Betty Wark

Elizabeth Cecilia Wark (née Te Wheao, 6 June 1924–16 May 2001) was a New Zealand social worker and politician.

Biography Early life and family Wark was born at Omanaia in 1924 to unmarried parents; Cyril Chapman and Nau (Mabel) Rini Te Wheao who was of Ngāpuhi descent. Raised in a foster home she did not meet her biological parents until she was in her twenties. Her Catholic foster home was not a happy one where her bedroom was a storage shed and her foster father was abusive. She attended Motutī Native School and in 1938 she received a government scholarship to attend St Joseph's Māori Girls' College, Napier. There the school emphasized service to humanity and a spiritual path in life. The nuns who taught her provided her strong female role models, crediting them with giving her a moral base, integrity and social conscience.

After leaving school in 1941 she became a trainee nurse at Wairoa. After six months she became a housekeeper in Napier. She met Charles Turner, an American marine, at a dance and later got engaged. Wark became pregnant soon before Turner was killed in action in the Pacific. She gave birth to her and Turner's son in Wellington in 1944. At that time there were few welfare provisions, employment or childcare opportunities for mothers who were unwed. Placing her son in the care of family, she moved to Auckland seeking employment, working as a ward maid at Auckland Hospital and a waitress. In 1948 she had a second son with Henry Smith, who later returned to his native England. She moved to Waihi, where her second son was raised by a local family while she continued to work, returning to Auckland in 1950 was employed in a clerical position. In Auckland she met Conrad Kenneth Powell, a Canadian merchant mariner, at a dance whom she married on 28 May 1951. In 1952 she gave birth to her third son. Powell decided to return to Canada, Wark chose to remain in New Zealand. This time she was able to keep her son, being entitled to a deserted wife's benefit. In the mid-1950s she met Englishman, James Gordon (Jim) Wark. She had two sons with Wark in 1959 and 1961. She divorced Powell and married Jim Wark on 21 November 1966 at Auckland which gave her a stable home life for the first time.

Political career At the 1971 and 1974 local-body elections she stood as a Labour Party candidate for the Auckland City Council, but was unsuccessful on both occasions. At the 1986 election he was elected to the council in the Ponsonby ward. She never felt comfortable as a councillor, often feeling isolated as the council's only Māori woman. She focused on working with people and on housing issues.