Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Johanna Lewis Heenan was born in 1862 in Otago – the eldest child of William Heenan and Susannah Raven.
Her mother died in 1869 and her father re-married eight years later.
Johanna married Martin Wellbrock in 1882 and they had six children, one who died in infancy.
In the 1880s Martin ran the Club Hotel in Gore, this was sold in 1885 and Martin started the Gore Soap Works later that year. He was declared bankrupt soon after and, in 1887, Mrs Wellbrock was advertising the sale of 'the whole of her household furniture and effects' as she was leaving Gore.
The family moved to Riversdale and when Johanna signed the suffrage petition were living in Tapanui.
Martin was declared insolvent again in 1895 and they moved to Invercargill after this and were living in Richmond Grove, Invercargill when their eldest daughter married in 1908.
When Martin died in 1919 they were living in Dunedin, he is buried in the Invercargill Eastern Cemetery with two of his grandchildren.
Johanna died on 17 May 1947, she was cremated and her ashes buried in the Waikumete Cemetery, Auckland.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Invercargill City Council https://icc.govt.nz
Auckland Council https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/cemeteries