Maker: Catalina Opazo

Panel number: 307

Petition sheet number: 364

Person honouring: A. Pert

Relationship to maker: None

Ada Pert shared snippets from her life in a letter home to England in 1895.

“I am married nine years the 28th of this month July to a young man who came out with us on the same ship from London and now I am 29 next January. We have adopted a baby girl from birth she is 5 weeks old now born on the 8 of June. We have called the baby Maria Annie Pert. We have a farm and milk cows for a cheese factory.”

As a child, Ada emigrated to New Zealand on the Buckinghamshire with her parents, John and Ann Stainer.

Ada married Thomas Pert [labourer and land-owner] in 1886. Ada signed the petition in Waianiwa, Southland. It is likely that she was related to M Stanier [sister?] who signed below Ada – she was probably Maria Annie Stanier who died 21 February 1895, aged 44.

Ada and Thomas were retired and living in Invercargill in 1925. Ada died in 1954 (aged 87), 10 years after Thomas.

Panel materials: A reused piece of calico curtain was used as the panel; acrylic paint, paper, and cotton thread.