Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert
Elizabeth Thomson Russell was born in 1868 in Auckland, one of the eight children of Patrick Forbes Russel and Mary née Walker. Her parents were from Scotland and arrived in New Zealand and took up a Crown grant of 80 acres south of Warkworth about 1860.
Elizabeth remained living with her parents in Warkworth and became a nurse. For a few years after they died in the early 1900s she stayed on in the Warkworth area before moving about 1914 to Beresford Street in central Auckland.
When she died in 1921, it was reported, 'We regret to record the death, at the Auckland District Hospital, of a former well-known resident of this district, Miss Eliza T Russell, better known as Nurse Russell. Born at Little Scotland (now Pohuehue), Miss Russell spent a good portion of her life around here. She had been on a visit to the old district when she took ill and was ordered into hospital where the end came on Sept. 7th.'
She died aged 54, and had outlived six of her siblings. She was buried in Waikumete Cemetery. She left an estate worth 250 pounds to her brother James Walker Russell, farmer, and after his death to his third daughter Mary Katherine Scott. The will was made just the week before she died.
Elizabeth is the daughter of 378 Mary RUSSELL and sister-in-law of 378 Christina RUSSELL
Sources
Electoral Rolls (ancestry.com)
PAPERS PAST Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 14 September 1921, Page 5
Archway probate Eliza