11 Facts About Marjorie Crocombe

Marjorie Tuainekore Tere Crocombe was an author and academic from the Cook Islands.

Marjorie Crocombe was the Cook Islands' "most venerated living author".

Marjorie Crocombe was born in 1930 in Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands.

Marjorie Crocombe trained as a teacher at Ardmore Teachers Training College and after a year's teaching at Henderson Primary School, Auckland, returned to Rarotonga to begin work for the Cook Islands Department of Education.

That same year, Marjorie Crocombe accompanied Ron to Canberra where he had been offered a PhD scholarship in Pacific History at the Australian National University.

At the University of the South Pacific, Marjorie Crocombe completed her Arts degree majoring in History and Education.

In 1974 Marjorie Crocombe completed her Master of Arts degree at University of Papua New Guinea with a dissertation entitled - Maretu's Narrative of Cook Islands History - later published as Cannibals and Converts Radical Change in the Cook Islands.

At USP, both Ron and Marjorie Crocombe were indefatigable advocates of a decentralized university with Ron writing and teaching the first ever degree level correspondence course offered by USP Extension, An Introduction to Pacific Land Tenure in 1974.

The citation included 6 full pages recording all of Marjorie Crocombe's published works covering subject areas including Pacific History, Pacific Literature, Education, Current Affairs, Information Technology, and Pacific Women as well as 22 edited publications.

Marjorie Crocombe is survived by three children, six grandsons and four great-grandchildren.

Marjorie Crocombe is the author of numerous academic journal articles, including in The Contemporary Pacific, The Journal of Pacific History, Comparative Education, and The Journal of the Polynesian Society.