Mary Stark Ure was born on 17 August 1860 in New Zealand to James Ure and Elizabeth Street/Ure who had arrived on the sailing vessel "Philip Laing", one of the first immigrant ships to arrive in Southland, New Zealand.

She was of average height and very resourceful. To her grandchildren she was known as "Grandma".

She married Donald Sinclair on 22 March 1878 at Isaac Johnstons home for whom he had been working for some time and had then gone into partnership with as builders.

After they married Mary and Donald settled into a small cottage near the Johnstons in Otepopo/Herbert, and had 3 children born here.

In 1882 they boarded a train south to Dunedin, then on to Invercargill, and finally stopped at Nightcaps. The trip took 3 days to complete. The final leg of the journey was in a spring cart to Wreys Bush through tussock swamps, creeks and flax bushes to Hogans's Hut and here the family stayed several weeks until Donald built a simple 2 roomed cottage and called it "Calderbank" after the village where he was born in Scotland.

Every Sunday, regardless of the weather, the entire family journeyed 2 1/2 miles into Nightcaps for Church and other social events.

Additions to the home, Calderbank, were made in 1885 (Peter Sinclairs birth) of a 3 room lean-to.

As the family grew and Donald got work further away from the family home, Mary was often left alone during the week to run the farm and look after the children.

As the family increased to 7 children so did the expenses and Mary went out milking cows in the district to make a little extra money.

She also completed exams which qualified her as a Midwife and this sometimes involved walking miles over hills to reach her scattered patients. She delivered 1,000 babies with no mothers lost. Mary was still nursing up until 80 years of age. Mary was present at the birth of Keith Rennie Brown, her grandson, in Sydney.

Mary travelled to Australia to see her daughter and family and was present at Mary Isabel Brown's marriage to Roy Wilfred Morris  on 1 September 1945 in Beecroft, NSW.

Mary took up Tatting very late in life and made many fine pieces of work and edgings for tablecloths which were given to family members as gifts.

Donald and Mary planted pine trees around the homestead and these were eventually milled and some made into a coffin for Mary when she died on 17 May 1954. So Mary when she died took part of Calderbank with her. The coffin was made by her grandson John Sinclair (Donald Sinclairs eldest son) at her request.

J Morris 2016

Information from records, family and the booklet "Sinclairs of Calderbank"