Annie And Her Daughters

Glasgow born Annie married Irishman Matthew Cummings and the couple solved the problem of their different religious allegiances by bringing up their two sons as Protestants and their six daughters as Catholics. When she died in 1930, at the age of 81, she was grandmother to 29 and great grandmother to 14. Annie is laid to rest with 4 of her daughters, one of which became quite famous as a feminist and political activist.

Photo credit: Cathy Currie

Miriam, Annie and Matthew’s 6th child, was born in Thames in 1879. She excelled at school, became a teacher and was posted to Northland. While there she boarded with a Maori family and became deeply interested in Maori culture and was soon fluent in Te Reo.

It was also in Northland that she met her future husband, Petar Soljak. Petar had recently come from Dalmatia to escape conscription into the Austrian Empire Army. Although he had little education, he was a practical man and he and Miriam fell in love. They were married in 1908, upon which Miriam discovered that by marrying an Austrian immigrant, she too, had become an enemy alien. She was forced to register with the police, her activities and possessions were restricted and, because of her enemy alien status, Miriam was refused a bed in a maternity home when giving birth to her 7th child.

It was this that spurred her to political activism, joining the Auckland Women’s Political League in 1920 after meeting a neighbour, Emily Gibson, who was an active worker for the movement.
The Women’s Political league morphed into the Auckland Women’s branch of the Labour Party and through them Miriam made her case for independent nationality. 7 years later Labour Politician, Peter Fraser, presented Miriam with a private member’s bill he had put forward allowing New Zealand women to adopt their husband’s or retain their own nationality when marrying a foreigner. But it wasn’t until 1946 that Miriam’s nationality was finally restored, even though she and Peter had divorced in 1939. In 1977, 8 years after Miriam’s death, New Zealand women could finally pass their New Zealand citizenship to their foreign born husband and children.

Her activism was not confined to independent nationality, as vice president, president and secretary of the Auckland women's branch of the Labour Party in the late 1920s, she was involved in a wide range of contemporary feminist issues, including the campaigns against compulsory military training and the high rate of maternal mortality, and for disarmament, motherhood endowment, child welfare and sex education. She developed a reputation as a trenchant freelance journalist and a compelling public speaker, and worked with urban Maori, explaining Labour's policies to them in Maori. She was also a vocal protester of the Vietnam War, speaking in Albert Park while aged in her 80’s.

Feminist, activist, teacher, wife and mother, Miriam Soljak died on 28 March 1971, aged 91, and her ashes are buried in the Roman Catholic area with her mother and sisters.

Photo credit: Cathy Currie

Annie's obituary:
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19300326.2.131

About Miriam:
uncensored.co.nz/2012/05/02/if-the-houseworks-all-done-de...
teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4s36/soljak-miriam-bridelia/...


In Loving Memory
Of
ANNIE CUMMINGS
Also her daughters
CHARLOTTE, BERTHA
VERONICA & RUTH

MIRIAM SOLJAK
nee Cummings
1879 – 1971
worker for peace and freedom

Roman Catholic Division A, Row 3
Plot 39: Dorothy Cummings (23 months) 1888 – Bronchitis
  Bertha Cummings (39) 1922 – Miss
  Annie Cummings (81) 1930 – Widow
  Miriam Bridelia Soljak (91) 1971 – Activist for womens rights (ashes)
Plot 41: Kathleen Veronica Cummings (57) 1948 – Miss
  Charlotte Mabel Cummings (78) 1952 – Miss