Brother And Sister Meet Again After 56 Years

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30045, 1 February 1963, Page 11

Brother And Sister Meet Again After 56 Years

In 1907 two brothers, both in their early 20’s, came across tlhe Tasman from Melbourne to see the Christchurch Exhibition in Bagley Park. They left another brother and three sisters in Melbourne. Both settled in New Zealand, and yesterday at the Ohristchiurdh airport one of them saw their eldest sister for the first time in 56 years.

He is Mr G. CoMaster, of Kaiapoi, and the sister he went out to meet is Mrs Sarah Plant, of Melbourne. For a moment Mirs Plant seemed undecided about which of two men there was her brother, but she quickly decided. “He looks good-oh to me.” She said. Mr Collister, now 78, came to Christchurch for a working holiday with Ms brother Albert. He worked at livery stables at Waimate for six months, then came to Christchurch and wrote to Ms family, telling them to expect Mm on the next ship.

But when he went to Kaiapoi to say goodbye to his brother he agreed to help on a Kaiapoi farm for a month while the sick family re-

ouperated. He was there for three yearns. Then he worked with his brother on the roads, and at the woollen mills. He married a Kaiapoi girl, “but she would never go across to Australia so I had to stay.” Mr Colilister said his sister, wlho is now a widow, decided on the spur of the moment to come to see him. She would stay wiitih Mm for at least a month.