LORD JELLICOE’S AUNT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2652, 30 October 1923, Page 4

LORD JELLICOE’S AUNT.

102nd. BIRTHDAY PASSED. A LONG-LIVED FAMILY. AFFECTION FOR NEPHEW. London September 13. Miss Catherine Jane Jellicoe’s birthday is an occasion for annual comment regarding her great age, but this year an enterprising correspondent at Southampton has approached as near an interview with Miss Jellieoe ns is possible. The result of this interview by proxy appears as an article in The Evening Standard. In a top-back room of a tall old house in Portland Terrace,; Southampton (says the correspondent), an old lady sits all day in a wheeled chair looking through her window out to sea. When she wearies she calls for writing materials, and writes laborious but perfectly legible letters to her many relatives, principal among whom in her memories is her “dear nephew” Viscount Jellieoe, Governor-General of New Zealand. The old lady is Miss Catherine Jane Jellieoe, who on Saturday last celebrated her 102nd. birthday. • I was privileged to peep into the chamber where the old lady, has been shut in with her memories for six years past now. “Miss Jellieoe sees no one except her very near relations,” her lady companion told me. So, while the old lady sat in her chair, her snow-white head with its strongly carved features, in which one sees at a glance the resemblance of her favourite nephew, bent over some piece of writing,- I was told the story of her life An uneventful life story it is, but sweetened with the memory of good works and service on behalf of others. Her brother, the Rev. George Jellieoe, of Bassett, Southampton, whom I saw, gave me an account of this remarkable long-lived family, of whom Miss Jellieoe is the eldest. The white-bearded old gentleman was most anxious in the first instance that his own age should be correctly stated. “I was 03 in January,” he said, “not. 92 as has appeared in the papers; please put that right. Of course, I shall not live as long ns my sister —oh no —but all the same we are a remarkable family. There were seven of us, five boys and two girls. Catherine and I are all that remain now. Our father was a manufacturer at Millbrook, where we were all born, and mother was a ‘Lancashire lass’—put that in. There was John, the Viscount’s father, you know, he lived till he was 90; then there was poor Fred, who was killed in the Indian Mutiny. Our sister Memiekn. died two years ago, at the age of 90; and our cousin Grace (Miss Grace Emily Whalley-Smythe-Gardiner) was 105 when she died two years ago. Yes, that is something to be proud of. My sister has spent her life in Southampton. Her days were devoted to the church and to philanthropy, and she still takes a great interest in church work and always reads the parish magazine.” “She is quite interested in what appears in the newspapers, too,” put in another relative. • “In fact, it is remarkable that all her thoughts are of the present. ' She rarely speaks of the past. It is ten years since she was out of the house, but she knows all about modern inventions such as the motor-car and the aeroplane. During the war she was keenly interested in the career of the admiral.” When I left the old lady had finished her letter and could be heard in the next room giving clear instructions about its postage.”