William Odden Southee was born in Kent in 1857. Two of his two siblings died young and when he was 8 years old, he became an orphan. William and his remaining brother John were raised by relatives. Perhaps John’s death in 1875 was the catalyst for William to emigrate. His grandfather, John Southee, had emigrated to New Zealand in 1841. John had a large family from his second marriage and so there were numerous Southee cousins living in the Hutt Valley. John Southee died at Taita in 1892, aged 94.
In 1881, an advertisement in the Evening Post announced that William had opened a ‘Produce and Provision Store’ in Molesworth Street, opposite Hill Street. He sold his business in 1886 and in 1889 purchased a Grocery Store in Tinakori Road from John McManaway.
William married Bessie James in 1893. Bessie died at their home on Tinakori Road just three years later. There were no children of this marriage. We have not been able to determine Bessie’s family or when she arrived in New Zealand. Bessie is the first interment in this plot.
William married for a second time to Catherine Maud Judd in 1897. Catherine’s parents were Stephen Judd and his wife Frances (Fanny) Kilmister. Frances’ brother John had a large farm behind where Karori Cemetery is located and is remembered in the naming of Kilmister Ave in Thorndon.
William and Catherine Southee had two children – Walter Morgan (born 1898) and Harold Jackson (born 1903). The family lived on Tinakori Road, presumably near or above the grocery store. By 1905, the family moved to Manakau near Otaki where William took up farming. William died on 13th December 1919, aged 62. He was buried with his first wife, Bessie at Karori Cemetery.
In 1920, Catherine ordered a clearing sale of house hold furniture as she prepared to leave the district. A farewell social was held in the Parish Hall. The Anglican Ladies’ Guild presented a handsome silver teapot and hot water jug as a parting gift. Catherine moved back to live in Thorndon. She died in 1948 and is buried at Karori Cemetery in a plot with her brother George Judd who died in 1899 and her son Walter who died in 1941 (Plot: *Public/I/211).
The headstone of this plot is stone which has been carefully shaped to give the appearance of being formed by branches. There are several of this type of headstone at Karori. The ‘Victorian Rustic’ form of these headstones symbolises a connection to nature and the brevity of life.
Plot: *Ch Eng/G/8
By Julia Kennedy
