Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Euphemia Hannay was born on 6 March 1810 in Kirkcudbright, Scotland – the daughter of David Hannay and Hanna Foster.
In the early 1850 Euphemia sailed for the Victorian goldfields with her brother David and her orphaned niece, Mary.
They moved to New Zealand in 1865 living, at first, on the Taieri Plain.
In 1877 David and Mary’s husband James Smith entered a farming partnership and they moved to Valleyfield in the Waikaka Valley.
Mary died in 1888 and Euphemia signed the suffrage petition in Gore around the time that her brother David died.
She then lived with Mary’s husband & family at Valleyfield.
In late May 1905 Euphemia was “badly burned about the lower limbs” while putting out a fire – she died on 2 June and she is buried with David and Mary in the family grave in the Pukerau Cemetery.
Her obituary said she “and her brother will be remembered by many for their sterling qualities and their many kind actions to the travelling public in the early days”.
Sources:
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/