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Eliza Wohlers (Hanham)

Birthdate:
Birthplace: Bridport, Dorset, England (United Kingdom)
Death: December 14, 1891 (79)
Thornbury, Southland, South Island, New Zealand
Place of Burial: Ringaringa, Stewart Island, Southland, New Zealand
Immediate Family:

Daughter of William Hanham and Hannah Hanham
Wife of Richard Woodcock Palmer and Rev. Johann Frederick Henry Wohlers
Mother of Gretchen Traill

Find A Grave ID: 95522021
Immigration to New Zealand: Slains Castle, 1841
Managed by: Private User
Last Updated:

About Eliza Wohlers

Wohlers needed assistance in the practical aspects of mission life: he sought a wife who would support him in his work, and provide him with companionship. He married Eliza Palmer on 21 September 1849 in Wellington. She was the widow of Richard Woodcock Palmer, a carpenter, whom she had married on 27 September 1838 at Bridport, Dorset, England. She had arrived in New Zealand with her first husband on the Slains Castle in 1841 and had acquired fluency in Māori language. Baptised on 6 September 1812 at Bridport, the daughter of Hannah Hinde and her husband, William Hanham, a labourer, she was an accomplished dressmaker, kind, pious, firm and severely practical, an ideal helpmeet for Wohlers who needed someone with 'the courage of a Rebecca…and the mind of a Martha'. Eliza Wohlers's domestic skills soon made life on Ruapuke more comfortable for all the inhabitants, and Wohlers's health, which had suffered during the early years, improved. Souls aside, the Wohlers undoubtedly saved lives. Eliza Wohlers was kept busy with medicine chest, scrubbing-brush and broom, caring for and counselling people in their own homes, and taking orphans and other needy youngsters into her own. This work she later shared with her daughter Gretchen, also known as Margaret, born at Ruapuke on 31 January 1853. 'I think they love us all', she wrote to the North German Mission Society. Source: Sheila Natusch. 'Wohlers, Eliza and Wohlers, Johann Friedrich Heinrich', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990, updated October, 2017. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1w36/wohlers-eliza (accessed 3 February 2024)

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Eliza Wohlers's Timeline

1812
September 6, 1812
Bridport, Dorset, England (United Kingdom)
September 6, 1812
Bridport, Dorset, England (United Kingdom)
1853
January 31, 1853
Ruapuke Island, Southland, New Zealand
1891
December 4, 1891
Age 79
Ringaringa Burial Ground, Ringaringa, Stewart Island, Southland, New Zealand
December 14, 1891
Age 79
Thornbury, Southland, South Island, New Zealand