If you ever needed to find Dr Jeffrey Spellmeyer, you had two safe bets on where he’d be: at his office or on his boat.

The former Whakatāne chiropractor known for his “healing hands”, died on December 10, aged 69.

“I love you, too,” were his last words to his wife, Toni.

Dr Spellmeyer lived a life full of laughter, a healthy amount of gratitude for the opportunity to go fishing on the ocean, dedication to his patients and love for those dear to him.

He grew up in America and received his doctorate from Life Chiropractic College in California in 1984.

He worked in the US for a decade before making the shift to New Zealand with Toni.

The young couple met while they were both working in the restaurant scene in America, Jeff as a bartender and Toni as a manager.

Things progressed: he began rooming with one of her good friends, Toni took a trip to Spain and on her return, she was encouraged to look him up because he’d moved to San Francisco, where she was finishing her last semester at university.

Their first date was a picnic in Golden Gate Park. Toni threw him with a straightforward question about his intentions – “he didn’t answer, which was alright” – because she said she did not have time for a boyfriend.

A month-long trip to New Zealand after graduation, during which she missed Jeff every day, frustratingly proved to Toni that she did not want to live without him.

“So, when I returned from New Zealand, I asked him if he wanted to move here.

“He thought about it for about five seconds and said yes.”

Jeff and Toni married in a park, with her brother as the celebrant, and two years later they were in New Zealand.

The year was 1994, they had big paper maps marked with every chiropractic office in the country, and they set off in the direction of Whakatāne, where a practice was up for sale.

Whakatāne became home for the next 33 years.

Dr Spellmeyer operated from a clinic on The Strand for five years until the lease was up, then he moved his practice to a house he and Toni purchased on the corner of Landing Road and Hinemoa Street.

For half a decade he was the sole practitioner servicing the Eastern Bay, and he opened a satellite office in Ōpōtiki to minimise the distance patients had to travel.

Together, they built a luxury bed and breakfast on the first floor of their home on the hill, which was featured in The Lonely Planet Guide, resulting in them receiving a door plaque in 2005.

The couple ran both businesses together, but as the chiropractic season quieted, the B&B season swelled. They went a long time without a holiday.

Jeff was an avid fisherman and spent most weekends on the water.

With spotty cellphone coverage and Dr Spellmeyer pretty much hating the technology anyway, patients knew to call the Coastguard when they needed him.

The Coastguard would radio Dr Spellmeyer, who would then come to shore and tend to his patient.

He would distribute his catch to his patients on the way home – his joy was in catching the fish, rather than gutting and filleting them.

When he bought a new five-metre Senator, he named the boat Toni’s Lament.

Toni left it up to her husband’s mates to keep him company when there were fishing rods on board, though sometimes those friends made for such poor navigators that the boat would end up being launched in Kāwhia rather than Lake Taupō.

The couple went on a few non-fishing boating adventures together, and like most things with Jeff, they truly were adventures.

On one occasion they took the boat from Whakatāne to Tauranga for lunch but couldn’t make it back out the harbour entrance that afternoon because the wind had picked up.

A friend had to drive over with the trailer so they could get home.

Another time they participated in the Auckland Poker Run, where they set off for different islands off the city’s coast, collecting playing cards from each stop before returning to shore to play their poker hand.

Together, Jeff and Toni enjoyed getting out on their BMW 650 motorcycle that he’d brought over from the States. They had so much fun on the bike and spent so much time laughing that they toppled it five times.

Shortly after arriving in New Zealand, they rode the bike along the East Cape.

Jeff was fantastic in the kitchen and handled the cooking of many of their dinners.

He committed 25 years to the Kopeopeo Lions Club and was instrumental in getting three floating wetlands into Awatapu Lagoon.

He loved the idea of being part of a community and giving back.

By the time Dr Spellmeyer closed  shop on his chiropractic business in 2017, there were multiple other clinics in town, and he decided to take his wife to see more of the country.

They bought a fifth-wheeler caravan and set off both north and south, finally taking the holiday they never really got.

Eventually, they settled in Paparoa, Northland, leasing land from a farmer who described his property as “exquisite”.

Jeff and Toni couldn’t resist.

Fishing became less frequent in the last few years for Jeff, and Toni didn’t initially understand why.

In hindsight, she thinks he’d been dying for a long time.

“I don’t think he knew it, and certainly I didn’t know it.”

Jeff had hepatitis C, which they think he contracted during a meat handling course when he was learning to be a chef.

A liver specialist gave him a life expectancy of 15 years, which he outlived by five.

Health was a priority for Jeff, and he often kept a positive mindset.

Toni thinks that mindset did a lot for her husband. He often had patients laughing as they left his clinic, and she says many memories of him have been shared through laughter as friends have gathered since his death.

“There were a lot of things to laugh about with Jeff.

“He was a Yank, just to begin with. That leads to a lot of laughter.

“He was a joy to live with.”

Jeff had a long and happy marriage with Toni, which could perhaps be put down to a fair amount of tolerance – from both of them.

Toni says they argued just like any couple, but they never once swore at each other.

“He called me an investment. I was so blessed that man loved me, and I have no idea why. He just loved me to bits, and it was incredible.”