The people of Te Teko originally planned to build a health centre at the local school as their Second World War memorial. This was to include a dental clinic, a doctor’s room and a waiting room and conveniences. The Department of Internal Affairs refused the first application for a subsidy on the grounds that a health clinic was not a community centre where everyone could gather. Eventually, the Te Teko war memorial committee decided to build a new public hall on a section across from the school instead, but to make provision for health services from the hall. It seems that the project was not completed until February 1959.
The wooden memorial tablet inside the hall’s front entrance lists the names of the following local men who lost their live during the Second World War: M.J. Brady, W.B. Craig, J. Keelan, T. Mea, H. Ngaheu, G. Simon, R. Treloar and T. Wetini.
See: ‘War Memorial for Te Teko’, Bay of Plenty Beacon, 24/3/1952 [clipping sighted]; Whakatane Returned Services Association Inc., 50th Jubilee, Auckland, 1983, p. 31; Jock Phillips, To the Memory: New Zealand’s War Memorials, Nelson, 2016, pp. 188-9; Te Teko, Archives New Zealand, ‘Te Teko Memorial Hall and Dental Clinic’, 1949-1952 (R18798121).
Images and text: Bruce Ringer, 2015