Anstina Wilhelmena Sippel (1853-1940)

Anstina was born in Germany in 1853. She emigrated to Australia with her family leaving Hamburg on the 9th of August 1854 on “Singapore” and reached Port Jackson on the 19th December 1854. She is the sixth of seven children and the fourth of five daughters. Her father Christoffer, was employed by the Australian Land and Mineral Company as a shepherd.

When Anstina was seventeen, she married James Fisher on the 23rd April 1870 at St. Pauls Church of England, Tamworth. James was thirty four and a widower with 5 children. In 1871, Anstina had the first of fourteen children. With James’s other five children from his first marriage, there were nineteen children.

Anstina seemed very devoted to James and the children. Anstina loved gardening and an incident happened when she was pruning her beloved roses. An infection stemmed from a rose thorn and resulted in Anstina losing her hand. It occurred in 1912,shortly after the death of James. It was another twenty two years before Anstina passed away so she had to battle on for that time with one hand. On the 8th of August, 1940 Anstina passed away aged 87 years. The cause of her death was bowel cancer which she had been suffering from for two years prior to her death. She is buried with James in the Church of England section at Tamworth Cemetery.