Eve Poole


Eve Poole was a New Zealand politician who served as Mayor of Invercargill from 1983 until her death in 1992. She was the first and thus far only woman and Jew to hold this position.

Early life

Eve Poole was born Eva Auerbach in Frankfurt, Germany on 29 December 1924. Her family fled to Tel Aviv, Palestine in 1932 after her father was brutally beaten in a Nazi street demonstration against Jews. From 1939 to 1945 she served in the British Eighth Army as a driver in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. It was during this time that she met her husband, Vernon Poole, who was a tank commander in the 20th Battalion of the 2nd New Zealand Division. They married in Cairo, Egypt, and after the war they settled down in Invercargill. Together they had four children, Helen, Vivienne, Michele, and Clive. Having trained at Habima Theatre, Poole went on to teach drama at Southland Girls' High School. She also worked as a speech therapist for the disabled and was fluent in German, English, French, and Hebrew.

Political career

Poole was elected to the Invercargill City Council in 1971. She was only the second woman to ever run for the council, and was the first to be elected. She topped the poll in 1974 and was made Deputy Mayor. In 1980 she made her first challenge for Mayor but was unsuccessful, losing to the incumbent F. Russell Miller by 400 votes. In the 1982 Queen's Birthday Honours Poole was appointed a Companion of the Queen's Service Order for public services.
Poole returned to politics in 1983, making a second run for Mayor. She won 56.8 per cent of the vote, becoming the first woman mayor and first Jewish mayor of Invercargill. The 1984 Southland flood occurred early in her first term and she was praised for her response. Her daughter Michele would go on to have a career in emergency management.
As Mayor, Poole was highly involved in the arts. Norman Jones, the National Party MP for Invercargill, described her as having brought nothing but "culture and emotion" to Southland. She was instrumental in the construction of the Invercargill Public Library, which was later named in her honour after her death in 1992. She served as president of the Southland Museum Trust Board, and as a member of the Anderson Park Art Gallery Council and the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council. She was also dedicated to the brightening and beautifying of the city, planting flowers in the city centre, installing coloured paving stones, and buying secondhand Christmas lights from Regent Street in London.
Poole established Invercargill's first sister city relationship with Kumagaya, Japan.
In 1992 she was awarded a Melvin Jones Fellowship by Lions Clubs International.

Death

Only a month after being elected to a fourth term, Poole was admitted to Dunedin Hospital in late November 1992 due to severe back pain. She developed an infection during the course of examination, and died peacefully on 26 December 1992, aged 67. She is buried at Invercargill's Eastern Cemetery, along with her husband who died on 27 April 2002.