The Magic Store at Te Puna

By some rough magic - give or take some changes in level [1] - today’s Te Puna Store stands almost exactly where it always was. The shed adjacent to it, I was told [2], is the last building remaining from the original structures whose life extended well into the 1960s.

The Magic Cash Store, Te Puna, 1937
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Pae Korokī Ref. 01-260

The store and its shed were the brainchild of Madge Covell. As is evident from many an article in the Bay of Plenty Times, describing her performing talents in singing, recitations and plays [3] she developed throughout her adolescence the charm, confidence and courage needed to be a retailer on the main Tauranga-Waihi highway, with no very near neighbours [4] and only a telephone on a party line [5] for summoning aid.

Madge started the general store in Te Puna about 1924, “filling a long-felt want”. [6] It’s likely she had help from her carpenter brother, William Norman (Norm), to build the store, and her farmer father, William Henry Covell, to negotiate an arrangement for the use of the site from the Armstrongs.  They settled on boundary land just along from the Te Puna Memorial Hall, built in 1922.  Madge was to be a true friend to the Hall Committee [7] - the Te Puna Store held a key to the Hall, along with a register to sign its loan and return, right up until its demolition in 2016.  Her public spirit did not end there.  A voter herself in 1928, she held the electoral rolls for the Te Puna Riding at the store for the 1929 Triennial election of the Tauranga County Council.  In 1931, she made a donation, “on behalf of the young people of Te Puna”, to the Unemployment Auxiliary Committee [8].  In due course the functions of the Post Office moved from the Lochhead home to what had speedily become the hub of the community.

Madge and (possibly) brother Norm and sister Irene, 1937
Detail from Pae Korokī Ref. 01-260

Madge’s charm and energy, as well as the great location, made for business success.  She coped with a burglary in 1929 [9], she installed a petrol pump in 1931 [10], and she bought the land the store stood on in 1932 [11].  No wonder she called it the Magic Store.

By 1937 she had married Leonard Anderson, who moved from Apata [12] to a property in Te Puna [13].  She continued to enjoy a busy social life in Te Puna [14], and continued to run her own shop until she and Len left the district, among many expressions of affection and gratitude, in 1945.

Mr Peedle, Detail from Bay of Plenty Times photo, May 1963
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Gifford-Cross Series, Pae Korokī Ref. gcc-2740

I have been unable to ascertain when the Magic Store became part of the Four Square chain[15].  Madge sold her business to Mr E.C Peedle, who, to my personal knowledge, epitomised the jolly grocer known as “Mr 4 Square”.  He wore the apron.  He drove a magical black delivery van whose fatly rounded outside was, to young eyes, somewhat smaller than its delightful inside.  After Mr Peedle came (briefly) the Bartholomew family, then the Gearys, and after that, for many years, Ben and Margaret Board.  Nowadays the store is run by Pritesh and Dipti Bhikha, very much in the cheerful community tradition established by Madge Covell/Anderson.  The magic lingers on.

Te Puna Store today (2024)
Photograph by Beth Bowden

References

---

[1] The store used to be elevated slightly above the roadway of State Highway 2, which ran about 15 metres from the slip-road immediately outside the entrance to the shop and, eventually the petrol bowsers.

[2] Personal reminiscence from Dorothy Butt, who, along with her first husband Bill Geary, operated the store 1960-70 (approx.).

[3] Including one beguilingly entitled “The Teasey Tea Patry”, but probably unconnected with the Tauranga haberdasher: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19201215.2.19

[4] The Armstrongs lived nearby, but their house was at least 500m away, on the eastern side of the present roundabout.  At that stage there was no residence at the store.

[5] Operated from the Lochhead home in Te Puna Road.

[6] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19240613.2.47.7

[7] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19380302.2.19

[8] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19310725.2.14

[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19291017.2.14

[10] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19310711.2.23

[11] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19320709.2.21

[12] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19370623.2.29

[13] I have been unable – so far – to establish just where the Anderson home was.

[14] An instance among many: Madge threw a party for her 70-year-old mother, who had evidently moved in to live with the couple, in 1938.  https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19380511.2.15

[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Square_(supermarket)

Wiremu "Bill" Ohia, 1922-1992

Bill Ohia talking to Ernest Bush, former Society Journal editor, at Papamoa Hills
35mm film negative. Photograph taken for Bay of Plenty PhotoNews, No 69, 30 May 1970, p.57
Image courtesy of Pae Koroki, Ref. pn-7646

Bill was a man who was very aware of the history of his ancestors in Tauranga Moana and consequently extremely socially active all his 70 years in Waitao. He was one of the older sons of the twelve children of Hone Ohia, who farmed in close proximity to three marae belonging to Ngati Pukenga iwi.

Bill was born in the Te Puke Maternity Annexe, as was his only child Rahera. He attended the Pāpāmoa Native School (which later became Pāpāmoa Māori School and is now Te Kura Kaupapa Māori ō Otepou). When the school was Pāpāmoa Māori School, Bill’s daughter Rahera was a pupil there and his wife Hinemanu (a McLean of Tainui Descent from the Waikato) a teacher there. While Rahera was attending Tauranga Girls’ College, Bill served on the Tauranga Girls College Board of Governors.

Bill was a keen scuba diver who, if he wasn’t tied up with other things, went diving every weekend for kaimoana and often took his cousins, nephews and nieces along to teach them about the sea. Bill, by this time, was also farming in Waitao and he helped set up and run the Rangataua Young Farmers Club. Bill was the first Māori town supply farmer in the area.

Tauranga Moana Trust Board's Original Fund-raising Committee, 1953. (Left to Right) T. Te Kani, F.N. Pinfold, I. Tangitu, W. Ohia, R.G. Faulkner (inset) Tom Peek
Image courtesy of the Tauranga Moana Trust Board

The Tauranga Moana Māori Trust Board was formed after the iwi and hapū of Tauranga sought to make it known what had transpired between their ancestors and the Crown to enable colonial settlement of the area, and the establishment of Tauranga. It was the culmination of the work of a number of people over many years, including Bill, Turi Te Kani, Bob Falconer (then Director of the Department of Māori Affairs), Fred Pinfold and Ike Tangitu. The Trust Board was created to receive compensation from the Crown for lands that had been taken through confiscation. Bill was the inaugural chairman of this trust board, a position he retained for many years.

He was also the chair of the Waikato Maniapoto District Maori Council and a member of many other Maori organisations in the Western Bay of Plenty. One of these was the Tauranga Maori Cultural and Promotional Committee an initiative begun with Archie Clark, the city’s Public Relations Officer at the time. Apart from Bill and Hinemanu, that committee included Turi Te Kani, Charlie Kuka, Tim Smith, Sonny and Moira Rolleston and others.  The aim of the committee was to give voice to Māori cultural and civic aspirations. This committee started the annual National Māori Cultural Championships which many years later became Te Matatini.

Bill was a member of the Trotting Club (he owned race horses), the Aero Club (he was a pilot as was his brother Monty and Uncle, Barney Kahotea) and the Rotary and Lions Clubs (he was community-minded). So he was of many diverse networks. Through their contacts, he and his wife were part of a group who trialed a Māori Radio station based at the 17th Ave Historic Village which at the time was under the directorship of Noel Nicholls. Later, Bill became the inaugural Chair of Aotearoa Māori Radio, when the government of the day agreed to set aside part of the AM frequency for Maori Radio.

Tauranga Moana Trust Board's Fund-raising Committee, 1955. (Back Row) J. Foster, P. Rewiti, W. Ohia. (Front Row) F.N. Pinfold, I. Tangitu, C.H.D. Porter
Image courtesy of the Tauranga Moana Trust Board

According to Rahera her Dad, Noel Nicholls, "Uncle Turi, Uncle Charlie and others" (all of whom were determined that everyone should know the full history of the area) were part of a group who negotiated to get permission to clear Mauao of its dense scrub cover so that evidence of early Maori occupation was visible. She was roped in with others to trek to the summit most weekends to clear the scrub. The road to the summit was then created by Jack and Roger Prince with their heavy machinery, and when it was all done she and her father and Alan Clarke (a teacher from Mount Maunganui College) identified, measured and recorded all the pā sites there. This was all designed to make the Māori history of the area visible for all and to stimulate people’s curiosity so that they might want to know more.

Bill Ohia talking to the Tauranga Historical Society on the Papamoa Hills
35mm film negative. Photograph taken for Bay of Plenty PhotoNews, No 69, 30 May 1970, p.57
Collection of Tauranga City Library, Nga Wahi Rangahu. Image courtesy of Pae Koroki, Ref. pn-7638

In the 1980s, Bill moved from farming to orcharding and he grew kiwifruit, avocados, boysenberries and apples. The exposure to the kiwifruit industry led him and Turi Te Kani (also an orchardist, but at Matapihi) to champion Māori ownership of their own packhouse, so they began Te Awanui Hukapak, a symbol of their independence and the commercial intent and capability of Māori communities.

Bill Ohia receives his Queen's Service Order from the Governor General, Sir Paul Reeves, in 1988
Image courtesy of Rahera Ohia

Bill played a number of roles in the evolution of Tauranga and was awarded the QSO in 1988.

Turi died under tragic circumstances in around 1990, and sadly his long time and close friend Bill died in equally tragic circumstances in 1992. They were each mourned by thousands at Matapihi and Waitao respectively.

Placement and Replacement - The Te Puna Memorial Hall

Until the deadline for this blog, the end of the week in which the new Te Puna Memorial Hall was opened, it had never occurred to me that I would follow in the footsteps of Mrs N. Heard (née Lochhead). At a 1948 meeting of the Te Puna branch of the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers (now known as Rural Women) she “spoke of ... the planning, building and final opening and dedicating of the district’s Hall as a memorial to those who fell in the first world war.” [1]  At the time of her address, the Hall had been in place for 26 years. And a poignant set of new memorials was required.  The granite tablet listing the names of those who fell in WWII was put alongside the WWI memorial in 1947. As she spoke, money was being collected for another, to commemorate those who served [2].

 

The original Hall was a prodigious undertaking for a district that had been in existence for just over four decades [3]. Planning for it began in 1920, and many a fundraising idea was entertained after the Armstrongs donated a corner of their land [4], the site of the Hall for the next 94 years. “Entertained” was the operative word. People were asked to dance and to sing [5] at many socials, held in the Te Puna Schoolroom; to subscribe [6]; and to purchase posts made from gum trees felled on the site [7]. By July 1922 the floor space of the Hall – 48 feet by 28 feet – had been decided and the timber had started to arrive.

Timber stacked in the course of dismantling the original Hall, September 2016

The cost of the original Hall was estimated to be about £250, most of which was materials: the labour was provided by volunteers [8]. Much reliance was placed on the expertise of master builder David Borell, but he found he had to divide his attention between overseeing the Hall building and his rugby-playing commitments [9]. It is no wonder that a number of locals feel that an ancestor of theirs can claim to be “builder” of the Hall [10].

Memorial halls are part of a beloved tradition in New Zealand, most aptly illustrated in Fiona Jack’s beautiful website that shows 65 variations on the theme [11]. The original Te Puna Memorial Hall was one of our earliest examples. Its vernacular design and the level of community contribution involved in its creation were very different from the effort required for the replacement Hall. 

Both the original Hall and the new one, however, were created from one compelling need: the “close settlement” of Te Puna as a part of “Tauranga County” (in the words of the BP Times editor on 31 July 1922 [12]). By 2016 the pressures on State Highway 2 had made the intersection, close to the old Hall, so dangerous as to require the construction of a large roundabout to manage the traffic volumes from Minden and Te Puna Roads on to the main highway.

None of what followed that decision was easy for the twenty-first century Hall Committee. And the history of the past four years is a subject for a later historian. Nevertheless, the ultimate strength of the creation of an important, and continuing, community amenity is to some extent told by the images of the original being dismantled, and the new one created. Taking the Hall down proved the quality of its workmanship and its materials. It could have stood for another century.

The last gable standing

Care was taken to preserve the clean lines and angles of the original building ...

The new Hall takes shape

... and the community base that it sprang from.

Inscription in the Hall floor, October 2019

There are some satisfactions that the first Hall users might like. Some of the timber used in the construction of the old Hall has been used to create a lectern for the stage and two finely-made tables for the meeting rooms. The old Hall had a stage, but no lectern; and it had no meeting rooms at all. The new Hall occupies a site that could not be closer to that of the original, and it has been built on what was formerly Armstrong land [13].

The new Hall, August 2020

 References

[1] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19480914.2.60.5 . Unfortunately Mrs Heard’s actual address was not reported. 
[2] This went up in 1950. Several names were added subsequently, as can be seen by the different colour of the gilded lettering.
[3] I am counting from the first meeting of the Te Puna Highway District, 18 Dec 1875, held at W G Armstrong’s house: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18751218.2.3.3
[4] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19200601.2.17
[5] ibid
[6] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19200610.2.4
[7] Anecdote from Fred Milligan, Chairman of the Tauranga RSA, who spoke at the opening of the new Hall, 16 August 2020.
[8] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19221127.2.10
[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19220629.2.3
[10] Comments passed to the writer at the time of the Hall’s demolition, September/October 2016
[11] https://fionajack.net/living-halls-photos-fiona-jack/
[12] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19220731.2.5?
[13] This appellation of course ignores the fact that the whenua was, until raupatu, part of the Pirirakau rohe. We are indebted to the hapū for its generosity in supporting the creation and maintenance of this local memorial to the all the whānau of the district.