SISTERS MEET AGAIN AFTER 44 YEARS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31248, 21 December 1966, Page 2

SISTERS MEET AGAIN AFTER 44 YEARS

Two sisters, who followed their husbands’ separate paths, lost sight of each other for 44 years. When Mrs E. Murdoch, of Red Ruth, Cornwall, arrived in Christchurch this week she recognised her older sister, Mrs J. Johns, of Greymouth.

Always “very close” as young people, the sisters kept in touch through letters. Mrs Murdoch had hoped to spend her golden wedding anniversary in New Zealand in two years, but her husband’s death last year changed her plans. “My two sons talked me intb coming,” Mrs Murdoch said yesterday. “I had an acquaintance sailing to New Zealand and the thought of having Christmas with my sister was just wonderful. I packed my bags and sailed three weeks later.”

Mrs Johns was “thrilled” to receive the news of her sister’s impending arrivaL “I thought we would never see each other again,” she said. In 1919 Mrs Murdoch married a captain in the Australian Army. After the war they returned to his homeland, but

with the offer of a position in England three years later, they “retraced their steps.” Their return to England coincided with Mrs Johns’s departure for New Zealand. With her three young children, she was preparing to join her husband who was working on the Otira tunnel.

In the intervening years their families have grown up and letters are filled with news of grandchildren. After Christmas, Mrs Murdoch will travel with Mrs Johns to her home on the West Coast. They hope to tour the South Island. Already Mrs Murdoch feels “quite at home” in New Zealand and she is looking forward to seeing the places her sister has written about.