Biographical information provided by Stefanie Lash for the He Tohu exhibition:
Anne Venters McLauchlan, who went by Annie, was born in 1860 in Geelong, Australia. She had moved to New Zealand by 1881, when she married James Coad, a brewer, and their daughter Nellie Euphemia Coad, later a noted feminist writer and teacher, was born in New Plymouth in 1883. Annie and James had six children in total.
The family returned to Australia for a few years, but by 1893 had moved to Wellington, where they lived on Aro Street, on the left-hand side towards Holloway Rd. That part of Aro Valley was called Mitchelltown at the time.
Annie was a teacher, a profession her daughter Nellie followed her into. At some point, she and James separated, for she was listing herself in official records as a widow from 1914 – even though he did not die until 1931.
At the time of her death Annie was living at 37 Washington Ave with Nellie. She was 74 when she died.