Olive Anita Mavis Rankin
Date of birth / Date established
15 Dec 1914
Date of death / Date closed
13 Feb 2009
Place of birth / Place established
Person/Corporate type
Individual
Biography
Neta Smith grew up on a farm on the Albert Road near Egmont Village, Taranaki. She learnt many hand craft skills as a young girl. She perfected these skills in later life. She was a prolific knitter, made clothes for the family and did embroidery work.
On 19 January 1937 Neta married Allan John Taylor Rankin at St Mary’s Church. In the early 1940s they moved to 18 Bell Street, New Plymouth, living the rest of their lives there.
Neta did a lot of crocheting, or, as she called it, “tatting”.
In 2022 three samples of Neta’s crocheting/tatting were mounted for display, by her family. The three pieces were crocheted using a shuttle. They are made with very fine thread.
Neta probably started tatting in the early 1950s. Often Christine and Peter would come home from Welbourn Primary School to find their mother waiting for them and doing her tatting. Her tatting seemed to go with her everywhere. She had a small plastic zipped bag (which she had made) to hold her tatting, thread and shuttles. Even on family fishing trips out would come her tatting while she waited for the family to return from the beach.
In later years, Neta attended weekly bobbin lace-making classes and became skilled at using multiple bobbins of thread to create exquisite pieces of lace-work. Her husband, Allan, made her bobbins on his small wood lathe.
On 19 January 1937 Neta married Allan John Taylor Rankin at St Mary’s Church. In the early 1940s they moved to 18 Bell Street, New Plymouth, living the rest of their lives there.
Neta did a lot of crocheting, or, as she called it, “tatting”.
In 2022 three samples of Neta’s crocheting/tatting were mounted for display, by her family. The three pieces were crocheted using a shuttle. They are made with very fine thread.
Neta probably started tatting in the early 1950s. Often Christine and Peter would come home from Welbourn Primary School to find their mother waiting for them and doing her tatting. Her tatting seemed to go with her everywhere. She had a small plastic zipped bag (which she had made) to hold her tatting, thread and shuttles. Even on family fishing trips out would come her tatting while she waited for the family to return from the beach.
In later years, Neta attended weekly bobbin lace-making classes and became skilled at using multiple bobbins of thread to create exquisite pieces of lace-work. Her husband, Allan, made her bobbins on his small wood lathe.
