Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert
Mary Eizabeth McKenzie was born in 1855, one of five children of Alexander Benjamin and Janet nee Campbell. A.B. was born in Scotland, moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia where Janet was from and married there, and immigrated to NZ in 1856. Mary Elizabeth was their only child born in Nova Scotia. She had a brother born aboard on the voyage to NZ and her other siblings were born in Waipu.
Mary Elizabeth married later in life, in 1903 to Duncan Hector Mckenzie, the 56-year-old son of Hector and Mary nee Campbell. Hector went to Nova Scotia from Scotland as a young man. He married his first wife Mary and Hector was born in Nova Scotia, before the family immigrated first to Adelaide and then on to Waipu. Duncan followed a seafaring life and became captain of cutters plying between Auckland and Waipu. Upon leaving the sea he became associated with the kauri trade on the Northern Wairoa and was recognised as among the best bullock drivers in the North. Shortly after his marriage, he commenced farming in Millbrook, where he engaged successfully in dairying.
Duncan was one of the originators of the Waipu Caledonian Society. In the early Games his strong, athletic figure was a familiar one, and at tossing the caber and vaulting few could surpass him. He died 30 December 1931, aged 84, the day before the 61st meeting of the Waipu Highland Games. He was buried in the Waipu Cemetery.
Mary Elizabeth died in 1934 at the Whangarei District Hospital aged 79 years. She, with her husband were engaged in farming all their lives at Waipu. They had no children 'and with the death of Mrs. McKenzie her family becomes extinct, two brothers and two sisters having predeceased her.' She was buried with her husband at Waipu.
Her will left all her real and personal property, worth 1335 pounds, to her nephew Gordon McLean, son of her sister Katherine.
Sources
PAPERS PAST New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21710, 27 January 1934, Page 14
PAPERS PAST Northern Advocate, 31 December 1931, Page 4
PAPERS PAST Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 154, 30 June 1909, Page 2
Archway probate Mary E