Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Catherine Jordan was born about 1838 in Tasmania, Australia. She married 45 year old George Cannon on 5 July 1863 in Launceston, Tasmania. They came to New Zealand in about 1864 and had a total of six children, four of whom died in infancy.
In 1893 a letter to the editor appeared regarding George Cannon:
An old man of between 80 and 90 years of age and quite in his dotage who has indeed been for a time an inmate of the asylum, but taken out by his wife and daughter’s desire, who wished to do for him themselves, although no easy matter.
George went, without Catherine’s knowledge, to try and admit himself to the Benevolent Institution and rumours were circulating that their daughter was neglecting her parents. She had gone to China to do missionary work and had married there.
The family moved back to Tasmania shortly afterwards and George died in the Launceston Benevolent Asylum in 1895. Their daughter Gertrude married in Victoria in 1895 and in 1900 an article appeared in the Bendigo Advertiser regarding a letter Catherine had received from her daughter living in China. She was living with her married daughter in Eastville near Woodstock in Victoria at the time.
Catherine died on 14 September 1922 at the Alfred Hospital in Victoria. She is buried in the Brighton Cemetery, Victoria.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Trove https://trove.nla.gov.au
Libraries Tasmania https://librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au
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