From Tauranga City Library’s archives
A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection
The original peace garden at the junction of Maunganui Road and Grace Avenue, beside Hopukiore - Mount Drury, was a joint project between Altrusa Club of Mount Maunganui and Tauranga District Council.
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| 75th Anniversary of Altrusa International, Inc. club community milestone project. Tauranga City Libraries Ams 291. |
The project that celebrated both ten years since the Mount Maunganui group chartered to the women’s civic organisation, and 75 years of Altrusa International’s commitment to ‘improving economic well-being and quality of life’ through community service and literacy. Ams 291, in the Tauranga City Library Archives, contains plans, planting schemes and clippings about the peace garden.
The Mayor Keith Clarke, was invited to the birthday dinner on Monday 13 April 1992, with publicity releases sent to Mount / Pāpāoma Times, Bay of Plenty Times and Bay News, and Annabelle White, food columnist, confirmed as the after dinner speaker.
Plans for the peace garden were drawn up with Roel Koopman, from the Tauranga District Council, and featured cobble stone areas, seating and garden planting.
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Plans
for Peace Garden, 75th Anniversary of Altrusa International, Inc.
Tauranga City Libraries Ams 291. |
In June an update on the project was submitted to the International Anniversary Chairman District Fifteen Governor. Periodic Detention workers, under council supervision, had erected the timber pergolas, and the peace roses were on order. The “plans are nearer to completion”, although the raffle with a diamond theme to raise funds hadn’t sold out but was “a really good start of our fund raising”. Club members and local residents were “enthusiastic” to see the garden completed.
On 1 November 1992 the newly completed Peace Garden was dedicated. A Mount and Papamoa Times article from the following Thursday included pictures of Altrusa members and painting of the fence (but unfortunately no view of the pergola and paving). Speakers included Mrs Gail Gerrand, President of the club, Christine Mora, chairperson of the project committee, and Mayor Clarke, who all agreed that the garden was a ‘lasting and meaningful gift to the community for years to come’.
The archive collection includes annual reports and public relations scrapbooks for the Altrusa Club of Mount Maunganui, and their last project in March 2007, ‘Magic Mums’.
But what happened to the garden after that? Sandra Simpson wrote in the Bay of Plenty Times, 27 August 2010, that Tauranga City Council were ‘reclaiming’ the site to extend the children’s play area, and members of the disbanded Mount Maunganui branch were “thrilled” Ned Nicely, the council city parks co-ordinator, offered a new site on the ocean side of the reserve. Gail Gerrand, is photographed sitting next to the new Marine Parade garden of native plants – the peace roses deemed unsuitable for the more exposed site. A rata tree was to be planted in the centre on Saturday by Tauranga MP Simon Bridges.
Thoughts from Altrusa Tauranga president Fern Nielsen conclude the article “the first garden was a “much-used oasis of peace and pleasure”, and hopes the new one will achieve the same ambience, with its backdrop of pohutukawa, the green slopes of Hopukiore and the sound of the ocean.”
Sources:
Altrusa International. (2018m July). The history of Altrusa. https://www.altrusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/The-History-of-Altrusa.pdf
Simpson, S. (2010, August 27). Opening ceremony marks return of floral ‘oasis’. Bay of Plenty Times. p. 28.
This archival item is on our schedule for digitisation, and will be added to Pae Korokī once digitised. For more information about other items in our collection, visit Pae Korokī or email the Heritage & Research Team: Research@tauranga.govt.nz
Written by Kate Charteris, Heritage Specialist at Tauranga City Libraries.
