Maker: K. Olsen

Panel number: 338

Petition sheet number: 404

Person honouring: Kitty Ferguson

Relationship to maker: Friend’s name

Kitty [Catherine] Headrick was born on Scotland’s west coast [Argyll] in September 1868.

She married Robert Ferguson on Christmas Day, 1891, and they sailed to New Zealand the following year. Robert was a Presbyterian minister, so they moved around the country as needed – first Onehunga, where their first daughter (Jessie Glen Crookston Headrick Ferguson, 1893) was born.

Kitty’s second daughter (Mary Ailsa Young, 1896) was born in Devonport before they all moved south to Invercargill.

Kitty’s father, John Headrick, was also a Presbyterian minister, and he followed his daughter to New Zealand before returning to Scotland in 1900.

In 1912, Kitty and Robert returned to Scotland without their daughters. They appeared to maintain ties to New Zealand, holding an open home for Kiwi soldiers in World War 1.

I like to think that Kitty fought for the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom too, though I imagine it could have been draining, having fought for and won the right to vote back in New Zealand.

Kitty died on 10 September 1950, aged 82. It’s hard to imagine all the changes she witnessed in her lifetime.

Panel materials: All found in my stash, or my grandmother’s. The backing material was embroidery linen from my grandmother, as were the carefully cut-out butterflies, which represent the other women on Kitty’s panel. The blue and green wool was left-overs from my knitting; all other threads used were from my grandmother’s box. The paper and ribbon were left over from previously planned, but unexecuted, projects.