Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Isabella Calder was born about 1830 in Invernesshire, Scotland – the daughter of Simon Calder, a sawyer, and Catherine Fraser.
She married Donald McCalman, a salmon fisher, on 18 November 1864 in Kilmonivaig, Invernesshire and they had seven children before the family emigrated to Otago in 1874 on the Nelson.
They settled at Tahatika in the Owaka Valley where they had a farm and where Isabella signed the suffrage petition.
She died at her home on 30 June 1899 while Donald was away on a trip to Scotland.
Her obituary said 'we will all miss her, more particularly in church, where her seat was very rarely vacant'.
Donald died at their daughter’s home in Owaka in 1923, they are buried in the Purekireki Cemetery.
Sources
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/
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