April 03, 2014
Penfold instilled pride in reo
A Ngati Kuri kuia is being remembered as a fine educator who helped a younger generation take more pride and care in how they spoke te reo Maori.
Merimeri Penfold died on Monday at the age of 93.
Shane Jones says she came from Te Hapua, along with other outstanding women of her generation Saana Murray and Dame Mira Szaszy.
He says as a lecturer in Maori at the University of Auckland for 30 years she had a major influence on the lives of many.
"A strict taskmaster but had a great deal of affection for her people of Ngati Kuri and expected only the best of our generation and indeed she taught my relation Mahia Nathan and I at Auckland University and we were boys from St Stephens, very cavalier and pretty casual about our studies and she had ways of whipping us into shape,," Mr Jones says.
Merimeri Penfold has been taken back to her Ngati Kuri people at Waiora marae in Ngataki.
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