AFTER TEN YEARS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 315, 31 August 1932, Page 6

AFTER TEN YEARS

happy re-union FATHER FINDS LOST SON IN MISSION SHELTER MET AS STRANGERS Wellington, Monday. After ten years a Wellington faI uher and son have become reunited in j extraorciinary circumstances. A few j days ago they met as strangers and j eonversed, each being unaware of the ' other's identity. To-day they are j bosom companions, beginning life i afresh together. 1 When he was eight years old the | boy, who must be nameless, left his j home and his parents. Why he did so at such an age is another story, but not one that matters much now. Nor does it matter how and where he was educated and began his tussle with life. He won independence and hoia untii hard times wrested it from him. , uncii a week or so ago the boy was empioyed on a dairy farm at Morrinsville. For some time he had realised his position was insecure, and fear of the future made him thinlc of his father and mother in Wellington. He had not written to them or heard from them since leaving their door. He posted a letter to the address he remembered but to his dismay, the letter was returned by the Post Office. He tried again by writing to friends, but the result was the same. Then he lost his job. Homeless; Penniless Homeless and almost penniless the boy resolved to search for . his mother and father. He packed his swag and tramped from Morrinsville to Wellington, arriving in the city last Sunday afternoon. As the sun was ■ setting he knocked at the door of the Church of England City Mission. The Rev. T. Fielden Taylor listenen to the story told by the tired 18-year-old wayfarer. He advised him to loolc for worlc, wished him good luck in his quest, and offered him a week's board at the men's shelter in Haining Street. That evening the boy sat at one of the long trestle tables in the shelter and, as he ate, told his fellow guests of his adventures on the road. He became friendly with the man next to him and they talked for a while. •On the following morning the boy set out to find his parents, but strangers were there and could tell nothing he wished to know. He went from house to house, place to place. The search was fruitless. That evening he again sat at the trestle table with his overnight acquaintance. Mother Found Next day the boy received news of his mother who, he learned, was in employment in the city. Heartened, he l'enewed his search, and before evening he had found her. Their first greetings over, he asked; "And where is. . .?" "Your father is out of work. He is living in the City Mission shelter," she said. Back to the shelter the boy hurried A few words with the officials, an examination of the register, and he was led up to a middle-aged man who stared at him questioningly. "Dad!" he said, addressing his table companion of the past two evenings. Father and son have now taken a room together and the boy is hunting for work. In the meantime he is being fed by the shelter, the officials of which are eager to recommend him.