Eliza

Eliza (Lilah) Keymer
(31 May 1878 - 24 September 1959)

Lilah was the eldest child of William and Mary Keymer. She was born in Kentish Town, London, on 31 May 1878. She immigrated with her parents, grandmother and four siblings, to New Zealand. On arrival in New Zealand, in 1884, the Keymer family lived at 25 Ponsonby Road, in Auckland (on the right hand side, just down a bit from Karangahape Road), then moved to Chamberlain Street around 1905/06, and then later, around 1911, to Birkdale Road, Birkenhead, Auckland.

The Keymer family. 1889.
Unknown photographer.
(Photo courtesy of the Keymer Family Tree)

The Keymer family 1898

Photographer unknown

(Photo courtesy of G J Bland)

The Keymer family, 1904.
Seated back from left: Bertha (or could be Edith), Edith (or could be Bertha), Alice
Seated middle from left: Eliza, Louie, Laura, William Snr, Mary, Ada, William Jnr
Front, from left: George, Hector, Dorothy
Unknown photographer.
(Photo courtesy of G J Bland)

Keymer girls: Louie, Lilah & either Ada or Laura.
Photographer and date unknown.
(Photo courtesy of G J Bland)

Lilah never married.

In 1908 Lilah attended the Pukekura Training School near Cambridge, during its inaugural year. The following photo of the teachers and students was printed in the Seventh-day Adventist newspaper, the Australasian Record Vol 22 No. 12, on 18 March 1968, p5. Interestingly, Chloris (Sissy) Archibald (later Totenhofer) who later became the sister-in-law of Eliza's sister, Louie, was Eliza's classmate.

Pukekura Training School 1908. Faculty and students.
Eliza Keymer is in the third row back, second from the right.
(Photo courtesy of G J Bland)

The Keymer family 1915/16, probably just before George went off to the war.

Standing from left: Louie, William Jnr, William Snr, George, Eliza, Edith

Seated from left: Ada, Alice Mary, Laura,  Bertha

At front: Dorothy & Hector

Photographer unknown.

(Photo courtesy of E Donaldson)

The Keymer family, back row from left: William Jnr's son, Hector, Dorothy, William Jnr's son
Front frow from left, Lilah, Mary, William Snr
Photographer and date unknown but likely to be around/before 1924.
(Photo courtesy of E Donaldson)

The Keymer sisters in the early 1920s
Standing from left: Laura, Alice, Ada
Seated from left: Dorothy, Bertha (or could be Edith), Eliza, Edith (or could be Bertha), Louie
Photographer unknown.
(Photo courtesy of E Donaldson)

On May 29 1936, Lilah's mother, Mary, passed away at the home they shared on James and Louie Archibald's farm, in Opaheke. Her funeral was held at the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Mackelvie Street, Ponsonby on the following Sunday afternoon. She was buried at the Purewa Cemetery.

In late1939, Lilah and her sister Louie passed the home nursing exam run by the Papakura St John Ambulance. 

The Keymer siblings in 1939, possibly at the occasion of William Jnr's second marriage.
Standing from left: Dorothy, Bertha, Laura, Alice, Edith, Ada, Louie, Lilah
Seated from left: William Jnr, unknown, Hector
Photographer unknown.
(Photo courtesy of E Donaldson)

In early 1940 Lilah and her sister Louie attended the Jubilee of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in New Zealand. At the meeting where various founding members spoke, it is reported that Lilah shared the following, "When the truth came to my parents I was a little girl, and my sister Louie still younger. We were members of the Ponsonby Sabbath school for many years, and through five decades we have remained true to this testing message. May we be kept faithful, that we may meet father and mother in that glad day."

Lilah and her mother Mary,
Photographer and date unknown.
(Photo courtesy of G J Bland.)

Keymer sisters
L-R: Louie, Lilah, Dorothy, and Laura
Photographer and date unknown
(Photo courtesy of G J Bland)

Lilah passed away on 24 September 1959. She was 81 years old. The following notice about her death appeared in the Australasian Record Vol 63, No 44, p7 on 2 November 1959:

KEYMER. With simple faith and implicit
trust in her Saviour, Sister Eliza Keymer,
aged eighty-one, of the Papakura church,
N.Z., passed quietly to her rest on Septem-
ber 24, 1959. Sister Keymer belonged to a
large Adventist family and had been a faith-
ful church member and officer for many
years. Apart from a brother who was lost
in the First World War, this was the first
break in a family of eight girls and two
boys. Our hearts went out to these dear
ones as a large company gathered at the
funeral services to express faith in the second
advent and sympathy for the bereaved. We
all rejoiced that in these moments of parting
we may lean upon the promises of God and
be sustained. F. L. Stokes.



Sources
The Australasian Record - Online archives
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Papers Past
The Stacey's of Somerset - genealogy
Family records
Photographs - E Donaldson, G J Bland


Last updated: 1 February 2020