Puketapu was one of thirteen children of Haami and Te Ngaroahiahi Waiwai, shearers in the Ureweras near Lake Waikaremoana.
[2] At the age of 18, she moved to Lower Hutt with her sister and her husband, who was the son of Rua Tapunui Kenana, the Māori prophet, faith healer and land rights activist.
While Ihakara was studying at the University of Chicago, Puketapu spent time in a project teaching women to read and write in a 'Negro ghetto'.
[3] When he returned from a posting to the New Zealand High Commission in London, Jean started work at Wainuiomata College teaching Māori, and helped to found the first kōhanga reo in 1981.
[2] 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.