From her early beginnings ....
Liz says to say she was born a long time ago but if you really want a date - 18th April 1946.
Liz is the youngest of 5 children. Her father died when she was 3 years old.
Liz's sisters are Margaret, Jeanette and Barbara and brother John. Barbara died in January 2008 - she was also a midwife - at Waikato hospital. Liz and Barb were very close and good mates.
Elizabeth’s foremothers
I am one of Elizabeth’s sisters. Few except those brought up by our strong-minded mother call Liz ‘Elizabeth’. Mum always insisted on our full names. You who know, love and respect her for what she is, does and achieves may find interesting some brief notes on some of the women whose DNA she carries. They are the streams that flow into her river.
- Her ancestors are nearly all gritty Lowland Scots. The first Elizabeth we know of was born in Ladykirk, Berwickshire, in 1762. Long-widowed, she was still working as an agricultural labourer aged 79, and died aged 101.
- ‘Bonnie Jean’ began life in Fort Augustus, Invernesshire. She emigrated with her stonemason husband and adult family to settle in the remotest part of Otago Peninsula, where she planted a garden full of berry canes, fruit trees, flowers and vegetables and also cared for grandchildren.
- Jean’s daughter-in-law Hellen, who arrived with her stonemason husband from Dunfermline in Fife in 1860, signed the Electoral Petition in 1893 to give women the vote. Obviously a woman of independent mind. She was also a prizewinning cook, a hard worker in the Otago Peninsula community, and a devoted carer of her mother-in-law in her last 10 years.
- Sarah grew up in the family of dairy workers on a farm on the outskirts of Edinburgh. She cared for three children in a tent on a NE Victorian goldfield while her husband prospected for gold. Later the family shifted from Australia to the Otago Peninsula, where they set up a farm. As soon as Gabriel Reed announced his Central Otago gold find in 1861, Alexander was off to the Tuapeka for more prospecting, leaving Sarah with three small children, farm animals to care for and a living to make. She made butter, carried it on her back, took her little ones with her on a long walk into Dunedin to sell it. Alexander and Sarah prospered as dairy farmers and were honoured for their thoughtful generosity to others all their life.
- Another Otago Peninsula farming pioneer was Margaret, who came from Lanarkshire. She had 14 children and became the unofficial midwife of the district. When she got a call out, she would put a batch of scones in the coal range oven for the new mother, and then would set off with a basket of scones and food for the family. One grandson remembered her as a ‘tough old biddy’ but other grandchildren remembered the cloth dolls she made for them, and her magnificent garden.
- Mary kept her babies and toddlers safe on three voyages as steerage passengers between Scotland and New Zealand 1863, 1865 and 1871. Keen to ‘get on’, she persuaded her husband that they should ‘keep a cow or two’. Some 25 years later they finally paid off the last of their mortgages on an Otago Peninsula farm. A very determined woman.
- Ellen was orphaned at nine years of age, and earned her own living from then on as a domestic servant. She was gentle and loving, and also a superb gardener.
- Edna was Elizabeth’s mother, widowed after 14 years of marriage with five small children to bring up on the widow’s pension. Edna was the strongest influence in our lives. She was a trained nurse and maternity nurse, and had spent time as a Plunket nurse. A woman of Christian faith, hope and love, and of great courage. Another skilled gardener and fine baker of scones and pikelets. Her vegetable and barley soup was a real Scotch broth. She worked very hard for organizations supporting mothers and children, making toffee apples and huge amounts of baking for school and church fairs. Her other major contribution to such organizations was as a committee worker, sometimes as president. Edna loved adventures. She took us camping all over NZ, taking every opportunity to show us bush, flowers, birds, rivers and mountains. We scrambled to the end of the rocks at Cape Reinga, went out on a pilot boat at New Plymouth, gazed at the stars in an observatory. She wanted us to grow up to be good Christians, good citizens and good parents. We have not achieved all that in the literal sense, but I’d like to think that we are achieving the essence of all three goals. Just think of the babies Elizabeth has helped bring into the world and the love she gives. When Mum entered a room, her smile lit up the room. Elizabeth’s smile does that too.
Liz & Lynn
Liz and Lynn met in 1988. Liz was a tutor in the midwifery programme at Wellington Polytechnic Lynn was a tutor in the Nursing programme at Nelson Polytechnic.
In 1988 Lynn took a year's study leave and went to Wellington to do her Advanced Diploma in Nursing. She met Liz there. Lynn returned to Nelson at the end of 1988 and Liz joined her there in December 1989.
They stayed in Nelson until end of 1991 then they moved to Wellington - well they say that they moved all of their belongings to Wellington and Liz and Lynn proceeded to OZ - bought a campervan and spent the next 7 months travelling around Oz.
.... to the present day.
Read news about Liz and Lynn now by clicking on their blog in the site navigation menu above or by clicking here.
Or read an interesting interview with Liz below......
Liz died peacefully Sunday 23rd January 2011 at 2am
Interview with Liz in 2004 for "BORN - Midwives and Women Celebrate 100 years"
Helina Ogonowska-Coates created this book in 2004 for New Zealand College of Midwives (NZCOM) and Liz was interviewed as part of the process and it is very interesting reading :)