NEARLY 100 YEARS OLD.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 21, 16 May 1914, Page 5

NEARLY 100 YEARS OLD.

Born on August 21, 1814, Mrs John Gow, who resides in Athol place, Dunedin, will in three months' time have passed her 100th mile-stone. A Daily limes reporter recently had a. short conversation with the lady, who was sitting up to the table, quite en--joying her midday'meal. Mrs Gow has all her faculties wonderfully preserved for a woman of her years ; she converses quite intelligently, but her hearing is somewhat impaired. She stated that she was still able to read a little from a book of Biblical texts printed in veiy large type, and the lady with whom she stays (Mrs Smith) said she was quite . robust enough to be wheeled about outside in an invalid chair. Mrs Gow, speaking in reminiscent vein, said she was born in the village qf Auchterarder, in Ayrshire, and { that all the houses in the little township were once burnt by Ciaverhouse and his dragoons, with one exception, one villager placing a bundle of straw in the top of his chimney, and setting it afire, and thus deceiving the marauders into thinking that this house, too, was being destroyed. '"Of course," remarked Mrs Gow, ''that was before my time; but that is the story they told me when I was a girl."' The reporter, being a Sassenach, asked Mrs Gow to spell the name of the village where she was born, which she at once did. "I "was born there on August 21, 1814," she continued. "Aye, and my mother and father before me were born in the same place." Her independent spirit here flashed out, as she remarked, with animation, "And never got into debt for a shilling." She has had seven children, four of whom are still alive, and her oldest son is close on 80 years of age. On the death of her husband, Mrs Gow went over to live with one of her sons who was resident in Montana, America—"a better place than this" she interjected—and then, 41' years ago, came out to Dunedin to join her daughter, who, however, has since died. Mrs Gow has resided in Dunedin practically ever since she arrived here, with the exception of visits to her daughter (since deceased) who lived at Temuka. Naturally enough, the old lady could not collect her thoughts at times sufficiently to answer the questions put to her by the reporter, but when the same questions were put by Mrs Smith she quickly understood and replied. As Mrs Gow began to show signs of weariness, the reporter rose to depart, Mrs Smith remarking, as she showed him out, that, for her age, Mrs Gow was a remarkable woman, and at times would tell wonderful stories of the incidents which had occurred in her long life.