Dora Amy Coates

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Dora Amy Coates

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Dora Amy Coates
Dora's life in New Zealand
Thomas Boyd Reesby
Dora's life after 1887
Some of their descendants
What happened ...
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Some more photos

More about the life of Dora Amy Coates. Below is a four generation photo, showing my great-grandmother, Dora Amy Coates, seated. With her are my grandfather, Frank Reesby, my father, Bill Reesby, and myself, Pat, as a baby.
Elopement! Look at the photo, above, of the innocent looking old lady. Can you imagine her as a sixteen-year-old?			Birth and early life ... Dora was probably born in London,around 1859 - 1861, although my step-grandmother, Gertie Reesby, thought it may have been Paris. Her father was the Paris correspondent for the London Times at one stage. After he retired, he was a pub manager in London. Dora's family was musical, and one famous cousin was the English composer Eric Coates. But she didn't share her family's musical interests and abilities and apparently felt a bit left out.And unlike the rest of her family, she was short!
But she eloped with her father's stable hand!. Dora fell in love when she was sixteen. He was her father's young stable hand. It has been said he was Irish but I think he was probably of Latin descent as her surname is later given as Danzille. I don't know why they decided to run away to New Zealand. Maybe they jumped on the first ship they saw and that's where it was going. Apparently the captain was outraged to find they were an unmarried couple, and they were married at sea. Tragedy struck, however ... The young stable hand developed consumption (tuberculosis), or maybe he had it already. He died and was buried at sea. I wonder what that must have been like for Dora, still a teenager, left alone on a ship bound for New Zealand? Read on for more ...			Dora again ... Above is Dora (seated) with, above from left, Gertie Reesby (her daughter-in-law), Win Reesby (my mother, Bill's wife), myself as a baby, and my grandfather Frank Reesby. My father Bill would have taken the photo.