Maker: Bev Tosh

Panel number: 489

Petition sheet number: Did not sign 1893 petition

Person honouring: Ivy Belinda Autridge

Relationship to maker: Paternal grandmother

Ivy Belinda Surman was born in 1892 in Melbourne, Australia. She married Henry Lancelot Autridge and had one child, Brian Lancelot Autridge who was born in 1923. She died in 1970 in New Plymouth, New Zealand. 

I used the only cursive version of her name available to me. It was in my father’s handwriting on his enlistment with the Royal New Zealand Air Force in 1942. Ivy Autridge was Nana to me, my father’s mother. She was the hub of my childhood in New Plymouth. 

My mother, a Canadian war bride, took her girls to meet her family in Canada when I was nine years old. She never returned to my homeland, New Zealand; I never saw my beloved grandmother again, nor did I say goodbye. 

Nana, I painted you with tea on a hand-worked cloth (origin unknown) from my linen closet. In thread similar to the original needlework, I stitched your name and dates then added 46 separate hand-stitches in white to contour your neckline.

Although you were a toddler when women’s suffrage was legislated in New Zealand and, as a married woman you were expected to serve Gramps his meat, potatoes, and vegetables precisely on time, not a minute early nor a minute late, you listened to me when children were expected to be seen but not heard. We fed swans together in Pukekura Park.You told me the same scary story, at my insistence, every time I saw you. And when you illustrated the story by drawing the wicked witch (and I knew she could never walk on those feet you drew!) you awoke the artist in me. You empowered me.

Panel materials: Grandmother’s portrait painted from an old photograph of Ivy as a young woman, using black tea on a hand-worked cloth (origin unknown) from my linen closet. I purchased embroidery cotton similar in colour to the original broderie Anglaise needlework then stitched Ivy’s name and her dates. Lastly, I added 46 separate hand-stitches in white to contour her neckline.