2011.021.01

1971

Daisy Kwan (Mrs Wong Kwan She), market gardener 1883-1973). She had gardens in Waerenga Road and later Mill Road.
She arrived in New Zealand with her husband Wong Hing Lowe in 1904 and opened a fruit shop in Te Awamutu. He later took a second wife from their home village in Canton. Four children were born to wife number two but, as senior wife, Daisy was chiefly responsible for the upbringing of her stepchildren. Wong Hing Lowe and his wives returned to China in the mid-1930s, but Daisy returned to New Zealand just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

After a brief stay in Wellington Daisy moved to Otaki where she rented a section in Waerenga Road and commenced a market garden. She later purchased a cottage and several acres in Mill Road. Schoolboys were her main source of hired help and it was not unusual to see a row of boys hard at work under her watchful eye.
A newspaper interviewer estimated Daisy's age in 1971 as 100. However her stepson Peter Wong also a local gardener believes she was in her ninetieth year when she died in 1973.

Photograph from the Evening Post.