Earlier this month, almost exactly 155 years after her death, a headstone marking the final resting place of Mary Ann Chin Chee and her son was unveiled by her great-great-grandchildren.
Dunedin man Allan Mitchell said a cousin researching their family history "rediscovered" the grave.
"After a bit of procrastination, a small group of us cousins ... raised funds to have a headstone placed on the grave."
Mr Mitchell said there was not a lot of information about Mrs Chin Chee but what they had learned showed she endured many hardships in her short life.
Born in 1843 in Devon, England, she was one of George and Sarah Brook’s seven children. When she was 10 the family emigrated to the Victorian goldfields in Australia.
Their voyage took just over four months, Mr Mitchell said.
During the journey, 23 children and four women died of scurvy and whooping cough. The ship, and most of the passengers, were quarantined for a further six weeks on arrival in Geelong.
In 1856 her youngest sibling was born.
Just four years later, the birth of a daughter to Mrs Chin Chee, then 18, and Chinese merchant-lodging housekeeper James Chin Chee, and their marriage shortly afterwards, was recorded. The baby, Sarah, would become Mr Mitchell’s great-grandmother.
Over the next five years Mrs Chin Chee had three more children but only one more daughter survived.
The Chin Chees emigrated to the Central Otago goldfields in 1867.
Mr Chin Chee seemed to have been entrepreneurial. He was a storekeeper and boarding house operator as well as an interpreter.
He also appeared in newspapers of the time selling illegal grog to the Nevis Hotel and fundraising in the Chinese community for Dunstan Hospital.
On August 20, 1868, Mrs Chin Chee died aged 25, two days after her infant son, whose cause of death was recorded as "premature birth". The baby was buried with her.
She had lost three sons and left two daughters, Sarah, 8, and Letitia, 3. The two girls were taken in by European families in the district.
At the ceremony Mr Mitchell thanked Central Otago District Council parks and recreation administration officer Judith Whyte for confirming the grave’s exact location, Central Monuments’ Paul Hodge for finding suitable schist rock for the headstone and Adrienne Shaw, who had worked with the Lawrence Chinese Graves historic area and became a strong advocate for the Chin Chee project.
