Mary Vanes

Surname:

Vanes

Given names:

Mary

Given address:

Gordan Terrace Walker St

Sheet No: 167

Town/Suburb:

Central Dunedin

City/Region:

Dunedin

Notes:

Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley.

Mary Ann Rowlands was born about 1857 in Wales.

She married Robert Newton Vanes, a bookseller’s assistant, in 1883 in London.

They had a son later that year and sometime in the next few years they emigrated to Otago.

By 1887 they were living in Dunedin where Robert opened rooms “for the Treatment of Diseases by Electricity”.

“Speedy relief may be confidently expected in cases of Paralysis, Neuralgia, Sciatica, Asthma, and all Nervous Diseases, Rheumatism, Rheumatic Gout, Dyspepsia, and all Diseases of the Digestive Organs”. “P.S. - Ladies will be attended to by my wife, under my direction”.

When Mary signed the suffrage petition they were living in Gordon Terrace in Walker Street.

Mary was active in the Dunedin Hospital Guild who, in 1924, gave “a special vote of thanks” for Mary’s “work in making out of waste material dainty felt slippers for children in hospital”. Mary died on 30 May 1927 – she is buried in the Andersons Bay Cemetery.

The Hospital Guild said they had “lost a faithful, clever worker” and at the Trinity Methodist Church quarterly meeting the chairman “paid a high compliment to her genuine Christian character”.

Robert re-married in 1929 (See 413 H E Milsom)

He died in 1944 – he was cremated & his ashes were scattered.