UNOPENED PRESENT POIGNANT DEATHBED DRAMA BETWEEN FRIENDS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 727, 30 December 1933, Page 5

UNOPENED PRESENT POIGNANT DEATHBED DRAMA BETWEEN FRIENDS

("Post" Special Coirespondent)

London, Nov. 25. A poignant story of the frustration of a last act of remembrance between two life-long friends — both eminent artists — who died within five days of one another has been revealed. ^ The principals in this little drama of friendship and death were: Mrs. Louise Jopling-Rowe, who has died, aged 90, and Sir David Murray, R.R., who died a week earlier. Mrs. Jopling-Rowe had been so critically ill at her home at Amersham, Buckinghamshire, that relatives deemed it inadvisable to inform her of the death of Sir David. For scores of years it had been Sir David's custom to send Mrs. Jop-ling-Rowe a birthday present. As her birthday approached — Sir David chose a book. It was "The Scotland Our Fathers Knew," and during the last days of his life it rested on his bed awaiting his inscription and signature on the flyleaf. Before this could be written Sir David died, and for the first time in their long friendship his birthday present was delivered at Mrs. Jop-ling-Rowe's home without a personal greeting. The book lay by Mrs. JoplingRowe's bedside, its uninscribed flyleaf a messenger of ill news. Then once again death intervened. When Mrs. Jopling-Rowe died, Sir David's last present still remained unopened by her deathbed.