NEARING HER CENTURY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 226, 24 September 1927, Page 11

NEARING HER CENTURY.

MRS. W. HOWARD. NINETY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY TO-MORROW. GRANDMOTHER LIVED 103 YEARS. While Hobbs, Jupp, Jardine and Co. are making big scores in the English county cricket championships, there is in New Zealand a fast-diminishing band of old pioneers who are within a few of their century. One of these notout "batsmen" is Mrs. W. Howard, who will celebrate her ninety-seventh 'birthday to-morrow. Mrs. Howard, who lives with her son-in-law, Mr. H. Le Houx, at 51, Burnley Terrace, off Dominion Road, was- born on the outskirts of Dublin in 1830, her maiden name being Duggan. As a young woman she came out to Melbourne with an aunt, and it was while in Victoria that she met and married her husband, an Englishman. From Melbourne Mrs. Howard returned with her husband to Ireland, and later the couple lived in London. Not liking the English fogs, Mr. and Mrs. Howard decided to come to New Zealand, which at that time, the middle 'sixties, was attracting large numbers of immigrants from the Old Country. They left Gravesend on April 28 in the clipper ship Norwood (Captain Bristow), bound for Auckland. In the Southern Ocean the Norwood struck a hurricane, losing her quarter-galley and topgallant bulwark, besides suffering other damage, but Mrs. Howard can now remember but little about the voyage, which occupied 104 days. On arrival in Auckfand Mr. and Mrs. Howard took lodgings in Wyndham Street, but they soon removed to Richmond Road. After a year or so of "city" life they went to Whenuakite, Upper Whitianga, where Mr. Howard turned his hand to farming. Since 1897 Mrs. Howard has been living with her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Lβ Houx. Remembers Victoria's Marriage. Although Mrs. Howard is still wonderfully active for one whose years are only a few outside the three-figure total, her memory is now not nearly as good as it was a year or so ago. She ■ can remember, however, that her mother and elder sister went to England to see the marriage of Queen Victoria In 1840, seven months before Auckland was founded. Up till four months ago Mrs. Howard, when she was not busying herself about the scullery, which she regarded as her own particular domain, was an almost constant reader. With her books and newspapers she was always na PP v > and she took a remarkable interest in world affairs. Now her sight will not allow her to do much reading, but she gets a lot of pleasure from the gramophone and her canary. Mrs. Howard comes of "a long-lived Her grandmother, she recalls, lived to the grand old age of 103 years. Of Mrs. Howard's family of two sons and two daughters, one son, Mr. J. B. Howard, and one daughter, Mrs. Le Houx, are still living. Mr. Howard was born on the ship Norwood off the Three Kings, and was named Bristow after the master of the vessel. There are eleven grandchildren and two great-grand-children. Mrs. Howard would very much like to resume acquaintance with any of her fellow passengers by the Norwood, if any of them are still living.