Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Catherine Cooke was born about 1850 in Gloucestershire, England.
She emigrated to New Zealand about 1874 and married James Warren Parkinson, a warehouseman, on 16 November 1874 in Dunedin.
They had 11 children, one who died in infancy. The family lived in the Hawthorndale suburb of Roslyn where Catherine signed the suffrage petition.
In 1900 when their youngest child was nine years old James died, aged 62.
Their youngest son Frederick was killed in action in France on 21 December 1916.
Catherine died on 9 June 1932 in Dunedin, she is buried with James and their infant daughter in the Northern Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz