroa, said she only recently stopped driving her car – but instead of selling it, she would let her family use it.
She was child number six in a family of seven children, who were all born in Opotiki, she said.
“The others have all gone. My youngest sister, I think she went about 10 years ago, so I’ve been the only remaining one of that family.”
One of Elsa’s biggest life lessons is to just take each day as it comes.
“You don’t know what’s going to turn up, but I’m happy to accept whatever happens,” she said.
“I think I’m quite happy to take the good and the bad.
“It’s no good complaining when you can’t do anything about it.”
Elsa got married in 1945 to her late-husband, Ken, who she met while working at a bookshop in Opotiki when she was a teenager.
They moved to a farm in Whakatane where Ken had a sharemilking job.
“And that’s where my first two children were born, Robert and Adele.”
It was 1951 when Elsa and Ken shifted to the Hauraki, and purchased some land of their own on Rangiora Rd, Komata.
Back then it was all just mud and not developed at all, Elsa said, and the villa needed a lot of work done to it – “but we got that done”.
Ken sorted out all the drainage on the farm and got it up and running for sharemilking.
“I always used to say to Ken he should have been an engineer, not a farmer, because he could make anything. He’d be over in his shed welding, and he could fix anything,” she said.
The couple welcomed three more children to the family, and each of them attended Komata North School.
It was around 1975 when Elsa and Ken shifted to Paeroa – into their first new build, a two-storey brick home.
The couple lived there until Ken passed away in the year 2000, and then Elsa shifted into a smaller house built for her.
Elsa’s most important principle to live by was to be positive and take what life brings you.
“It’s no good growling about things that have happened that shouldn’t have happened,” she said.
“I don’t dwell on bad things.”
But Elsa has had her fair share of tragedy. “Our worst thing was losing our son [Robert]… but he’s watching over us,” she said.
Just after Robert died she joined the golf club, where she played for 25 years.
When Elsa’s mother died, she took up outdoor bowls.
But Elsa said she had to stop the sports as she began to lose her balance.
Something Elsa never managed to lose though was her passion for music and playing the piano.
When she was a young girl, she would ride her bike out on gravel roads in the country to get to her lessons with her teacher, she said.
One day her teacher asked her if she’d like to take on some of her own pupils, so Elsa ended up with her own piano teaching gig.
Elsa said her mother must have been very keen on music because Elsa and two of her siblings learned instruments.
Elsa’s mother would listen from the kitchen while Elsa would play the piano and she’d call out when something sounded wrong, Elsa said. “She must have had a good ear for music.”
Elsa used to play songs for people at the Ohinemuri Rest Home.
“But I wasn’t this age, it was years ago, and some of them were younger than me then. I’d just play the old songs by ear, no [sheet] music,” she said.
She also used to attend a music group once a month where everyone had a chance to play. But now Elsa’s shoulders are sore, she found it difficult to play. “I find it hard to lift my hands and play. This is the longest I’ve been without playing.”
Even though it was hard, “I can still get there and make a bit of a tune,” she said.
But Elsa’s outlook on life was noted by many.
Philip Hughes, Elsa’s second son, said people just wanted to be around her because of her positive attitude and nature.
“It’s like a train station here sometimes [Elsa’s home], people coming and going,” he said.
