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DAVID UNWIN/Stuff
Solipo Slade was buried at Paraparaumu’s Awa Tapu Cemetery on May 4.
Days after a man was buried on the Kāpiti Coast surrounded by strangers, his family in Auckland finally learnt of the news.
Solipo Slade passed away on April 18 at the Eldon Lodge rest home “with no funds and no known next of kin”, said an announcement in the family notices on The Post on May 3.
His burial on May 4 at Awa Tapu Cemetery in Paraparaumu was paid for by the Kāpiti Coast Funeral Home, and the district council gave a free burial plot. Twelve people bid him farewell in the pouring rain, including staff from the rest home and funeral home, a member of the public, a church minister and her assistant, as well as two journalists.
Nunualofa Tipi, a family member of Slade, said the family first heard the news from relatives in Samoa who were “shocked” to hear about his passing.
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“We couldn’t believe it,” she said. “It wasn’t until we looked at the birthday that it confirmed to us that it is our uncle.
“It was really sad.”
Slade, the youngest of his siblings, moved from Samoa to New Zealand and lived with Tipi’s family in Auckland. He later moved to live at a caravan park in the Auckland suburb of Mt Albert for years as a caretaker before the business changed hands.
Tipi said Slade moved to Wellington afterwards, and then contact became sporadic.
DAVID UNWIN/Stuff
Solipo Slade’s family in New Zealand was told of his death after relatives in Samoa saw Stuff’s story.
“We didn’t know how to contact him because he wasn’t technology savvy. When he did have phones, we’ll talk on the phone, but he always changed numbers so we didn’t really keep up with his contact.”
The last time she saw Slade was in 2019 when the family drove him to Auckland airport. Her brother, who travelled to Wellington several times to track Slade down, last spoke to him in August 2022.
The family will soon leave for the Kāpiti Coast to pay their respects to Slade and meet with funeral director Andrew Malcolm. The family was “grateful and thankful” for what Malcolm did.
DAVID UNWIN/The Post
Twelve people were at the burial, including staff from the rest home and funeral home, a member of the public, a church minister and her assistant, and two journalists.
Malcolm, who tried every trick in the book including newspaper notices and contacting government departments to find Slade’s loved ones before the burial, said it was great to see some family members getting in touch.
He opted to bury Slade because burial was sacred in Samoan culture.
A Kāpiti Coast local paid $100 for flowers on his grave after hearing what had happened while another donated a temporary plaque bearing Slade’s name on his grave.
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