Eleitino Paddy Walker

“My journey has been one of unifying the arts and the senses through the medium of music. And my music is of the Pacific: inspired by the sounds of my childhood in Samoa. Music soothes my soul and takes me back to my island beginnings of making melodies under the palm trees with my family and my ukulele.”
-‘Aunty’ Paddy Walker (nee Halliday)

I can only begin by begging the tolerance or forgiveness of those who may read this and who know much more than I. Today I have found myself reading about the life of my great Aunty Paddy (my Grandmother’s sister), upon her passing earlier this week. Her 97 year life is already extensively well documented, attesting to more than one normal lifetime of great accomplishments…I am sorry that I did not know her well, that the knowledge and words are not all really mine, and so that this blog may seem a poor tribute.

Eleitino Paddy Walker, was my Nana’s sister. 

Her list of accomplishments is almost endless… leader, educational author, musician and composer, councillor, fashionista, peace ambassador, …supporter, mentor and advocate for women, youth and families of the Pacific…she was founding president of P.A.C.I.F.I.C.A, has been a UNICEF leader, was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, given the Order of the British Empire, and a Distinguished Fellowship from the School of Critical Studies in Education…

For all of her achievements, perhaps my favourite is that I should be able to refer to her as “a distinguished fellow”. (It must also then be said, that she was a very beautiful lady).

Aunty Paddy left Samoa, for New Zealand about the age of 10- and (if you read this blog) you might recognise the approximate date as that of the ordered deportation of her grandfather- Judge Edwin Gurr, who was removed to New Zealand with his family, accused as one of the orchestrators of the passive resistance against the NZ administration in Samoa.

While the Gurr’s and Halliday’s departed Samoa for a time, they took a part with them, (as Samoan’s do). The title Eleitino was carried down from Aunty Paddy’s Grandmother Fanua, daughter of the Chief of Apia. It is one of the great ali’i or chiefly titles. (I have Facebooked a picture of Aunty Paddy’s Great Grandfather, Seumanutafa Moepogai, Ali’i O Apia.)

On arrival in New Zealand, Aunty Paddy attended St Cuthbert’s boarding school- as would my mother, some 40 years later. This coincidence quietly joined another, in that my mother and I were in Robert Louis Stevenson’s home in Vailima, looking at a century old photograph of Seumanutafa Moepogai this week on the same day Aunty Paddy passed from this world into the next. 

There is much more to know about Aunty Paddy’s life - but I’ll take more time to find it, and know it. The purpose of this short script was simply to thank especially Aunty Paddy- and remember my Nana, and the mothers and daughters of our aiga- who have shown gracefully, purposefully and determinedly that we all might succeed in, and inhabit- not just a village or city or an island or a country- but the Pacific, and the world.

http://www.pacifica.org.nz/
http://cognitioneducation.com/blog/celebrating-our-heroes-and-champions-eleitino-paddy-walker-first-pasifika-distinguished-fellow
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/viva-magazine/news/article.cfm?c_id=533&objectid=11250415
http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/news/news-2014/2014/04/11/Leader-recognised-for-decades-of-service.html
http://www.pacificislandeducation.co.nz/about-us/we-are-the-fale-newsletter/book-review-the-peace-bird-i-can-make-someone-happy/