Mrs Minnie Early

Biographical information provided by Briar Barry for the He Tohu exhibition:

Mary “Minnie” Morrison was born in 1854 and arrived in New Zealand in 1886. She married Samuel Early, a farmer from Broadfield, Canterbury. The Early’s farm was on land adjoining the Broadfield School and they often loaned the use of their paddocks for sports days or fairs and sold some land to the school on which a chapel was built. The couple had two children, a boy and a girl, who they called Samuel and Minnie. Samuel died when he was four years old in 1894. Four years later his mother also died, aged 44. They are buried together at Linwood Cemetery.