CAMERON, Isobel Mair (Mary)

1878 - 1948  (70 years)

• Name	CAMERON, Isobel Mair (Mary)  [1]
  Born	1878  [1]
  Gender	Female
  Died	17 Feb 1948	New Zealand   [1]
  Buried	Waikato, New Zealand   [1]
  Person ID	I23520	My Genealogy
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2023

  
  

  Family	WILLS, Caleb Percy,   b. 14 Nov 1873, New Norfolk, Tasmania, Autsralia ,   d. 1944, New Zealand  (Age 70 years)
  Married	16 Feb 1909	Tasmania, Australia   [1]
  Children	1. WILLS, Isobel Mary,   b. 1912, New Zealand ,   d. 11 Jul 2008, Te Awamutu, Waipa District, Waikato, New Zealand  (Age 96 years)  [natural]   2. WILLS, Cameron Robert,   b. Jul 1914, Kawhia, Auckland, New Zealand ,   d. 21 Jun 1980, Te Awamutu, Waipa District, Waikato, New Zealand  (Age ~ 65 years)  [natural]
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2023
  Family ID	F5022	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos		scan0021 wedding of isabella cameron & caleb wills, inverness, 1909a
  		scan0005 isabella wills death report in new zealand newspaper, 1948

  
  

• Notes

  per email from Hamish Main. Isabella’s father Duncan (born c1826) was a shepherd in the hills of Invernessshire, and we’ve traced his family back another two generations to the mid-18th century in the Great Glen between Loch Ness and Ben Nevis. These Dochanassie Camerons were notorious for cattle-rustling and general unruliness (we’ve calmed down a bit now!)  Duncan and his wife Ann (nee Smith, born c1836) had seven children surviving infancy, of whom my grandmother Jane Anne (born 1873) was the fifth, and Isabella (born 1878) was the youngest. Born near Ellon in Aberdeenshire and raised at Kirkhill in Invernessshire, Isabella trained as a teacher in Aberdeen. She then taught in Blairgowrie and Dumfries before going in 1903 just after the Boer War to the Mafeking region of South Africa where she met Caleb, also a teacher, and a handsome young man judging by the wedding photo. After marrying in Inverness in 1909 in a joint ceremony with my grandmother and her husband James Murray, Caleb & Isabella returned to South Africa for a year before going on to New Zealand where Caleb was awarded a land grant. By 1913 they were living in the Awaroa Valley west of Te Awamutu, where Isabella taught at Rakaunui and later at Hauturu. The attached newspaper clipping described Isabella as “an admirable teacher … loved and respected everywhere by pakeha and Maori.” She was buried in a graveyard at Te Awamutu. Caleb and Isabella had two children, Cameron (born c1910) and Isabel (born c1912) who farmed at Oparau (via Te Awamutu) for many years, and I remember them when they visited Britain in the 1950s. Neither of them married or had children. Cam was struck by multiple sclerosis in the 1970s, but Isabel lived well into her nineties. She left the farm at Oparau to her Maori farm manager.

  
  

• Sources

  [S309] Public Member Trees, Ancestry.com, (Name: Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.;;). Record for Caleb Percy Wills http://search.ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1030&h=260006651170&indiv=try