Maker: Rose Holmes

Panel number: 538

Petition sheet number: 386

Person honouring: Shirley Green

Relationship to maker: Nana

Mary McCarroll signed the petition in a bush camp at Mareretu in Northland. Mary was born in Northern Ireland in 1870 and came to New Zealand with her father and her brother Joseph (Willy) on the SS Aorangi in 1884. Her mother Jane and seven other siblings came out the following year. 

Mary’s parents first lived in Auckland and opened a business selling Irish linen goods that the family had brought with them from Belfast. The family then shifted to Kauri Bushland in Northland and initially lived in a bush camp at Mareretu in the Kaipara. Later, Mary married Douglas Hill, and had two children. They lived for some years in Hobsonville, Auckland.

Mary died in 1948.

Panel materials: Fabric, thread, buttons, wool, beads, glue these were all found in mum’s craft room.