Eliza Wohlers
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Eliza Wohlers (6 September 1812 – 14 December 1891) was an English emigrant to New Zealand who married a German missionary and joined him in his mission work.


Early life

Wohlers was born in 1812 in Bridport, England, to Hannah and William Hanham. She became a dressmaker and married Richard Palmer, a carpenter, in 1838. The couple emigrated to New Zealand in 1839. Little is known of their first years in the colony, other than that Palmer died sometime between 1839 and 1849.


Missionary work

In 1849 Wohlers was living in
Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
when a
Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
missionary from Germany,
Johan Wohlers John (or Johan) Frederick Henry Wohlers (originally Johann Friedrich Heinrich Wohlers, 1 October 1811 – 7 May 1885) was a Lutheranism, Lutheran missionary from Germany who lived for 41 years on Ruapuke Island, a small island in New Zealand's far ...
, began asking for recommendations for a suitable woman to marry. Eliza and Johan met in July 1849 and were married two months later. Johan had already spent five years on
Ruapuke Island Ruapuke Island is one of the southernmost islands in New Zealand's main chain of islands. It lies to the southeast of Bluff and northeast of Oban on Stewart Island/Rakiura. It was named "Bench Island" upon its discovery by Captain James Cook i ...
in
Foveaux Strait The Foveaux Strait, (, or , ) separates Stewart Island, New Zealand's third largest island, from the South Island. The strait is about 130 km long (from Ruapuke Island to Little Solander Island), and it widens (from 14 km at Ruapuk ...
, and he took Eliza there to work with him on his non-denominational mission work for the North German Mission Society. A daughter, Gretchen, was born in 1853. Wohlers' work in the mission was wide-ranging. She visited the sick and provided basic nursing care, taught sewing, reading and skills such as butter-making at the mission house, and cared for orphans and needy children. She was considered "a tower of strength and character", and encouraged the local Maori population to adopt European ideas of hygiene, clothing and education. During the years of the Wohlers's mission, the settlement grew to have wheatfields, a flour mill, cows and sheep, where previously there had been only the uncertain and dangerous income of whaling. Both Maori and Pakeha from around Ruapuke and other Foveaux Strait settlements attended church services at the mission. In 1868 a government-funded school opened on the island, and the family ran it from 1870 to 1884. Wohlers taught reading, spelling and the singing of English hymns.


Death

Wohlers died in Southland on 14 December 1891, six years after her husband. They are buried together at Ringaringa,
Stewart Island Stewart Island ( mi, Rakiura, ' glowing skies', officially Stewart Island / Rakiura) is New Zealand's third-largest island, located south of the South Island, across the Foveaux Strait. It is a roughly triangular island with a total land ar ...
, across the water from Ruapuke.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wohlers, Eliza New Zealand Lutheran missionaries 19th-century New Zealand people Female Christian missionaries 1812 births 1891 deaths People from Ruapuke Island Lutheran missionaries in New Zealand English emigrants to New Zealand 19th-century Lutherans