Margaretha Ockhuysen, who died in Opunake on December 23 age 90, left Holland by herself at 22 in 1950 to follow Bob, her fiance, to New Zealand. They were married for more than 60 years

Obituary: In 1950, aged 22, Margaretha Hoogeveen left her family in Holland to follow her fiance, Barend (Bob) Ockhuysen, to New Zealand, where she knew no one apart from him.

She hopped on a boat alone and left Amsterdam, a city with a population of 850,777 at the time, destined for a coastal Taranaki town with fewer than 1000 people, where she was to spend the rest of her life.

Over those 68 years, Margaretha, who died on December 23, aged 90, became a well known and highly respected resident, ​receiving a Citizen's Award in 2001 for her contributions and dedication to the community.

Supplied Margaretha and Bob were married for 64 years before he passed.

She was involved in almost every club in the town and was a familiar face around Opunake High School, affectionately known as "Mrs O", where she was secretary to the principal, and teacher of typing, business studies, social studies, guitar, and softball coach.

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"To us she was a wonderful mother, grandmother and great grandmother, who kept alive our sense of family, even with the part of our family half a world away," eldest son Bart told mourners who gathered for her funeral service at St Paul's Church in Opunake on Friday, December 28.

Supplied Margaretha and Bob planned to have a small wedding but instead they had a "proper" wedding at the insistence of the McCarrison family.

Margaretha was 12 when World War II began, her life consumed by rationing, clothing coupons, food stockpiling, and witnessing German soldiers shoot a man dead on her way to school.

She was the second eldest child in a family of four children. Her father, Jelke Jacques Hoogeveen, was a stock broker and her mother, Elizabeth Hoogeveen (nee: Kooi), a knitter and expert at crochet.

Her mother made her take swimming lessons from a young age in case she fell in the canals of Amsterdam. Margaretha later forced her own children to learn how to swim because they lived in a town surrounded by water.

Supplied She was a loved mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.

She met Bob at a fair after the liberation and they later became engaged on March 25, 1947.

"We soon clicked and had a great time at the fair," she later wrote in an autobiography entitled Meanderings. "We cheered and yelled 'we are free, after five long years we are free'."

Not long after, Bob was posted to Indonesia with the Dutch army. While there the couple made plans to come to New Zealand as Bob had heard it was the most difficult country to get in to and reasoned that it must, therefore, be the best. Margaretha would meet him here.

Supplied Margaretha Ockhuysen was a familiar face around Opunake High School affectionately known as "Mrs O" where she was secretary to the principal as well as teacher of typing, business studies, social studies, guitar, and the softball coach.

She travelled by herself via P&O liner to Sydney and then by Catalina flying boat to Auckland. She couldn't wait to be reunited.

"He was my lifeline and my reason for coming to New Zealand in the first place. My heart seemed to be missing several beats, I didn't see him and then there he was by the customs officers trying to get as close as possible," she wrote.

"Although we had been engaged for nearly three years (most of this time apart, while Bob was in Indonesia) at first we were too shy even to hold hands.

Supplied She was well known for her sense of humour and roles played on stage in the Opunake Players.

"I told him that I had promised my mother to send a telegram as soon as I had arrived. I looked over his shoulder to see what he had written 'Margaret arrived safely, looking great, am over the moon'."

Margaretha and Bob first lived in Te Kiri, Taranaki, where they were welcomed into the home of a local family, the McCarrisons.

After they got settled they began planning a small and quiet wedding with just two witnesses; however Mrs McCarrison decided it had to be a proper wedding.

She organised a grand affair and insisted on paying for everything. It was a sign of the overwhelming kindness they were to receive from the locals, Bart said.

The couple later moved to Stratford and eventually settled in Opunake with four children: Bart, Louise, Karen, and Ronald.

"We lived in a small bach on Opunake Beach at the far end past the Pavilion," Bart said in his funeral address.

"With Karen on the way, a house was built by Jim Larkin on the clifftop in Dieffenbach Street, overlooking the sea. The family shifted in, minus the cat, who turned up on his own, three days later."

Margaretha and Bob, an electrician, remained married for 64 years until his death in September 2015.

Bart said his mother had an artistic side and liked to draw, knit and craft. She passed this creativity on to all her grandchildren who called her "Oma", the Dutch and German word for grandmother.

Margaretha didn't gain her driver's licence until the age of 50 and her children say even then being in the car with her was a hair-raising experience.

Although she experienced great culture shock arriving in Opunake, Margaretha became a core part of the community, well known for her kindness and great sense of humour.

During her decades in the coastal Taranaki town she was a founding member of the group that started Opunake Playcentre, founding member of the Friendship Club, adviser at the Citizen's Advice Bureau, life member of the Opunake Players, and member of the food bank, Pihama Women's Institute, mahjong club, the choir, knitting group, Plunket, and League of Mothers.

She was the treasured mother and mother-in-law to Bart and Lisa, Louise and David Knapman, Karen and Steve, and Ronald and Liane. Loved Oma of Willem, Sophia; Jared, Rebecca; Chloe, Natalie, Allette; and all their partners. Great Oma of Oscar and Harry.

Margaretha Ockhuysen: December 14, 1928 - December 23, 2018.