Biographical information provided by Helen Smith for the He Tohu exhibition:
Martha Nisbet Hare was born in 1866 in Kukuparere, Kaeo, the 11th child of Irish settlers Joseph and Maggie Hare (nee Metcalf). Maggie died giving birth to Martha and Joseph remarried a widow, Hannah Skinner, who also had a large family. The Hare family became 7th Day Adventists in 1885. Martha married William Lawrence in 1890 and they settled in Totara North where they had a store. They had William Richard (1891-1966), Susannah Beatrice (1892-), Ann Elizabeth (1893-1931), Joseph John (1896-1962), Robert Dudley (1898-1988), Margaret (1894-), Mary (1899-1991), Ilean Maude (1901-1974) and Wilfred (1903-). During the First World War the family moved to Epsom, Auckland, where Martha died in 1947.
Sister to Judith Hare and Margaret Lane