DIED OF A BROKEN HEART.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1071, 10 August 1883, Page 2

DIED OF A BROKEN HEART.

The death is announced of Mrs Colterell the widow of Dr Cotterell, who at one time had one of the most extensive practices in Nelson. Sad as must always be a death which leaves, as this has done, five young children orphans, on the present occasion there is in the surrounding circumstances (as reported in the Nelson Mail) something of a more than usually painful 'and melancholy character. It will be remembered that a few weeks ago the loss of the ship Waitara was reported, among the drowned being a young boy, a son of the deceased lady, who was then on his first voyage as an apprentice. The shock administered by the news of the terrible catastrophe was practically the mother’s death-blow. For a time (says our contemporary) she was fairly stunned, but bravely battled against her sorrow, and the wound seemed—but only seemed—to be healing. The next mail, some two or three weeks after the receipt of the news of the wreck, brought a letter from the dead boy to bis mourning mother. It was a comfort to hear from the little fellow all about his voyage home ; all the little stories he had to tell ; how he kept up his studies ; how the crew made a pet of him because he was the smallest apprentice they had ever had on board ; and all such little incidents as would be foil of interest to a loving mother. It was a comfort to receive this, and yet there was an inexpressible sadness about it, and the mother’s heart was wrung with anguish as she read the lines penned by a hand that ere she received them was cold and dead. The sorrow was greater than she could bear. The agony of mind produced its effect on the body, and when, a week or two after the receipt of her last message from her lost boy, fever set in, it found an easy victim, for her weakened frame was totally unequal to resisting the attack. Six weeks ago on Saturdaj' the Waitara and Hurunui came into collision, and the young Nelson lad found his grave in the English Channel. On Saturday morning his heartbroken mother followed him across the border.