Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Mary Diack was born on 8 May 1835 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland – the daughter of Alexander Diack, a farmer, and Anne Ledingham.
She emigrated to Dunedin in the late 1850s where she married David Cooper Dempster, a grocer, on 25 December 1862.
They had six children and when Mary signed the suffrage petition they were living in William St, Dunedin.
Mary died at her home on 8 August 1893 and David died in 1911 – they are buried in the family grave in the Southern Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
Community contributions