Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Jane Roger was born about 1843 in Ayrshire, Scotland – the youngest child of Andrew Roger, a farmer, and Martha Crawford.
She married John Harvey in 1862 and soon after their marriage the couple emigrated to New Zealand.
They had 10 children and they settled, at first, at Blueskin near Dunedin.
In 1878 they purchased a farm in the Waikaka Valley near Gore where John died in 1880 the same year that their youngest child was born.
Jane carried on with the farm and she signed the suffrage petition at, nearby, Gore.
In 1911 Jane retired to live in Gore where she died at her home on 15 July 1913 – she is buried with John in the family grave in the Gore Cemetery.
Her obituary said she “was well known and greatly respected by a large number of the settlers of Otago and Southland, her generous disposition being always in evidence in any deserving object”.
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
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/