This is the tribute I wrote for my mother, which my brother and I read at her funeral on the 26th June 2026 at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit.
So how did this quiet, cautious, often overlooked girl come to be living at the opposite end of the world – a woman of very determined views and deep faith who was to be a huge influence on her family, on the many children she taught, and on her church community?
Ellis Emerson was something of a wild child in those days, a good-for-nothing teddy boy dressed in drainpipe trousers and a houndstooth jacket, with slicked back hair. So when Jean bumped into this apparition, she was unimpressed when he suggested they should go out some time. “You’re too young for me” she said. “Noooo….how old are you?” he asked. “Nineteen”, she said. “So am I’, he replied, and with that lie (he was actually a year younger than her), the die was set. It’s a great joke in our family that our existence depended on a lie!
Ellis was still in the army doing national service when their eldest daughter, Lisa, was born. Michael followed soon after. Motherhood was a revelation for Jean. As the family moved, from Derby to Newton Abbot, and then back to Derby, she was a dedicated and creative mother. These were deeply happy days – the family was not well off, but weekends were spent exploring the beautiful Derbyshire countryside, picking blueberries and blackberries and horse chestnuts, spending lots of time with mum’s parents and her sisters with their families, evenings were reading in front of the fire or dancing around the house to the Hall of the Mountain King. The rhythm of our lives was based around the church year – a job chart to raise money for charity in Lent, art competitions for St George’s Day, carol singing (again for charity) in advent, a play of her devising for epiphany. When our surprise baby sister, Anne-Marie, was born our family was complete.
Ellis and motherhood set the stable foundation of Jean’s life. But our bookish introvert who had had to leave school early wasn’t finished yet. When Michael, her then youngest, went to school, she signed up to train as a teacher. This meant completing the schooling she had missed and then doing her teacher training. She absolutely loved college and made some lifelong friendships.
But Ellis was always a dreamer. He applied for jobs all over the globe, but Jean was the one who always said an emphatic, not-to-be-questioned NO. But then something happened. I remember coming home from school one day and Jean was listening to the radio and she said “Right, that’s it! If your father still wants to go to New Zealand, we’re going”. And in May 1974 we did.
What I remember most about our first year in Napier was that my mother cried almost every day. She missed her parents and sisters dreadfully and, in those days, communication was hard: letters took 6 weeks to get there, telephone calls to the UK had to be booked weeks in advance.
Two things made a difference. The first was that Mum took a job she loved teaching juniors at St Joseph’s, a little catholic primary school. But the thing that made it possible for her to start feeling at home in New Zealand was joining St Thomas More Parish in Onekawa.
The Catholic church in those days was in the throes of the charismatic movement and Mum joined the prayer group that was to change her life and ignite her faith. The place was full of young families, and Mum made the most wonderful friends, including Margaret Greatrex, who was to be her very best friend for over 50 years.
St Thomas More became not just the centre of her Christian life but her social life too. After mass on Sunday, Jean and family would often visit or host church friends for morning tea. There was always something happening at church that Jean was involved with – prayer groups or bible study groups or social events.
When she took on teaching first communion classes through the school, Jean discovered an unexpected talent – she was a brilliant children’s liturgist. She designed the most creative ways for children to be involved with the Mass, wrote new songs for them, even choreographed dance moves. Michael and I were often pressganged into being a part of her creative ideas, and I have very clear memories of riding an actual donkey in the Christmas pageant, surrounded by singing children, and then holding a real life (and to me terrifying) new baby, sitting on bales of hay outside the church. My 80s perm added to the air of authenticity! Mum never thought she was creative – but her work with children showed otherwise. And what truly motivated her creativity was her desire for faith to be real and joyful for children.
She brought the same passion to the teaching of reading. She agonised about her slow readers, trying out different methods, including designing little phonics books (phonics not being in vogue at the time). She had high expectations for her students, but despite this – or perhaps because of it - they loved her. When she died, her death notice was posted on the St Pat’s facebook page and fellow teachers, parents, and students wrote to express their sadness. One said “Jean was also one of my teachers. What an inspirational woman and teacher!”.
Despite all this busy social life, Jean remained very much the introvert. Books were always a part of our lives. I remember that when I’d come home from university, everyone would be very pleased to see me, and within half an hour, we’d all be sitting in the same room reading. Mum had books she read on repeat, and always several on the go at the same time. A big step for her was the decision to take up extramural study to do a degree in English. She and her friend Sandra spent happy days on campus at contact courses. We were so proud when she graduated.
It was her love of grandmothering that suddenly convinced Mum that she and Dad should leave Napier and move to Palmerston North. I was pregnant with my youngest when Mum rang to say she had missed her other grandchildren’s childhoods because she was working, but she wasn’t missing these two youngest ones. I was worried about them leaving their community, but once Mum had made her mind up, that was it.
Then followed over a decade of being the best grandparents in the world. They bought a house just down the road from the school the girls would attend, right opposite their kindy and became a wonderful place for my girls to grow up in when I was working.
I want to end this tribute with some personal comments.
She was the original Tiger Mother, impossible to please – I’d come home from school with a report card full of As and she’d point to the one A- and say “what happened there?”.
She had views and had no hesitation in telling you about them. The time she found out I was attending an Anglican church she was incandescent for days , weeks, and it took my sister getting a whole-arm tattoo to deflect her rage.
She could be unbelievable blunt – and then be completely baffled about why she’d upset someone.
The words “let it go” were not in her vocabulary – there were even occasions when Fr Crowley, our parish priest – surely the most stubborn man I ever met – retreated to the presbytery to lick his wounds after losing a battle with my mother.
She was endlessly curious about the world – until she wasn’t. Once she’d made up her mind, her views were absolute, but that could be quite confusing because those absolutes could change. For example, most of her life she was a Catholic, and during that time – in her emphatically stated view – if you weren’t a Catholic you weren’t a real Christian. But then, for a couple of years, she joined a Pentecostal church and it was “if you’re not a Pentecostal, you’re not a real Christian” – and then she went back to Catholicism again.
I could go on. My mother was impossible, impulsive, contradictory, and a force to be reckoned with. But I have known every day of my life that I was loved, because she loved me. No child can say better than that. She wasn’t physically affectionate, and she certainly didn’t tell you in words. But her love was the foundation upon which I have built my life , and I think our whole family can say the same. We have been so blessed by her.
She softened in the later years as she was slowly reduced by dementia. Some of her best times during these hard years were spent with Dad and Lucy, laughing and joking at Aroha. And here I must extend my thanks – and the thanks of the whole family – to the wonderful folks at Aroha . You really were amazing.
Some of MY happiest times in those last few years were taking mum to visit Dad or to Mass when she was still well enough. Because just as her love has been the bedrock of our lives, the love of my dad and of the Lord have been the bedrock of hers.
Jean Emerson was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a great grandmother (super-gran), a sister, a daughter, a friend. She was a devoted Christian, a fierce spirit, an inspirational teacher, a quiet creative, a book lover, a life-long learner, a veritable force of nature. And she loved us.
