Joe Brown

On 24 June 2012 my grandfather Joe Brown died.  He was 96.  

His funeral was on Thursday in Dunedin in New Zealand where he lived almost all his life and I was fortunate enough to be there.  The funeral was everything it should have been for him.  Organised perfectly by my uncle and aunts, surrounded by family, simple and very personal and full of brilliant stories about his life.  On top of his coffin was a vegetable wreath, a flower wreath, a golf club (his practice driver, well used) and his golf club membership tag.  A vegetable wreath for Joe's life long green fingers.  A beautiful flower wreath with golf balls and in Otago colours made for him specially by one of my aunts.  A church full of people - his older sister (who is 99), children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, cousins and friends.

He was one of 7 children of whom one brother and one sister survive him.  As an older child he took turns with his brother week in week out with school to help his father and uncles search for gold which funded their families in part through the depression of the 1930s.  He worked as a rabbit trapper clearing properties when their populations exploded in plague proportions.  He served in New Caledonia and NZ, with his bad eye disqualifying him from front line service.  He lost his closest brother at El Alamein.  He loved rugby and horse racing. He never drank and never smoked. He liked a little bet. He could grow anything - all his life he produced most of the vegies for the family and himself.  He married my granny Maizie in 1945 and remained so for nearly 60 years fathering Ann Maree, Bernard, Rae, Warren, Chris, Mike and Helene.  He worked with his cousin running a furniture shop virtually all his working life after the war (they were like brothers because their parents had been a set of two brothers who had married two sisters).  He picked up and delivered furniture using VW Combi vans. He was daily sighted with the van stuffed full of furniture, beds and wardrobes strapped on the top and the back.  On Saturdays the kids were in there too. He and Maizie had a holiday house in Alexandra in central Otago where friends and family spent many years of happy holidays. He retired at 70 and decided to take up golf.  He played straight down the fairway every shot.  After Maizie died he took over her role of sending birthday cards to everyone each year (they had a whiteboard to mark the upcoming birthdays, "Kristie Mc 25 June" was the final one he had written up).  He played his last round of golf the day after his 95th birthday last year.  He renewed his driving licence in March of this year.  Until the last 3 weeks of his life he lived independently in his own house.   The last 3 weeks were spent in a hospice where the standard of care from the staff was outstanding and where he made lasting impression even on them.  Ann-Maree and Helene, my aunts, spent the last two nights with him sleeping in his room.  He died in his sleep just before 11am on a sunny Sunday morning. 

Everyone has a story about Joe. One of my favourites (and which was related by Uncle Bernie at the funeral) was from when Joe stayed with mum and dad - I think it was 2005 - so he was only 89.  Before Joe arrived Mum and Dad had been tidying up the garden including the bit at the bottom where there had been years of burning everything (garden stuff, old furniture etc) that was surplus to requirements.  Dad had a new digger so it was a great excuse to dig a big hole, bury all the stuff that didn't burn in the bonfire (don't ask) and smooth it all over with good top soil. Anyway, once Joe had arrived conversation turned to growing vegies and Mum and Dad talked about the potatoes they had bought to plant down there.  A couple of days later, Mum and Dad both had to go to work and leave Joe to his own devices.  When they came home they asked Joe what he'd been up to. Well he had found the gardening tools and had decided to plant all the potatoes down the bottom of the garden - but he said you'd never believe all the rubbish he'd had to dig out - it had taken him all day.

In all the years I ever knew Joe he never changed.  From my earliest memories to my last ones of him he could do all the same things and looked exactly the same. Vale Joe Brown.