The Milll Fathers

The arrival of the Mill Hill Fathers in 1886 brought new hope to the Maori missions. To their surprise the Mill Hill priests found that the Maori catechists had continued and even extended the work of the earlier priests. In June 1889 a mission at Waihi on the southern edge of Lake Taupo was established with Father J. W. Spiers in charge.

In 1904 Father Adrian Langerwerf took over and remained in charge at Waihi until his death on 7” April 1935. He is buried alongside the church at Waihi. His people knew Father Adrian as Pā Ateriona and he endeared himself to them by his outstanding gifts of leadership and personality. Few equalled him in eloquence in Maori and he sought not only to administer to their spiritual needs but also to improve their social conditions. The help them as farmers he built a dairy factory at Waihi and in later years when the timber industry grew, converted the factory to a sawmill. Later, this became an electric power plant meeting local needs for many years.

To say Masses in the Taupo area Father Adrian and the other Mill Hill Fathers travelled from Waihi to Taupo and to the larger settlements of Oruanui and Mokai on horseback, a 38-mile journey along pumice tracks. There were no bridges so all the rivers and streams had to be forded with the trip taking most of the day.

The Priests often stayed overnight in Taupo with Mr and Mrs Wehringo who, in 1904, had moved from Palmerston North to the tiny remote settlement that was Taupo when its population was about one hundred. They first lived in a hut on the site now occupied by the Suncourt Shopping Centre and moved to Tuwharetoa Street a year later. They cared for the priests in their home and welcomed visitors to the church each Mass day. George Wehringo was from Budapest and his wife Leopoldina was from Bavaria. Their daughters were Aurelia and Dorothea. The latter married Joseph Crowther and had two children, one of whom was Theresa Corry who, with her six children, are third and fourth generation Taupo residents.

In the early 1900s Mass was celebrated in the old Taupo Courthouse, with sermons in Maori and in English. Mass was said in Latin and the Mass prayers led by Rangiwawahia Hepi were chanted in Maori. Later his son Te Akato would lead the prayers. The Clerk of the Court appreciated the thorough pre-Mass cleaning the Courthouse received regularly from Mrs Leopoldina Wehringo.

About 1910, Father Edward Bruning, then Parish Priest at Waihi bought half an acre of land on the corner of Ruapehu and Tuwharetoa Streets for a future Taupo church. Mr Wehringo fenced the land and grazed a couple of horses on it. Ten years later another half acre, adjoining the first and adjacent to the Wehringo home, was purchased from Captain Darby Ryan, the master of the steamer “Tongariro” which used to ply the three ­hour journey from Taupo to Tokaanu. As well as being used for grazing, the land was used for stacking timber milled at Waihi. Mr Wehringo sold the timber giving the profits to the Waihi settlement.

Early Mass Centres 

In the early 1900s more people lived in the mill towns of Oruanui and Mokai than in Taupo. A mill began production at Mokai in 1903 with a rail link to Putaruru, a major engineering feat for those times. The wooden bridge over the Waikato river, constructed in 1903, was the longest wooden single span bridge in the southern hemisphere.

In 1913 a church at Mokai was built and was in use until the early sixties. In the late 1920s Mokai’s population was population was 2000 while that of Taupo was only 400. The Mokai mill closed in 1948 and the Maroa mill opened the same year. It was to become the biggest sawmill in the Southern hemisphere, but like Mokai and Oruanui, it became a ghost town as the population gradually moved away in search of work elsewhere after logging stopped.

Rosaleen McBrayne in the 1976 Parish History had this to say:

In the early days, a priest travelled from Waihi to Mokai once a month for Mass, staying there from the Friday till the Monday for instruction, Baptism, marriages etc. The population of Mokai and Oruanui was almost all Maori, and the Mokai Church was packed for Mass. The Mokai marae was used extensively for meetings concerning Maori land ownership, shareholding, and timber royalties. Father Langerwerf parish priest at Waihifrom 1903 until his death in 1935, used to travel to Mokai on horseback, stopping overnight in Taupo. Stories are told about the time Father Langerwerf was swept off his horse in the Tongariro River and only saved himself from drowning by grabbing hold of the horses tail. When Taupo became a separate parish, with regular Masses at Taupo and Wairakei, Mass was celebrated every fortnight at Mokai and once a month at Oruanui and Maroa.

Father de Bree recalls visiting Mokai in 1936, when all the houses were occupied and there was plenty of labour for the local sawmill. Mokai was still looked upon as an ancient historic place and, at the time of his visit, the local Kaumutua was Turau te Torno, who was well versed in Maori tradition and history, and known for his oratory. The late Pei te Hurinui Jones listed him as a fine, outstanding Maori scholar. Father worked closely with Taite and Turau Te Torno and later with Muirama Osborne and Sam Andrews.

Our First Parish Priest 

Fr Jan de Bree was born in Utrecht 1908, youngest of ten children. At age 15 he began six years of study at a Mill Hill college, then two years at Rosendale studying philosophy and science. After a further four years with the Mill Hill order in London he was ordained in 1935. The day after ordination he and three other priests were appointed to the Auckland diocese in faraway New Zealand. On arrival in New Zealand he was sent to the far north, to Pawarenga, to learn the Maori language. On later visits there Wattie and Daphne Maunsell were his hosts. His pastime of hooking eels replaced chess and trout fishing.

In those days Maori people spoke little English and their children were forbidden by the Education Department to speak Maori on the school grounds, in an effort to foster the English language.

Fr de Bree’s first appointment was to Ohura in the King country. He recalls that Dean Martin Al ink, the then Superior of the Mill Hill Fathers, cautioned him that he was only to be in Ohura temporarily. It was not the Dean’s habit to appoint a young man, only twelve months ordained, as a parish priest. During his stay, which was to last twelve years, Fr de Bree attended to Catholic Maori throughout the King Country. Father often commented that he was never a curate and took on full responsibilities of a priest right from the start. After his long spell in Ohura he moved to Waihi during 1949 and 1950. He treasured associations he had there with Sir Hepi Te Heuheu, Hiri and Martha Mariu, Joe Hoko, the Dempsey family, Tutereina and Bernard Hepi.

After 15 years in New Zealand Father returned to Holland for eight months leave, during six months of which he lectured to would-be Dutch immigrants about New Zealand. The governments of both countries sponsored the lectures and enthusiasm was great among the Dutch people to learn about New Zealand. Between 1950 and 1974, Dutch immigrants to this country numbered over 36,000.

He arrived back in New Zealand in August 1951 and after three months in Waitaruke (Northland) was given responsibility for Taupo. He had many tasks ahead of him. His ability was amazing. During his ministry the population of Taupo rocketed from just under 1500 to over 13,000. His was the responsibility to cope with this growth. Today, thirty years later, the population has reached 25,000.

Owen Delany had this to say at Father De Bree’s 50″ jubilee in 1985:

In a quiet and unobtrusive way Father was a law unto himself when managing the Parish affairs. He was not partial to committees but preferred to gather round him people who were experts in their field with whom he could talk and exchange ideas and come to a quick decision. I am pretty certain that Fathers hip pocket -as far as he was concerned, was the only bank in Taupo. He had to buy and sell land, move the church to a new site in Opepe St, build a presbytery, a Convent and a hall but he did all of this with very little money.

In 1956 four acres of land in Opepe St was bought to resite the church and to provide the land on which to build a convent and a much needed presbytery.

The first need was eleven hundred pounds to move the church to the Opepe street site. The Sewing Circle was the answer! Stacia Steen and Dorrie Crowther, and later her daughter Theresa enlisted the aid of a team of women. New aprons, tablecloths, and masses of children’s clothing were made. Old clothes were collected, washed, mended and sold. Mrs Stacia Steen, the moving force in the Circle for almost forty years, and the late Mufti Daley were the two most involved at that time. An annual fair was a time for the whole parish to get together and raise money and at the same time have some fun. In those days, the Sewing Circle met weekly. In later days they met monthly but members busied themselves at home and prepared for the next annual Fair. When Taupo Primary school started its monthly Flea Market, Mrs Steen set up a stall there and stocked it for years, in fact until her death in 1994!

In 1953, a branch of the Catholic Women’s League was formed under its first President Mrs Hilda Peart with Mrs Nancy Watson also very involved. For some time, apart from church collections, the League and the Sewing Circle raised the bulk of the money needed for the parish. Without much publicity the Circle survived and lived on until the late nineties.

At a League Diocesan Conference in Taumarunui in 1971 Lorna Tritt delivered a paper on “Preparing Our Children For Living in the Seventies.” Time marched on! At the next Conference an interesting remit was considered.

That because the liberalisation of Licensing Laws has resulted in hotels becoming places for social meeting and entertainment, the age for legal drinking be reduced to eighteen.

It took until the year 2000 for the law to be changed. In hindsight, after ONE YEAR, was it wise?

A prime concern of the Catholic Women’s League in the Seventies was raising funds for a Mission Station at Pago Pago, Samoa. After Dawn Caird ‘s busy year Loraine Ross became President and with the help of Norma Logan and Jean Wacker presided over twenty-one members. Other duties were church cleaning, providing a substantial lunch when Father had meetings of his fellow Clergy from surrounding districts, and food for First Communion and Confirmation times. Grinding out the monthly newsletter on a temperamental old duplicator at the convent was another rostered duty. As times changed and young mothers rejoined the work force, it was more difficult to attract members and a lack of desire to serve on committees meant closing down the branch in the early eighties. The Mission Circle continued for a while longer.

Father de Bree established the Legion of Mary to help meet the spiritual needs of the parish with the assistance of three foundation members; Frank Habib, Dorrie Crowther and Doris McBeth who all remained active until their deaths. Their duties involved reciting the Rosary daily as well as other Legion prayers, attending weekly meetings and doing work in the community allocated by Father de Bree. Members attended monthly regional meetings in Rotorua and every summer a picnic was held for all members in the region at different locations. Active members delivered a Rosary statue to Catholic homes where it was left for a week. In pre-TV days, many families would invite others into their homes during this week to say the Rosary. A large group of auxiliary members said the Rosary and Legion prayers daily.

Father de Bree took an initiative that led to the start of an important group. Rosaleen McBrayne reports:

With the rapid growth of Taupo, all the churches combined to take up a census among the new arrivals. A voluntary Social Welfare Committee was organised with members from all ranks in the community to keep abreast of the growing needs of the expanding population. Representatives from the churches, medical profession, child welfare department, headmasters of schools, district nurses and police attended a general meeting, sponsored by Fr de Bree. The meetings were held regularly at St Patrick’s hall from 1961 to discuss concrete proposals, such as truancy at schools, advising on Maori housing and any other urgent proposals and problems affecting the community.

This body of voluntary welfare services was to act as intermediary between the various government departments in a capacity of preventive rather than punitive assistance. At these monthly meetings the reports stressed the need for voluntary cooperation in the community. The public began to realise that through voluntary cooperation a large amount of ‘potential’ crime and subsequent prosecutions could be prevented and avoided.

Waihi, Turangi and Tokaanu 

Although the churches at Waihi and Tokaanu have had a long history and a tradition which goes back to the early Mill Hill Fathers who came to the area as missionaries in 1886, the Church of St Joseph the Worker in Turangi has a much shorter history. It was built about 1966 to meet the needs of the thousands of workers on the Tongariro Power Development. Father Edward Slowey returned home to England because of illness. Father Frank Downs took his place and being a younger man, began a transformation of the Parish that has continued. Father Downs was called back to England when his father became ill, later dying of cancer. Expecting Father Downs to return, the Diocese supplied ‘weekend priests’ and the Sisters of the Mission kept everything else ‘ticking over’ in between times. On Sundays when no priest was available communion services were held.

In 1997 when it became definite that no Mill Hill priests were available, the Hamilton Diocese stepped in with a happy solution. A newly ordained priest, Father Robert Sharplin, under the Parish Priest of Taupo, Monsignor Pat Holland, would look after the spiritual welfare of the Turangi parishioners and also those in other neighbouring areas. Fr Robert’s commitments in Taupo and elsewhere meant a lot of travelling and adjustments had to be made in scheduling services. Mass was to be said each Sunday, on Fridays and on the third Saturday as well as on special feast days in Turangi. St Werenfrid’s, the Church in Waihi, had a mass on the fourth Sunday, while Mass was to be said in the Little Church at Tokaanu, St Mary Immaculate, about four times a year. Sister Rita took Catechetical instruction and saw to the other needs of the Parish, always with the backing and encouragement of Fr Robert. The Parish has been fortunate to have such an energetic, helpful and knowledgeable priest. For his part Father Robert considers himself blessed by being in a parish that is most interesting, very diverse, knows how to celebrate and has a distinctive spirit.