The sprightly matriarch of a Maniototo farming and sporting family leads an active life, continuing to play bowls and bridge, living independently and enjoying her garden and family.
Mrs Hore (nee Mitchell) turned 90 on Saturday and celebrated with family and friends with a luncheon at ''Stonehenge'', the family property near Patearoa, yesterday. Asked what it was like to be in her 10th decade, she said ''well, actually, it's no different. Truly.''
Described by her daughter Issy Thomson as ''proud, loyal, fiercely independent, fun and energetic'', she was an ''amazing'' mother to her four children and the ''coolest Nana and the kindest Nella [to her great-grandchildren] you could ever have''.
Mrs Hore was born in Naseby Hospital on January 3, 1925. Her mother died three days later and she was looked after by an aunt at Hyde until her father remarried and she moved to the family home in Ranfurly.
Her 93-year-old cousin Clarice May, of Frankton, with whom she lived at Hyde, attended yesterday's luncheon.
Mrs Hore boarded at Columba College for four years, where her great love was sport, her daughter said.
She won the junior athletics cup in 1937 and was ''in just about every `first' team there was'', including netball, hockey, basketball, softball and tennis.
After leaving school, she worked in the office for her father, who was a building contractor and undertaker, in what she described as a ''very cruisy job''.
Heading for a music examination in Dunedin, she was a survivor of the Hyde railway disaster in 1943, her only injury being a ''squashed ankle''.
''I haven't sat it [the music exam] yet . . . I've got a bit of humour in me still,'' she said, dryly.
''I've never been on a train since and I don't intend going,'' She married Chap Hore in Dunedin in 1948 and moved to Stonehenge. It was a different lifestyle for the new bride, who did not come from a rural background and did not know anything about farming, but she quickly learned to love it.
''When I came to live out here ... I couldn't drive. I had to learn how to light a match and light a candle and pump up a Tilley lamp because we had no power,'' she said.
While continuing with her sporting endeavours, which included captaining the Maniototo hockey team, and in between duties on the farm, she raised four children - Jim, Neville, Issy and Bruce.
''They climbed trees, they ate dirt, they didn't go to any play centres. They were just ordinary country kids,'' she said.
Mrs Hore was involved in the community, including in Plunket and dog trials.
Family sporting successes continued. Issy represented New Zealand at two hockey World Cups and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Neville represented New Zealand at dog trialling, grandsons Charles and Andrew were both professional rugby players (including Andrew's recently-ended tenure as an All Black), and Charles' wife Belinda Colling captained the Silver Ferns netball team and represented New Zealand in basketball.
Chap and Donella Hore retired to Patearoa in 1988 and Mr Hore died in 2002. Stonehenge, which has been in the Hore family for 105 years, is now farmed by Jim and his wife Sue, and their sons Charles and Andrew.
Two hip replacements had allowed Mrs Hore to continue her passion for sport and she won the Maniototo pairs title for bowls last year.
Jim Hore reckoned he would not mind being as fit as his mother when he turned 90 - ''if I'm lucky enough to get there''.
