Maker: Janet Dunn

Panel number: 546

Petition sheet number: Did not sign 1893 petition

Person honouring: Eveleen Myers

Relationship to maker: Grandmother

My grandmother, Eveleen Myers was born in 1895. She came from a well-connected Wellington Jewish family. Her uncle, Sir Michael Myers, was the sixth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, and her aunt, Phoebe Myers, was a political activist who committed her entire life to improving education for women.

I searched the [1893 suffrage] petition for my great-grandmother’s name but it did not come up. However it seems likely, given the high level of achievement and civic awareness, that my great-grandmother would have supported women’s suffrage. Possibly she signed an earlier petition.

My grandmother, radical according to family lore, married a gentile after WW1 [in 1924]. She maintained strong Jewish family ties, but did not practise. My grandfather, Vincent Gordon Jervis, known as Bill, was a Gallipoli veteran who remained a professional soldier all his working life, although not in active service as he was an amputee.

Eveleen and Bill had a pleasant, sociable lifestyle at Eastbourne in a home near the beach, where I also grew up.

Eveleen died in 1975, the year after Bill.

Panel materials: All the materials are from my stockpile and are things I have been given or collected from various sources. The background is embroidered cut work napkins and place mats. The main feature of the panel is pairs of kid gloves. I used gold thread that someone gave me to do the 46 stitches and embroider her name. The ‘fingernails’ were embellishment on a bra.