Elisabetha REUTER ~1840-1905
Elisabetha was born in Nieder-Weisel in about 1840, the daughter of Konrad Reuter and Maria Hildebrand. There appears to be no record of her arrival in Australia, but on 28 October 1864 she married John Frederick Francis in Castlemaine. Her marriage certificate gave her age as 23, her father’s occupation as “farmer”, and her (and John’s) place of residence as Guildford, a settlement a few km south of Castlemaine. John was a miner at the time.
Elizabeth (as she was known) and John had four children, Elizabeth in 1865 (but who died in 1867), Osmond John in 1867, Frederick Oswald in 1870 (all at Bet Bet), and Arthur Philip in 1873 at Goldsborough (in the Shire of Bet Bet).
Only 7 weeks after the birth of their son Arthur, John was tragically killed in a mining accident on 20 November 1873 – he received extensive wounds all over his body as a result of blasting in a quartz mining shaft, and died at 10pm that night in the Dunolly Hospital.
Elizabeth apparently stayed on at Goldsborough – she had another child (Elizabeth Morgan, later known as Elizabeth Ruth) who was born there in March 1878.
At some stage Elizabeth moved to Melbourne – the 1903 Electoral Rolls show Elizabeth Francis, laundress, and Elizabeth Ruth Francis, hat trimmer, as living at 37 Hunter Street Abbotsford. Elisabeth died there on 21 February 1905, and was buried at the Melbourne General Cemetery.