Biography contributed by Helen Edwards.
Near the Taieri River Bridge on the Outram road stand the two remaining homesteads of the old Buchanan farm — ‘Clairinch’ and ‘Glastenbury’. The latter, originally known as ‘Greenbank’, was built in 1868 by Gilbert Buchanan.
Jessie Buchanan was born at the farm on 24 September 1866. Her parents, Gilbert and his wife Elizabeth, née Dalziel, had sailed with their families from Greenock to Port Chalmers on the Philip Laing in 1848. Gilbert was 20 and Elizabeth 12.
The Buchanans and Dalziels already knew one another from their weaving days in Kirkintilloch and nearby Cadder. Elizabeth and Gilbert were married at the Dalziel’s farm in Halfway Bush on 30 January 1857.
Jessie was the fifth of nine children, 4 girls and 5 boys. Her mother died three weeks after the birth of John, in December 1871, at the age of 36.
Jessie and her siblings attended Outram School with the English Fulton children, whose accents were strange to them. They pronounced the word ‘worm’ as ‘werm’, not ‘wurrm’, as the Scottish children did.
Catherine Fulton signed Sheet 77 of the Women’s Suffrage Petition with her daughters, Caroline and Juliet.
Margaret Buchanan, the eldest sister, became a school teacher and Elizabeth married. Jessie may have left home by about 1908 but remained in the vicinity, and the family loved returning to Greenbank for their Christmas holidays.
Gilbert Buchanan died in January 1913, aged 85. The farm was put on the market, but his son James leased it until mid-1915, when it was sold. By 1919 Jessie was living at 9 Surrey Street, Linwood, in Christchurch. Margaret was teaching at Rangiora School when she retired in early 1919, and she and Agnes soon joined Jessie at Surrey Street. The sisters spent the rest of their lives together.
In 1943, St George’s Presbyterian Church, Linwood, recognised twenty five years of unbroken service to the church, which the Buchanan sisters had provided in "the women’s organizations, the Bible Classes and the Sunday School".
Jessie became very overweight in later life and spent much time in bed, while her sisters cared for her. She died on 21 November 1945, and was buried in the Ruru Lawn Cemetery in Christchurch. Margaret followed in 1946 and Agnes, the youngest sister, in 1948.
Sources
Christchurch City Council Cemeteries Database
Fulton, Catherine Henrietta Elliot. Autobiography of Mrs. James Fulton, 1915. Dunedin, Fulton Family Reunion, 1999.
Lemon, Daphne. Taieri buildings. Dunedin, John McIndoe, 1970.
New Zealand Electoral Rolls
Outlook, 18 August 1943.