Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Mary Jane Russell was born about 1862 in Ireland.
She married Anders Ferdinand Casper, a Swedish miner, in the Waihola Parish on 26 February 1885.
They had a daughter the following year and when Mary signed the suffrage petition they were living in Duncan St, South Dunedin and she was working as a dressmaker.
Anders died in the Dunedin Hospital in 1893 and Mary re-married in 1896 to Frederick Persson, also Swedish and a farmer - they lived at Hyde in Central Otago.
Mary died at her home on 18 September 1924 and Frederick died the following year, they are both buried in the Hyde Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Presbyterian Research Centre https://www.presbyterian.org.nz/archives/
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