100th BIRTHDAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 805, 28 October 1929, Page 10

100th BIRTHDAY

Two Christchurch Women Celebrate REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE ( Special to THE SUN) CHRISTCHURCH, Today. A remarkable coincidence was recorded in Christchurch today. Two residents of the city, Mrs. Sarah Ann Trezise, and Mrs. Sarah Ann Toms, each celebrated her 100th birthday.

Mrs. Trezise still writes wonderfully interesting letters and takes a keen interest in public affairs. She arrived in New Zealand in 1862 and remembers the early days in Canterbury, when the railway was being laid southward across the Canterbury Plains. Her first husband was Mr. A. Blackburn, who was stationmaster at Rakaia for 18 years when that town was the terminus of the line which now runs through to Invercargill. Mrs. Trezise recalls the days when coaches met the train there and carried passengers on to Timaru. This interesting old woman has led a wonderfully active life, and today friends and relations called in numbers to congratulate her on her birthday. Quite late in life Mrs. Trezise married her second husband. Her family consists of Mr. A. H. Blackburn, of Vauxhall Road, Devonport; Mr. Charles Blackburn, of Gisborne; Mr. B. Blackburn, of Khandallah; Mrs. James Ritchie, of Ashburton, and Mrs. S. E. Burnard, of Christchurch. Mrs. Toms, who is also being congratulated on reaching her centenary, is an inmate of the Jubilee Memorial Home at Woolston. Although she spends most of her days in bed now she is proud of the fact that she has scarcely known a day’s illness in her life.. She was born in India, the daughter of a non-commissioned officer. When he retired he took his family to Jersey, in the Channel Islands, and it was here that Mrs. Toms met her husband. On arrival in New Zealand they settled at Christchurch. Mr. Toms died in 1900.