Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Barbara Towers was born about 1836 – she emigrated to Otago in 1861 on the Storm Cloud and she married Edward Casper in Dunedin on 4 January 1864.
Edward ran a bond warehouse in Dunedin until the early 1870s when they moved to Skippers Creek near Queenstown and he worked as a miner.
They had seven children, four who died in infancy or early childhood.
The family moved to live in Queenstown in the mid 1870s and, in 1876 Edward and another man drowned while taking part in the St Patrick’s Day boat race leaving Barbara 'in very poor circumstances'.
The local community held an 'Amateur Dramatic Performace' in the Town Hall 'in aid of the widows and orphans' and later that year Barbara applied to the chairman of the school board to be allowed to send three of her children without payment.
In 1889 Barbara advertised in the newspaper that she had 'Comfortable Private Accommodation (furnished Bedroom and Sitting Room) for ladies requiring a Nurse. Mrs C. will be happy also to wait upon Ladies requiring a Nurse at their own Residence'.
She was still living in Queenstown when she signed the suffrage petition but, by 1914, she had moved to Invercargill.
In that year her son Edward was charged with 'assaulting and beating his mother', he pleaded guilty and had 'been for some time in a mental hospital' and had 'lately been suffering from queer turns'.
Barbara died on 15 July 1924 and is buried in the Invercargill Eastern Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Queenstown Lakes District Council http://cemeteries.qldc.govt.nz/
Presbyterian Research Centre https://www.presbyterian.org.nz/archives/
Invercargill City Council https://icc.govt.nz
