DEATHS of Islands People
pp. 73-74 · Read in the full issue
Ida Bordes-Teariki In Papeete on March 21, aged 67, of heart failure.
She was une grande dame with a royal bearing, in the line of “Queen Purea, or Oberea” who so much impressed the ear liest European visitors to Tahiti.
In fact, her very appropriate fam ily name, Teariki, was bestowed by a Rarotongan ariki.
Born in 1916, Frida, whose name was soon shortened to Ida, took up one of the two profes sions which in those days were open to Tahitian women, nurs ing. (The other one, of course, was school teaching). Then, at the mature age of 27, she married the planter Francois Bordes, son of the chief of the district of Afaahiti, on the peninsula, to whom she bore three daughters.
Together with her brother John, she joined in the early 1950 s the newly founded nationalist RDPT party of Pouvanaa a Oopa. When this charismatic leader was impris oned and his party outlawed by the French Government, John and Ida founded a new party Pupu here aia (The Patriots), and Ida was elected president and made the party’s wheels turn.
With incredible energy, the brother and sister team, who pos sessed a most un-Polynesian business acumen, simultaneously went in for large-scale farming, orange growing and breeding cattle and chickens. Ida moreov er tended a huge flower garden and was a regular supplier of garlands of the national flower, the white gardenia, for feasts and official functions.
During the last 10 years of her life, Ida was actively engaged in efforts to improve the lot of Polynesian women. This led to her participation in the first Pacific Women’s Conference, held in 1975 in Suva, and to her appointment as consultant for the Resource Centre set up by the conference. In 1980, she led a Tahitian delegation to the Non- Govemment Organisations Mid- Decade Forum in Copenhagen, and on her return home became a founding member of the local branch of the Women’s Interna tional League for Peace and Freedom.
Having throughout her life been an active member of the Evangelical Church of French Polynesia, Ida Bordes-Teariki was given a moving funeral in the best LMS tradition, in her home district on the peninsula. It was attended by numerous church dignitaries and political leaders, as well as by hundreds of ordinary people to whom she had been a faithful friend and shining example. As a last, fit ting tribute they showered her coffin with white gardenia flow ers. Marie -There se Danielsson.
Mrs Aimak Tapangkai Sope In Vanuatu on February 19, fol lowing a long illness.
Mrs Aimak Sope was the mother of government’s chief whip and MP Efate Rural, Barak Sope.
Richard (Martin) Brown On Norfolk Island on March 2, aged 76.
Martin Brown retired to Nor folk 10 years ago after working with the Ansett transport com pany in Melbourne for many years. He was a respected mem ber of the community and a keen gardener, often exhibiting his produce at the Norfolk Island show.
Dr Yadram Sadhu In Suva on March 29, aged 55.
Dr Sadhu was the assistant director of hospital services in Fiji’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. He qualified as an assistant medical officer from the Fiji School of Medicine in 1954 and served in many medical districts including Lautoka, Nausori, Nadi, Ra, Tamavua and Suva during his 28 years of ser vice to the government. He was promoted to principal medical officer in 1971 and became a senior clinical tutor in preventive medicine at the FSM in 1974, acting as principal of the school on several occasions.
Ambika Maharaj
In Suva on March 29, aged 46.
Mr Maharaj was the Fiji
Broadcasting Commission’s
head of the special programs unit. He first joined the commis sion in 1959 as a Hindustani announcer but left in 1964 to join the Agricultural and Industrial Loans Board, the forerunner to the Fiji Development Bank. In 1968 he joined the Co-operative Department and then in 1972 returned to the FBC as a current affairs producer. Two years later he was appointed head of special programs and in 1982 was trans ferred to the Western Division to establish Radio West.