Arthur would have probably had a laugh at the interesting typo in his death notice in the NZ Herald – Born 1027. According to them he would have been 991 years old and that meant he was older than Adam who was purported to have been 930 years young.
Attention to detail…
In 2005 I was asked by The Art Deco Trust of my personal recollection of the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake.
It was at Pakuratahi Valley that I experienced the 1931 Hawke’s Bay
Earthquake – over the hill from the present day Whirinaki Mill and
Relevantly near to – by some estimations I believe the earthquake’s
epi-centre.
1931 Hawkes Bay Earthquake Recollection –
‘What’s that an earthquake – Run outside!’ I remember from nearly four years of age those words – the urgency of my Mothers voice – clearly now, as of that moment; and the expression of startled concern on her face, looking down at me as I was handed a quarter of peeled apple. I saw then an older brother darting for the doorway leading to the outside, my Mother following with our baby brother scooped up from the floor.
I must by then have known what an earthquake was and for long afterwards wondered that I had felt nothing at first, only in later years realizing that Mother would have heard the fearsome roar of the approaching earthquake; amplified among the enclosing hills (we lived at the head of a narrow valley to the north of Napier by not many miles along the curve of the bay).
Not fully comprehending uncertainly I turned to follow – I have a clear memory of that – then all about me was noise violent shaking and confusing… with nothing more remembered until seeing my Mother anxious face, her eyes staring at me from where she lay sprawled across the outside door sill her arms reaching inside towards me. Then all was confusion again – she seemingly snatched away and memory blanks once more tossed outside eventually from the (I learned later) wrecked inside. I remember then being outside crouching on the lawn with the others then our flight across the garden to an open paddock beyond. There we stayed huddled together for what seemed to me a long time while as I remember it, wondering why.
Mother had seen the side of the high hill just beyond our house fall away as dust and rubble…. a hillside along which she knew Dad had made his way not that long before.
After a time apparently she saw Dad appear briefly atop that hill, there following for her an anxious wait, until he called to us from much nearer at hand. I remember his words “Are you all right?” and seeing him then hurrying down the last slope towards us.
Where Mother had seen him at our end of the high ridge he had been confronted with a still moving earthquake crack and aware that beside him part of the hill already had fallen away (the consequent cliff face remains to this day) he had been forced to retreat in search of another way down.
We moved down the valley thereafter to where other people had gathered about a farm house, still standing but a shambles inside.
Tents were pitched on the lawn in which women and children spent that night, and, I’m not sure – perhaps one or two more. The men after a clearance inside ‘braving’ the house which I heard it said next day had creaked alarmingly with each aftershock….. 
I have memory of one in particular, when lying in the tent with others that first night, the ground shook and heaved beneath me.
Next day – the day after that my Mother noticed I had not spoke, could not be persuaded to eat, and that I was holding my left fist tightly closed. When my fingers were pried open there lay revealed the uneaten quarter of peeled apple. I remember seeing it brown and shriveled; and the odd feeling of reluctance as it was taken from me. From there as a body – some on horseback the valley residents trekked over the nearby coastal hills to the Esk River where I remember walking with others up the slope of the shattered ‘Esk Bridge’ and being handed down to the cracked roadway at the uplifted other end.
Met by relatives there I think – or on the way, we journeyed on back road via Puketapu I understand but have no memory of until being at an Uncles farmlet on the outskirts of Hastings where we stayed further for a while.
With Mother pregnant, distraught and unwell. My oldest brother had undergone surgery in the Napier Hospital on the day before the ‘Quake’ and had not at that point been accounted for.
My family was from there variously dispersed and for some time, except Dad who returned to our farm faced with destitution and rebuilding on his own.
~ A G Sutton 30th October 2005
Arthur Sutton the Author 