Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley.
Mary Euphemia Cook was born in 1871 in New Zealand, the daughter of John Cook, a miner, and Flora McNicol.
Mary’s father had drowned before her birth, and her mother remarried in 1873 to Duncan McLaren.
When Mary signed the suffrage petition she was living with her family in Palmerston in North Otago.
She married Charles Yates, a labourer, on December 20th 1900 in the Caversham parish, Dunedin.
They had 5 children, 2 who died in infancy, and they lived in Dunedin.
In the 1920s they moved to Invercargill where they ran a fruit shop.
Charles in 1945 and Mary died on October 16th 1959, both in Invercargill.
They are buried with their infant children in the Southern Cemetery, Dunedin.
Sources
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