NINETY=SECOND BIRTHDAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 December 1941, Page 5

NINETY=SECOND BIRTHDAY

CELEBRATED BY MRS J. M. McKAY.. GATHERING IN MASTERTON TODAY. Mrs J. M. McKay, of 17 Villa Street, Masterton, is celebrating her 92nd birthday today, there being a large family gathering. Mrs McKay was born in Liverpool, England, in 1849, and arrived in New Zealand with her husband, Mr Hugh Mclntyre McKay, and four of her family, at Port Chalmers, in 1884. After having resided for a short period in Palmerston South and Lyttelton, Mr and Mrs McKay came on to Masterton in the latter part of 1884 where Mrs McKay has lived ever since with the exception of a few years in Pongaroa during the pioneering days in that district, her husband being one of the settlers who formed the Masterton Reform Special Settlement. Mr McKay died in 1901,

Mrs McKay’s family consisted of five sons and four daughters. Three of her sons saw considerable service in the Great War. one son, Andrew, paying the supreme sacrifice, being shot by a German sniper while leading his platoon into action in France shortly before the Armistice. The members of the family who are alive are Mrs F. Shaw, Otaki; Mrs H. J. Ashworth, Wellington; Mrs J. G. Mackay, Wangaehu; and Messrs George, Masterton; John, Pongaroa, and James McKay, Halcombe. There are 21 grandchildren, and 15 great grandchildren.