PERSONAL ITEMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 November 1938, Page 10

PERSONAL ITEMS

Mrs Ralph Beetham, of Masterton,is a visitor to Auckland. A Masterton visitor to Auckland is Mrs J. Robertson. Miss A. Anderson, of Eketahuna, is a visitor to Auckland. Mrs R. H. Anker, of Greytown, is on a holiday in Dunedin. A visitor to Pongaroa is Mrs F. Staples of Featherston. Add Eketahuna. Mrs C. G. Hawker, of Maramarua (Auckland), has returned from a visit to her mother, Mrs A. C. Cole, of Homebush. At the monthly meeting of the Masterton branch of the Plunket Society yesterday afternoon, a vote of sympathy was carried with Mrs Q. Donald in her recent sad bereavement. Members stood in silence. One of the few survivors of the pioneers who lived in the Raglan and Te Awamutu districts before the Macri Wars, Mrs Helen Thompson, died at the residence of her daughter in Auckland on Saturday in her ninety-second year. Mrs Thompson was a member of the first pakeha family to go to the Waikato district. Born in Norfolk, England, in 1847, she came to New Zealand in the ship Hamila Mitchell in 1853 with her parents and eight brothers and sisters. Her father was the late Dr Walter Harsant.

The death in Auckland on Saturday last of Mrs Nina Russell breaks a link in the chain which binds the present generation to those who came to New Zealand in the first emigrant ships. Mrs Russell was the last surviving daughter of the late Mr James J. Taine, one of- Wellington’s earliest merchants, who lived in Wellington Terrace for some years before his death. The late Mrs Russell was married to Mr Frederick Russell in St. Paul’s Church, Dunedin, on January 24, 1866. Mr Russell died in Melbourne in 1887. Mrs Russell leaves a family of six children. Her surviving brothers are Messrs Henry and Charles F. Taine, Wellington.