Harvey, Elizabeth Susan Rihi née Callaway, 1866-1945 (Person)

"The death of Mrs. E. S. Harvey, which occurred at Hamilton recently, has removed one of the earliest residents of the King Country.

Born at Coromandel 79 years ago, Mrs. Harvey was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Calloway, early pioneers of the Coromandel Peninsula. She was married at Tauranga in 1882 to Mr. D. H. Harvey, and spent the early years of her married life in East Coast districts, having been resident in the vicinity of Rotorua at the time of the disastrous eruption of the Tarawera mountain in 1886.

Mrs. Harvey arrived in the King Country in 1901 when she joined her husband, the latter being then engaged in bridge construction on the Main Trunk railway near Ōngarue. As a resident of Taumarunui for some 26 years, Mrs. Harvey witnessed the development of that town from the primitive conditions of a forward Public Works camp to its subsequent status of a prosperous inland town of nearly 3000 inhabitants, and during her stay there deceased formed many friendships which have endured throughout the subsequent years of her life.

Since the death of her husband in 1926, Mrs. Harvey has resided at Mt. Maunganui, and latterly in residence with members of her family at Auckland, Tauranga and Āria for the past twelve years.

Two sons of deceased served in the war of 1914–18, one of whom gave his life in the Gallipoli campaign. Two sons and six grandsons have served in the present war, and her family is at present represented in all three branches of the Armed Forces.

Mrs. Harvey leaves an adult family of two daughters, Mesdames C. J. Riddle, of Te Kūiti, and R. C. Calvert, of Hamilton, and five sons, Messrs. Highland Harvey (Taumarunui), Stanley Harvey and Walter Harvey, of Auckland, and Flying Officer F. A. Harvey and Mr. T. D. Harvey, of Tauranga. There are 37 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren.

Hers has been a life of exceptional devotion to the service of others, both within and outside her family circle, and her memory will live in the esteem of all who were privileged to know her kindly disposition in her respective spheres of wife, mother, “grandma,” and friend."

Obituary record within the former New Zealand Room's Vertical Files (Paper unknown).