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Headstone - Neils and Bertha Pedersen

Description: This image of a headstone was taken at Terrace End Cemetery. Among the married couples on the ship "Celaeno" were Neils and Bertha Pedersen. Like a number of others on board Neils and Bertha were married in Norway two days before departing for New Zealand. They were allocated a forty acre section at Awapuni and Neils worked preparing timber for the Foxton-Palmerston North tramway. They gradually paid for their farm and were debt free by 1876. Later they also purchased the neighbouring forty acres. The first of their nine children, a son named Ole Peton, was the first baby in Palmerston North's birth register.

The Pedersens prospered and by the time of Neils death owned property at Whakarongo, Shannon and Bunnythorpe. Bertha died, aged 52, died on 8 July 1900, and in 1904 Neils moved to the property he had purchased in Whakarongo. He built a two-storied house and lived there with his son Albert and daughter in law Nellie. Albert and Nellie were away for a night when Neils went to milk his two cows as usual on 10 March 1910. He had suffered from a heart condition for some time and upon his return the following day Albert found Neils dead in his cowshed.