HER SECOND CENTURY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 133, 7 June 1926, Page 7

HER SECOND CENTURY.

MRS. ANN WATSON. IN AUCKLAND INFIRMARY. The name of Ann Watson, the oldest woman in Auckland, is well known to every resident. For many years ehe has been an honoured guest at the old colonists' reunions, and the people love her because of her kindly womanly sympathies and the simplicity of her life. Born in humble circumstances, she never ] knew what it was to possess much of this world's goods, but she was contented with what she had. People in the locality where 6he lived turned aside • with due deference when they met the . little woman on the footpath, carrying . her well-known basket on her way to do her shopping.

Right up till the time when she celebrated her 100 th birthday, she did her own messages and errands. She had come through every phase of colonial life, and in her early days people had to think for themselves, which meant that their minds were a storehouse of all that is best and truest in human life. If consideration for the wants of others and a desire to do unto others as you would like them to do unto you means education, then Ann Watson's education was complete in the truest and best sense. She kept up bravely, taking the keenest interest in all that went on around her till well after her 100 th birthday, but the bad wet weather of winter, so trying to old people, which commenced so early, brought a strange depression upon her. After all, she was, very old, and she was commencing to realise it as she had never done before. She had had very little to do with doctors and medicine, but at last she got pains and aches which baffled the simple cures which she often used, and a doctor had to be called in. His verdict was that she would need much more attention and nursing than she had formerly had. The doctor is a man whose work lies amongst the old people of the city, and Mrs. Watson's case strongly appealed to j him. He knew of a place where she would get the best nursing and attention, and where she would find a home so long as she liked.

Mrs. Ann Watson.

Even at a hundred years of age and over, it is hard to bow beneath the rod, but Ann Watson's life had been one of supreme discipline all down through the years, and she agreed to do what was best, trusting with a firm faith in that Father who had brought her thus so far.

To have commenced the second century ! Ib given to few people, and the very thought of it brings a sense of loneliness with it, for aU old friends of youth are gone, and the centenarian feels alone. Ann Watson will now be eared for till the end of her days in tbe cosy wards of the women's quarters at the Auckland Infirmary. She will have every attention which devoted people can pay to her, and the people of Auckland whose care she is, will be glad that one whose life has been such an exemplary one down through a whole century of years is to be so well nursed and cared for in such a beautiful home.