Horo, Eva

Eva Whakaewa Horo was born in Rahotū on 26 June 1923, one of nine children of Mare Horo (c.1865-1957) and his wife Tararauroa Horo (nee Simeon) (1895-1942).

Eva attended Kahui School then Ōpunake High School before being called up on 1 August 1942 to serve with the Royal Women's Auxiliary Air Force or WAAF. She was one of just a few hundred Māori women identified so far who served with the WAAF during the Second World War.

Eva married painter William Walter Grant (1921-1999) in 1946 and the couple had a son named Terence the following year. They divorced in the mid-1960s and she married her second husband, Donald Brooklyn Gray (1928-1972), in 1965.

Eva and Donald ran a milk bar in Mt Maunganui, Tauranga where she died on 17 October 1978 aged 55. She is buried at Pyes Pā Memorial Park Cemetery.