Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Jane/Jeannie Harkness Johnstone was born in September 1848 in Argyll, Scotland – the daughter of Robert Johnstone, a farmer, and Susan Newbigging.
She arrived in New Zealand in the early 1860s with her widowed mother and several siblings.
She married John William Hall in Greymouth on 25 August 1874.
John was a widower with two sons who worked as an insurance agent.
They had seven children, one who died in infancy, and lived in Greymouth until John’s death in 1893. He is buried in the Karoro Cemetery.
When Jeannie signed the suffrage petition she was working as an insurance canvasser.
In 1897 she opened a shop in Tainui Street, 'fitted up with WAITING ROOMS, and where a delicious CUP OF TEA can be obtained'.
By 1922 she had moved to Masterton where she died on 10 April 1928 – she is buried in the Archer St Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/