Pilcher, Elizabeth

Marriage Details
1866/6256, Bride: Elizabeth Pilcher, Groom: Frances Greer

Evening Post 13 August 1930
A PIONEER''S BIRTHDAY
TAWA FLAT 😯 YEAKS AGO
Seventy-nine years'' ago, a farm wagon, piled high with the family belongings, ploughed through the deep ruts of the clay road of the infant settlement that was destined later to grow into the proud city of Wellington. Safely packed away among the miscellaneous collection of household goods was a bright-eyed little girl of three years of age, who, with her parents, journeyed that day (via the Khandallah hills, the Gorge road not then being constructed) to Tawa Flat, there to hew out from the primeval forest a settler''s home. Thus another clay hut was added to the settlement, making four in all. The little girl, a daughter of Mr. Stephen Pilcher, is now Mrs. Greer. On Friday evening last a happy throng off relatives and friends gathered in the Tawa Flat Schoolroom to do honour to her. Through seventy-nine'' years she has lived in the immediate neighbourhood of Tawa Flat. Sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, rallied around the old lady on the occasion of her eighty-second birthday.
Miss Pilcher was married in 1866 to the late Mr. Francis Greer, who was a lieutenant and a drill instructor, and later a farmer. The old lady still resides with her son, Mr. Oscar Greer, on the same farm where her married life was spent. The once quiet and secluded homestead, situated as it is at the side of the main North road, is now, the scene of operations of steamnavvies and of railway builders. Within a year or two Tawa Flat will thus be brought within fifteen minutes'' railway journey to Wellington City.
The green fields and gentle grassy slopes of Tawa Flat to-day, which are shortly destined to become a populous suburb, were in the young days of this old pioneer covered with a dense forest — giant totara, rinu, and rata clothed the hillsides, while an almost pure tawa bush (from which the district takes its name) grew in profusion on the level areas. Pigeons, kakas, tuis, bellbirds, and parrakeets swarmed in countless numbers. The younger folks were kept busy scaring away the parrakeets from the plots of grain, then grown by each settler for his own use, and sent to be ground at a mill at Ngahauranga.
Mrs. Greer enjoys excellent health, can read without glasses, and is keenly interested in the events of to-day.
Her family consists of eleven sons and daughters, thirty grandchildren, and sixteen great-grandchildren. All the eleven sons and daughters were present at the birthday party on Friday night.


Evening Post 29 January 1941
PIONEER PASSES
...
OVER NINETY YEARS OF AGE
BORN IN WELLINGTON
The recent death at Lower Hutt of Mrs. Francis Greer (nee Pilcher) has removed one who had actually lived through more than ninety years of the colourful first century of New Zealand''s history. Her father, Mr. Stephen Pilcher, arrived on August 29, 1840, by the second immigrant ship to reach New Zealand, the Coromandel. She was born in Wellington, and at the age of three years went with her parents to Tawa Flat; where in 1866 she married Mr. Francis Greer, who died 21 years ago. Of their family of thirteen, ten (two daughters, eight sons) are still alive; and there are 31 grandchildren and 27 great-grand children — a total of 68. Mrs. Greer would have been aged 93 had she lived till next August. She had seen Tawa Flat evolve from the days of bush and birds to the days of steam trains and finally of electric trains; and all the phases of nigh a century of New Zealand development were mirrored in her excellent memory.
She leaves the following daughters and sons:— Mrs. A. W. Whitehouse, Palmerston North; Mrs; A. Wilson, Porirua Road, Johnsonville; Mr. F. H. Greer, Tawa Flat; Mr. S. J. Greer, Tawa Flat; Mr. A. O. Greer, Petone; Mr. O. R. Greer, Lower Hutt; Mr. C. E: Greer, Wellington; Mr. D. L. Greer, Wellington; Mr. E. E. Greer, Johnsonville; Mr. G. R. Greer, Palmerston North.

Evening Post 14 January 1941
GREER.- On January 13, 1941, at the residence of her son, Mr. Oscar Greer, 10 Norton Park Avenue, Lower Hutt, late of Tawa Flat and Levin, Elizabeth, loved wife of the late Francis Greer; in her 93rd year. (Her end was peace.)