Maker: Brenda Crozier

Panel number: 377

Petition sheet number: 455

Person honouring: Annie Parker and Eliza Reeve

Relationship to maker: Great-grandmother

Annie Maria Parker was my great-grandmother. This panel honours both Annie and her sister, Eliza Jane Reeve, daughters of Eleanor Keon and Hugh Crawford (a farmer). They grew up in Derrifadd, Leisnasheir, County Fermanagh, Ireland.

In 1879, Annie (19) and Eliza (17) came to New Zealand on the Arethusa. Arriving in Wellington, they came as nominated general servants. In 1862, one year after her arrival, Annie married my great-grandfather James Frederick Parker.

Between 1882 and 1892 Annie and James had seven children including my grandfather, William Louis. Sadly, two of their children died in infancy. They would have 19 grandchildren and 48 great-grandchildren. 

After James’ bootmaking business was adjudged bankrupt in 1889, he became a telegraph linesman. They were still living in Napier when Annie signed the suffrage petition in 1893.

After moving to Newtown, Wellington, they received news that their son Arthur Ernest (Pip) was killed at Messines in June 1917.

Annie died in 1929, a widow aged 67 years.

Eliza married Herbert Reeve in 1884 and settled in Wellington. In 1908, aged 45, Eliza went missing – her body was found two weeks later near Taranaki Wharf in the harbour she had accidentally drowned.

With a history of epilepsy, not easily treated at the time, and no children of her own, Eliza was described as a ‘prohibited woman’. One wonders with sadness at the reasons, causes, and effects of these factors on a young woman so far away from her loved ones.

Panel materials: Fabrics were from my own stash gathered over time for quilting and sewing projects. Cream silk background and mottled green quilting fabric.