Maker: Lee Harper

Panel number: 79

Petition Sheet Number: 82

Person honouring: Mrs Elizabeth Kemp

Relationship to makers: Great-great-aunt

Elizabeth Kemp grew up in the Otago goldfields. She was born in 1870, the child of Mr and Mrs Spiers, early residents of the gold-mining settlement of Blue Spur. 

She received her education at the Blue Spur School and at the age of 21 years married William Kemp who for some years carried on a wheelwright and blacksmithing business in Lawrence, Otago. Apart from three years spent in Dunedin, she spent her life in and around Lawrence. 

Elizabeth’s husband predeceased her by thirteen years and for some years she lived with her daughter, first in Dunedin and latterly in Lawrence. At the time of her death she had one son living, William Kemp of Dunedin, and one daughter, Mrs H. Dunn of Lawrence. 

Elizabeth died in 1933 at the Stafford Hospital, Dunedin after a short illness. A newspaper obituary stated that ‘her bright, kindly manner and generous and sympathetic nature endeared her to all who came in contact with her.’

Panel materials: Recycled and hand dyed clothes - vintage damask tablecloth, doily, antique black glass beading, gold silk threads, , found remnant backing.