Biographical information provided by Linda McGregor for the He Tohu exhibition:
Mabel Mackisack was born in Ireland. She married George William Montgomery Brett in Belfast in 1874, and after the birth of their first child George they emigrated to New Zealand on the Nelson, sailing in 1878. The family settled in Gore.
Mabel had eight further children: Mabel Frances (1885-1886), Mary Ellen (1887), John and James (both born and died in 1889), Robert Jasper William (1898), David Henry Lawrence (1913), and Annabelle Elizabeth and Thomas Garrett (whose year of birth are uncertain).
Mabel was widowed in 1916. By 1919 she had moved to Birkenhead, Auckland where she lived with her daughter Annnabelle until her death in 1927. Mabel was interred at Waikumete Cemetery.