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Dulcie Routhan - A Woman of Substance and Generosity

As Third Formers in the late 1960s we sat in the front row of the Kuranui College assembly hall looking up at the teaching staff seated on the stage above us. Very near the middle in the front row was a woman, quite old from our perspective, feet apart and planted firmly on the floor.  Miss Dulcie Routhan. At that time none of us knew of the kindness and generosity for which she would eventually be remembered in her Carterton community and further afield.

 

As time passed we learnt that Miss Routhan was Head of the Commerce Department, was a founding teacher and first Senior Mistress when Kuranui College opened in 1960 and where she taught for 26 years until her retirement in 1983. Prior to that she had taught at Carterton District High School. Her Kuranui students considered her ‘firm but fair’. No greater accolade could be awarded a teacher in the 1960s and in the tributes paid to her when she died in 2012 it was still a common theme from former students.

 

Dulcie was born in Carterton on 13 December 1923, the only child of Emily (nee Spark) and William Routhan. Dulcie’s maternal grandparents, Thomas and Mary (nee Robinson) Spark, arrived in Carterton, via Wellington, as founding settlers, having travelled from England in the migrant ship ‘Oliver Laing’. They were the first European owners of their initial 10 acre block in Belvedere Road. Thomas felled bush for Booth’s Mill by day and cleared his own land by night using a two man crosscut saw with the help of his wife. They prospered and later bought two further 10 acre blocks of land adjacent to their first. The 30 acres and three houses were inherited by Dulcie’s grandmother, Mary, then her mother, Emily, and eventually by Dulcie herself. This began her interest in home maintenance and improvement.

 

As the only child and in the absence of a son, Dulcie’s father had taught her the skills required to maintain their three dwellings and she enjoyed the process so much she bought more properties. In her own words, “I started buying houses and doing them up and I got such a thrill, I couldn’t stop. I’d change them from being a funny old thing into something quite attractive.” (Wairarapa News article, 2007) By 2007 she owned 32 rentable properties and a dairy farm in Carterton. 

 

According to a former Kuranui College teaching colleague, Geoff Smith, “Dulcie was known as a ‘tough old bird’. But she was one of the most generous people I’ve ever come across. She gave the impression of being hard, but she wasn’t.” He went on to explain that she would personally collect the rent for her properties but always kept the rents low. While she was intolerant of late payment, if she knew there was genuine hardship she would stamp the rent book “Paid” two or three months ahead. (Landlady with heart of gold, Dominion Post). Dulcie was very generous with her assets both in her Carterton community and further afield.

 

In 1999 Dulcie gifted some of her land in Beveldere Road to the Carterton community to be developed into a park with the proviso it be named Spark’s Park after her grandfather, Thomas Spark (D. Routhan). Today it spans seven and a half acres of grassy land, lime pathways, with a lake and is a popular spot for dog walkers. Carterton has also benefited from a generous bequest from Dulcie to build two new villas at Carter Court Rest Home, with construction beginning in 2014. 

 

However, her generosity extended beyond Dulcie’s hometown. She is also known to have made generous bequests to St John’s Ambulance and Leprosy Mission International, here used to support a number of Leprosy Mission hospitals in India. Dulcie has also left a generous legacy to World Vision. While teaching at Kuranui College she became involved in supporting student participation in the 40 Hour Famine and her legacy is a pledge to fund all youth events and campaign costs through her estate. (https://www.worldvision.org.nz/connect/40-hour-famine/awards/ ) World Vision has acknowledged her contribution by creating the Spirit of Dulcie Award, “for going above and beyond to display the values of selflessness, audacity, leadership and generosity.” (https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-christchurch/dedication-world-vision-recognised-awards)

 

Those Kuranui College Third Formers of the late 1960s who peered up at Miss Routhan on their first day at school had no idea the mark this teacher would make on the world through hard work, her generous gifts and bequests. Miss Routhan was certainly a role model with values young people could, and can still, aspire to.

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Dulcie Routhan - A Woman of Substance and Generosity

Sources:

Hand written note entitled Tom, Carterton District Historical Society, date unknown.

Kuranui College Magazine, Volume 10, Greytown, December 1969.

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Mapped location of the Carterton District Historical Society premises at 142 High Street North, Carterton, 5713 from 2023

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