Celebrating Thelma Crosby’s legacy

Stuart Crosby and Thelma Crosby

A snap decision and a cheeky offer paved the way for the Crosby Family's early occupation of Papamoa that resulted in a three generations of the Crosbys' Papamoa legacy that continues today.

Thelma Lilian Crosby died at Bethlehem Views rest home recently aged 89. Her funeral was on Sunday.

Gordon and Thelma Crosby and four children; Peter, Bruce, Stuart and Gayle, were staying over in Te Puke in 1966 on their way from Gisborne to Whangarei to find building work for Gordon, when Thelma saw an advertisement in the local paper for a holiday camp for sale.

The camp at Papamoa was run down, so they made a cheeky low offer – which was accepted.

They returned to Gisborne, sold up, and moved out of the house Gordon built for his family into a dilapidated house in the Papamoa camp, where Thelma fell through the rotten verandah.

Gordon was able to build a hinuera stone home four years later, which is still in the camp today.

Thelma managed the office, mowed acres of lawns using a hand mower, cleaned the ablution blocks and ran the camp shop, while also looking after the family.

Gordon did the maintenance and built new ablution blocks. During the week he was off-site building to keep them going financially.

Once they could afford cleaning and grounds staff, Thelma became a qualified person selling real estate for mercantile firm Dalgetys'.

She was the only female real estate person at that time and sold sections and houses in Papamoa for four years.

Thelma loved it because she enjoyed meeting people and it was the start of Papamoa becoming more than a beachside village.

When Gordon and Thelma retired from the camping ground, they sold the business to Bruce and Donna. Today the camp is managed by Thelma's granddaughter Rebecca.

Running the camp ground and selling real estate meant Thelma could enjoy making contact with people from all walks of life.

One special friend of Thelma's was local lady Val Williams, who helped Thelma out with the laundry and ironing and with whom she enjoyed playing badminton with every week in Te Puke.

Thelma also made good friends with a lot of the campers and liked seeing their children and grandchildren coming back to the camp throughout the years.

The camp Games Room was an old prefab that Thelma and Gordon let the local scouts and girl guides use for meetings and activities.

Thelma actually took the girl guides for several years. Because she couldn't leave the camp for hikes and activities, the girl guides did all their training in the camp, for example, pitching tents and cooking over campfires.

'There was an old shop in the domain where we used to have to sit there and roll ice creams make milkshakes while the mates were out surfing,” says Bruce Crosby.

'Those days we had 9 foot surf boards. It took two of us, me and Stuart (later mayor of Tauranga), to get them down to the beach.”

He remembers there being the beach camp the Domain and four houses across the road at Papamoa in the 1960s.

The family celebrated 50 years in the business last year.

Thelma also typed up and copied the minutes of the local residents' committee, which Gordon took round to local libraries.

'It makes interesting reading when you look back,” says Bruce. 'Never blew her own trumpet, just quietly got on with things.”

Thelma tried to live her life with integrity and dignity, states her eulogy. Her family always came first and she loved them deeply.

It wasn't an easy life at times, but Thelma's unfailing positive attitude and quirky sense of humour helped her see the bright side of life. Thelma always believed that you don't give up and you always treat people with kindness and respect.

Bruce recognised a man at his mother's funeral who started camping at Papamoa in 1968.

'He's got a beach house down the Mount now, but all his kids' best memories are at the beach there,” says Bruce. 'That's the kind of stuff we get.”

And old customers still drop by. He encountered a guy wandering around the camp the other da. Now a Rotorua funeral director, he also spent summers at the Papamoa Beach Holiday Park.

The standard joke was they started losing a lot of their customers to the real estate agents, says Bruce.

'As people get on a bit, they buy a section or a house, then they retire over here.”

Thelma was born in Fitzroy, New Plymouth, on 20th February 1928. Her family moved to Napier and were in the 1931 Napier Earthquake. Thelma was three years old playing outside on her trike and remembers the chimney fell down behind her. She was crying and went inside to find her Mum. All the preserves in the pantry were all over the floor and in the sitting room the picture over the fireplace was turned completely upside down.

The family moved to Hastings after the earthquake. Thelma started school at Hastings West primary school. The Thomas family moved to Gisborne when Thelma was three. By this time, Thelma had four siblings: Graham, born 1930; Bruce, born 1932; Alan, born 1934; and, Beth born 1935. Thelma was a first day pupil at Gisborne Intermediate.

She was a member of the Mangapapa Girl Guides. Thelma took a commercial course at Gisborne High School, which included shorthand typing and bookkeeping as she was always interested in arithmetic and figures. She was Head Girl of a House and played basketball, which is now netball, as a Goal Shoot because she was tall.

She met Gordon playing indoor netball at the Gisborne YMCA. Gordon asked her out to the Flood Relief Ball. She had to wear a long frock, which she hitched up over her arm to walk the two miles home with Gordon. They got engaged in February 1950 and married in July 1950.

Thelma is survived by her children and nine grandchildren; Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca, Grant, Michael, Jessica, Ryan, Glenn and Jonathan. Thelma loved seeing them grow up into successful and kind adults. Having great-grandchildren has also been very exciting for Thelma.

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