Adversity is not new to Jeff Nelligan’s family, his great grandmother Mareana Hall (Ngāti Ranginui) left Tauranga Moana in the early 1900s at the age of 14 to pursue a different life in the United States. Through the generations, Mareana’s stories about perseverance were learned and absorbed.
Mareana was the granddaughter of Chief Parone Koikoi, who fought against the Crown in the Pukehinahina and Te Ranga battles.
It took a long line of strong Māori women to show Jeff Nelligan how to be a good man, and a good father.
When it came time for Nelligan to raise his own children, he drew on his Māori heritage to instill character and values in his kids. His book is called Four Lessons From My Three Sons, How You Can Raise Resilient Kids.
Photo: supplied
Nelligan built his own successful career as a public affairs executive in Washington, D.C. where he worked for three Members of the U.S. Congress and for cabinet officials.
Mereana Hall didn’t have an easy life in the US , he says.
“She married a fellow who really never got it together," Nelligan told Jesse Mulligan.
"And I’m being really frank here because this is the way it is, I don’t want to sugarcoat anything – she finally reached the point where she knew she would have to be not only the breadwinner but the leader of the family."
Experiencing racism in the town where she lived, Mereana decided to take her family to Los Angeles in the 1930s, where she went from working in a tearoom, to owning it.
“[She] was a phenomenal success and able to provide everything for the family.”
Nelligan see’s Mereana’s legacy throughout his family - in his grandmother and his own mother.
“Then when I became a father, I remembered it all. You think of a great grandmother who comes here at age 14 and 20 years later is a very successful businesswoman in Los Angeles, or a grandmother who is deaf and manages to become a very very well-known and accomplished, and let’s say it, wealthy bridge and card player.
“My mum was the same way; she was one of the first people to go to UC Berkley from her high school and playing sports at a time when no women played sports.”
Nelligan raised his boys with an emphasis on confidence, character, resilience and ambition –their middle names are Tauranga, Zealand and Koikoi.
“I wanted to remember, part of them came from that extraordinary heritage.”
His youngest son, a rugby player, in fact now goes by Koikoi and has almost taught himself to speak Māori.
“Thus far, no-one gets a free ride, they’ve done pretty well for themselves and when the last one left for college I decided to write this book.”
In his book, Nelligan makes the point that his sons are average.
“We didn’t have tremendous amounts of money, they weren’t 6”5 in height, they didn’t weigh 210 pounds full of muscle, they weren’t piano or violin maestros, they didn’t have a science mind, they were just regular kids, just average.”
Most kids are average, he says.
“And yet you can take average kids, like these and then you transform them into what they are today, three military officers who are in charge of dozens and dozens of enlisted men and women and responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of equipment, some of it lethal.
“Average is exactly where it starts but making average better and it’s not that difficult to do.”
Nelligan says he feels very fortunate to be Māori and wants to continue to connect with his heritage.
Out of 333 million people in the US, he says there is about 1600 people with Māori whakapapa.
‘Every single person you talk to [in the US], if you bring up the word Māori, they know exactly where they’re from at what they’re known for.”
At 62, Nelligan is now seeking opportunities to return to Tauranga and invest in his family and is working with his cousin, Wiremu Matthews to make it happen.
