E Patten

Biography contributed by Rose Webber

Ettie Patten was born in Charleston on the West Cost in April 1875, the first child of Edward and Annie Patten (nee Hardley). Over the next seven years she was joined by brothers William and Edward, and sister Clara. All of them were born in Charleston but sometime before 1885 the family had moved to Westport where in 1893 at the age of 18, Ettie signed the Women’s Suffrage Petition. In the 1896 electoral roll she was listed as living with her mother in Bentham St, Westport and working as a dressmaker.

In June 1905 Ettie married Rowland Charles Bradbury, a 22-year-old builder from Feilding and in October that year her daughter Dorothy was born while they were living in Wellington. The family then moved to Auckland where her son Edward was born in 1910.

In May 1916 Rowland died in Auckland hospital, he was just 33-years-old and Ettie was now on her own with 10-year-old Dorothy and 5-year-old Edward. By 1920 Ettie and the children had moved to Hawera and lived with her mother, Annie Patten, until Annie’s death in 1936. Dorothy married Frederick Cecil Low sometime between 1940 and 1946 and they lived with Ettie in Hawera. When they later moved to New Plymouth, Ettie moved with them. Ettie died in New Plymouth in 1962, aged 87 years.

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