Makers: Margot Booth and Evelyn Booth

Panel number: 395

Petition sheet number: 487

Person honouring: E Baillie 

Relationship to makers: Great-great-grandma

May Elizabeth Teal was born in 1876 in New Zealand, one of around seven children born to Mary Ann Teal and John Teal. Mary Ann and John were immigrants who married in 1869 and settled in the Wairarapa where John was a saw miller. 

In 1894 Elizabeth married Walter Henry Baillie, a bootmaker, also from Wairarapa. They had two children.

Elizabeth was widowed in 1914, but in 1927, she married Charles Haslam Holland. Elizabeth died in 1953 in Carterton.   

Walter’s mother (Elizabeth’s mother-in-law) Margaret Peterson signed the petition in Masterton when she was 55. She had already survived two sea voyages, two marriages, and the births of nine children. 

Margaret was born Margaret Buchanan in 1838 in Scotland. As a 14-year-old, she sailed to Australia with her sister, brother-in-law and nieces and nephews. They arrived in Melbourne in 1852 on the Ticonderoga. This was known as the Hell Ship, due to the appalling conditions that caused a typhoid epidemic and hundreds of deaths. Descendants report Margaret said she was tied to her sister’s children through much of the voyage to keep them safe.

In 1854 Margaret married John Baillie; in 1863 they moved to New Zealand. Following John’s death, Margaret married Hans Peterson, a shoemaker from Denmark. 

In all, Margaret had nine children. Many of her Baillie and Peterson children remained in the Wairarapa all their lives.

She died in 1922 aged 96, a remarkably long life. 

Panel materials: Cotton, organza, glittery knits, dupion silk, lace from my wedding dress, two photos of her great-great-great grandchildren, part of a very keen and successful horse-riding family. Used pencil and shiska pens.