Maker: Rachel Cadwallader

Panel number: 67

Petition Sheet Number: 61

Person honouring: Jemima Perry

Relationship to makers: None

Jemima Perry was born 1826 and died on 10 September 1920, aged 94, in the arms of her adopted son, John Edward Perry.  She was Ravensbourne’s oldest resident at the time of her death. She was known within the community as a ‘great-hearted, noble woman’, and as the ‘mother of the district’. 

She was an active member of the Ravensbourne community for 42 years, throwing Christmas parties for local children, conducting the Ravensbourne baths, publishing poetry in the local paper, and caring for the sick at a time when the nearest doctor was in the city of Dunedin. She was even involved in a heroic rescue during a local boating accident.

Panel materials: Quilters’ muslin, osnaburg, cotton lace and cotton