Career
Puketapu was one of thirteen children of Haami and Te Ngaroahiahi Waiwai, shearers in the Ureweras near Lake Waikaremoana. She was beaten at Kokako Native School at Tuai for speaking Māori language and at home for speaking English, but obtained a scholarship to Hukarere College in Napier. Her mother, Te Ngaroahiahi, was one of the Tuhoe kuia who worked on tokutoku panels for Arohanui ki te Tangata, whose construction was spearheaded by Ihaia (Paddy) Puketapu.
Jean married Ihakara Puketapu, Paddy"s son, in 1956 and they moved to Wainuiomata.
While Ikakara was studying at the University of Chicago, Puketapu spent time in a project teaching women to read and write in a "Negro ghetto". When he returned from a posting to the New Zealand High Commission in London, Jean started work at Wainuiomata College teaching Maori, and helped to found the first kōhanga reo in 1981.
In 1989 a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship allowed her to travel to Arizona and New Mexico, studying curriculum methods and systems used in teaching the Spanish and Pueblo Indian languages. In 1991 she was awarded a Queen"s Service Order for community service.
In 1995 she became a Justice of the Peace, and in 2004 she received her Diploma in Early Childhood Education.
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