Lost Woman Reappears After 16 Years

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 263, 27 January 1928, Page 14

Lost Woman Reappears After 16 Years

Was Thought to Have Been a Victim of Titanic VANISHES AGAIN The dramatic return to life of a woman who had been mourned as dead for 16 years, and her subsequent dramatic disappearance after a stay of a few hours only at her aged mother’s home in CJoalville, was the subject of a remarkable story related to me, by mebers of her family, writes a “Daily Chronicle” correspondent. Sixteen years ago the woman, then Miss Eva Wilkinson, was in domestic service in Leicester. Now she is Mrs. Robertson, assumed by her family to be the wife of a doctor. Beyond this fact, and references which she made to having missed sailing on the ill-fated Titanic “by a fluke,” the family in general know nothing of her. (The Titanic was lost on April 15, 1912.) They state that they asked her no questions and were in consequence told nothing. To-night 1 called at the home of her mother, Mrs. Ann Wilkinson, in Margaret Street, and found it empty and in darkness. A neighbour directed me to the house of another daughter, Mrs. Blower, living a few doors a.way, and from her I obtained an account of the events leading up to the dramatic reappearance of her long lost sister Eva. “It was on Monday,” Mrs. Blower said, “that mother and I received a message which said that Eva had telephoned to an office in Coalville to know whether mother still lived at the old house in Margaret Street. “I got the shock of my life. Eva alive? It could not be true after all these years. I went nearly crazy with excitement. “Monday went by and then on Tuesday morning a telegram came signed ‘Eva.’ She asked us to meet her at Coalville Station in the evening, stating a particular train.” Recognised “You recognised your sister in spite of her long absence?” I asked Mrs. Blower. “I did at once.” “You were absolutely convinced that it waff your sister?” “Absolutely,” Mrs. Blower replied. “There was never the slightest doubt in my mind. I would recognise Eva anywhere.” Then Mrs. Blower related how Eva came back to the house with them, how she looked, what pretty clothes she wore, and how nicely she spoke. The missing woman’s first* remark to her mother when she kissed her at the station was simply, “Hello, mother; how are you?” And then Mrs. Blower added, “We returned home immediately, as Eva wanted to see how it looked after her long absence. She went over the house from top to bot-

tom, and then asked how father We told her that he was dead, and tv four of her brothers and sisters had died as well.” That night Mrs. Robertson, as she now known, stayed with her mother V Margaret Street. Yesterday morn ; r she expressed a wish to visit a brotS at Coventry, and, with her mother an* sister, went to see him. From Coventry she returned tr Coalville; but after a stay of a ft, minutes left that town immediately I asked Mrs. Blower where her slst had gone. She replied that she coni not tell me under any circumstanced She confessed that she did not kno, positively to what town she had jerav but added that she expected in the future to hear more regularly front her I questioned other members of the family, and they, - too, were unable,to say where their sister is now. "Eva told me, and me oniy," kiK Mrs. Blower, “why she had not writ’ ten to tts or let us know that she was alive. She told me in confidence.’’ In London It is believed that after a period of domestic service in Leicester and Lor don she did book a passage on the Titanic, and it was assumed that sbt had lost her life when the boat wn.r down. Her own reference to it is ths: she missed sailing on the boat by the merest chance, and apparently, at th D last moment, changed her plans, but she did not tell her family whether she did indeed sail to America on another boot, or, in fact, anything about the 16 yens she has been away from them. From one source I gather that lire Robertson has visited America and t tit during the war she came over t France with the American Expeditionary Force in the capacity of a none, and was captured by the Germans and held prisoner until the Armistice. Shtold them that she was married and that she had lost a little girl, but sh? did not say when she was married or in what town or country she was living I was told by her family that they did not know whether she would return. “Eva is free to do as she likes, and no doubt when she wants to see us again she will come back.”