Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Elizabeth Laing Gillespie was born in 1873 in New Zealand – the daughter of George Gillespie, a farmer, and Christina McKay. (See 126 Christina Gillespie)
When Elizabeth signed the suffrage petition she was living on the family farm Glengoia, near Purekireki in the Owaka Valley.
She married John Duncan Sim, a farmer, on 10 November 1914 in Dunedin.
They retired to Balclutha in the late 1910s where John died in 1949.
Elizabeth died on 23 April 1952 at Balclutha, she is buried with John in the Balclutha Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Presbyterian Research Centre https://www.presbyterian.org.nz/archives/