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Headstone - Lydia Harris Burr

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Description: This image of a headstone was taken at Terrace End Cemetery. Lydia Hoskins arrived in Nelson with her parents in 1850. In 1855, when she was 17 the family arranged for her to marry Amos Burr, a man fifteen years older than her, who had lost both arms in an accident on board the 'Cuba' in Wellington in January 1840 when a canon misfired and went off as he withdrew the charge. Burr was fitted with two hooks after recovering from his injuries, but suffered form a lot of pain for the rest of his life.

Lydia and Amos initially lived on a farm at Whirokino, near Foxton. In 1862 the house burnt down and by the next year Amos was declared bankrupt and the farm sold. By 1865 he was working in the Palmerston North district overseeing Māori labourers on road formation work, while Lydia managed the Adelaide Hotel in Foxton, along with the nearby ferry that crossed the Manawatū River.

Amos built a modest boarding house in Main Street in Palmerston but Lydia refused to uproot the family from Foxton to live in the unpopulated inland Manawatū. It was from this time on that their relationship deteriorated and Amos and Lydia lived apart more than together. Amos also began to find it more difficult to find employment as his age advanced.

By the 1870s Lydia was the main breadwinner in the family, supporting their ten children dressmaking. Lydia and Amos finally separated in the late 1870s. Lydia was declared bankrupt in 1880 but she managed to work her way out of debt, and continued making clothing and hats in Foxton until 1896. She then moved to Palmerston North to be the head of the dressmaking department in a large drapery shop in The Square.

After she retired Lydia spend time travelling to stay at the homes of her children, but in 1910 had a severe stroke that confined her to a wheelchair until her death on 23 August 1930. Her estranged husband Amos had died in 1906 and is buried in the Karori Cemetery in Wellington.