Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Mary Catherwood was born in 1867 in New Zealand the daughter of Alfred Catherwood, a farmer, and Isabella Hutchison. (See 137 I Catherwood)
When Mary signed the suffrage petition she was living with her parents in the Owaka district.
She married Douglas Hepburn Ayson, a labourer, on 29 July 1903 and they had two children.
The family lived in Waikaka, north of Gore, where Mary died on 13 August 1909 after an attack of influenza, she is buried in the Waikaka Cemetery.
Douglas re-married in 1918, he died in 1952 and is buried with his second wife in the Gore Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Presbyterian Research Centre https://www.presbyterian.org.nz/archives/
Gore District Council https://www.goredc.govt.nz/
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
Community contributions