Maker: Pam Stade

Panel number: 265

Petition sheet number: 321

Person honouring: Esther Lucas

Relationship to maker:  Paternal grandmother

Esther Hardy was born in 1865 and moved to Blenheim in New Zealand from Northumberland, England. 

She married Charles Lucas, a storeman, in 1889 and had five children: Mary (1889), Sarah (1891), Emily (1892), George (1893), and Charles (1903).

Esther signed the petition in Blenheim. She died there in June 1937, five years before the panel maker was born. She and Charles were both buried at Omaka cemetery.

Panel materials: Calico panel. Black lace. Black and white stitched flowers cut from a piece of netting material, and small pieces of purple violet material (suffrage colours). The knitted lace at the bottom of my panel was knitted by Esther’s mother, Sarah Hardy – several family members had various amounts of this lace in their possession, my mother included. She had it stitched onto pillow shams on our beds, on bedspreads, and possibly table runners.