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Baby Maria, thereafter referred to as Poll or Polly, was the second of James and Margaret’s daughters to be born in a tent. Poll and her older sister Mary would have been their mother’s best support; as the eldest daughters of a growing family they would have had many responsibilities unknown to modern children. However, like her older sister, she eventually worked at the factory in Dunedin owned by the Smith’s, where she was employed to sew flour bags.
It is
believed that Poll was once engaged to a soldier who was killed in action. She
never married, and we know that after her sister Mary and her husband Matthew
Barnett built their lovely home in Christchurch, that Poll lived with them as
their housekeeper.
The large home had its quota of servants, and the sometimes severe, but immaculate Poll, would have been in charge of making sure that things were done correctly. Her niece Joan, (daughter of her brother Bill) remembered her Aunty Poll as always dressed in the latest fashion, smart and elegant.
For a time Poll moved to Wellington where she used or rented two rooms in the home of her sister Lillian, who had married Alf Grover. Unfortunately her sister became ill and had to move to a nursing home, so Poll returned to Christchurch. She was at the home of her brother William (Bill) when, after being troubled with heart failure for a year, was admitted to nearby Lewisham Hospital. She passed away four days later, on 18 May 1940.