Waiheke Pioneers

by Dixie Day

The classic story of Waiheke’s settler families

Now with a section on the island’s indigenous history by historian, Paul Monin

“Beautifully written, filled with entertaining anecdotes, Waiheke Pioneers is a gem of historical storytelling.”

“It all started with listening to some of the stories told around our kitchen table. I found them so interesting that I started to jot them down. I suppose I’ve been collecting the island’s history in notebooks for more than 30 years.”

Dixie Day married into one of Waiheke Island’s oldest families in 1940, and thus began a life-long passion for the island, its quirky characters, and the many stories they told. In 1972 she and a group of likeminded islanders founded a historical society, and eleven years later they opened the island’s first museum. Dixie Day passed away in 1996, but her legacy endures.

Waiheke Pioneers, first published in 1989, is the culmination of nearly half a century of careful research and collation of documents, photos and stories. The book has served as an essential resource for historians and family history buffs, and its elegant conversational style has endeared it to generations of the island’s residents and visitors. This new edition, revised and expanded, makes the island’s pioneer stories available to a new generation of readers and researchers.