Violet Ruby Ebert (1892-1997)

Miss Ebert born in Christchurch in 1892, the youngest of 11 children. “You have a daughter who will be able to look after you in your old age”, said the doctor. Her father died in 1911 and mother in 1925. John Ebert, her father, who came to New Zealand in 1865 from Bingen on the Rhine, Germany, was a baker by trade. Miss Ebert was a tuberculosis nurse at the Christchurch Sanatorium before coming to Wellington in the 1930s. For many years she ran the Green Room cake shop at 196 Lambton Quay where she used the baking skills learned from her father.

In the late 1930s Miss Ebert came to Pukerua Bay and built her cottage on what was then open farmland. With its distinctive blue roof and her German ancestry there was some concerns about her by the authorities during WWII. At first she planted a traditional cottage garden which the northerly wind quickly destroyed. On the advice of the renowned Pukerua Bay gardener Miss Ngita Woodhouse, she planted the boundary of her property with natives and then established her garden within this protected area. The pathways in the garden were lined with pieces of granite which had come as ballast on vessels from the United Kingdom. Her garden was often the setting for wedding photographs and church fairs.

She was a loyal worshipper at St Mark’s Church and an enthusiastic member of the Pukerua Bay Golf Club. Miss Ebert, as she was always called, never owned a car, instead she regularly walked to the station, shops and the beach. She often visited Nobby Clark around past Wairaka Rock. He would escort her back up the waterfall to the top of the hill before she headed back across the farmland down to her home.

She would let her beloved budgie fly loose in the porch of her beautiful house. Beautiful in the sense that it was filled with family photographs and old silver, and was rich with character, different from any other house in the Bay. Upstairs in an attic room was a four-poster bed with a canopy! A friend, perhaps the redoubtable Marge Murphy, a widow, would sit in the porch chatting, with the birds overhead, free spirits like Vi herself. (Meg Campbell)

The Pukerua News, Monthly Voice of the Bay, February 1950 reported, “A happy little gathering was held at the home of Miss Ebert, Rawhiti on Rawhiti Road on New Year’s Eve. Her large lounge with its subdued wall lights and attractive furnishings was the scene of much conversation and good fellowship as befitted the occasion.”

No outing was more pleasant than our visits to the home of Miss Vi Ebert, a lovely lady already in her eighties. She struck a chord with one of my hospital friends Mr Hill, who was also in his eighties. They remembered each other from the Lambton Quay days when Mr Hill’s father had owned Hills for Hats, a building not far along the Quay from Vi Ebert’s cake shop, the “Buttery”. Mr Hill’s uncle was the late Alfred Hill, the composer, one of whose songs, “Waiata Poi” was very popular with school choirs. There was enjoyment on the faces of us all at the timely meeting of these two old acquaintances on one of our outings. (Arlin Meg Campbell)

Miss Ebert loved her two dogs Trudi, the dachshund and Tom, the pug. She had compassion for those less fortunate in life, especially blind people. For years in her retirement she transcribed a variety of works into braille. She herself was nearly blind during her last few years but this did not seem to hinder her. When going to the store or railway station she would wait to cross State Highway One and listen to the traffic, knowing that when it fell silent she would be able to cross safely.

Miss Ebert lived in her home, called Bingen after the hometown of her father, until she was 98, when she moved back to Christchurch and the care from her devoted nieces and nephews. Meg Campbell called her “sprightly, charming, warm hearted and adventurous”. Miss Violet Ruby Ebert died in 1997, aged 105.

By Margaret Blair