Oxford Woman 100 Today

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31672, 7 May 1968, Page 3

Oxford Woman 100 Today

“I’m the only one in my family to go to three figures and I think I’ve worked harder than any of them,” said Mrs Elizabeth Butters, of Rangiora, who will celebrate her hundredth birthday today in the Oxford Hospital

Mrs Butters, who has been a patient in the Oxford Hospital for the last two years, has lived all her life in North Canterbury. Bom at East Eyreton, the second of three daughters of the late Mr and Mrs H. Chapman, Mrs Butters has three sons, six grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Her mother arrived in New Zealand at the age of five, only eight days after the First Four Ships. Mrs Butters’s father arrived in the early days of the Canterbury colony also, having come with an uncle from Tasmania. Her great-uncle took up 50 acres of land at East Eyreton, giving her father the use of about 10 acres. “I went to school at East Eyreton—that was the only schooling I had—and I’ve worked hard practically ever since.” Mrs Butters was married at 21 to Mr H. Butters, who died in 1918, and after living and

working for a time near her parents at East Eyreton, they shifted to Rangiora. Later they bought 20 acres at Ashley, but when Mr Butters died she disposed of this to live in Rangiora. “I don’t know whether people today are any better off for all they’e got,” said Mrs Butters. “What people had in the early days they stuck to until they got something better.” Mrs Butters’s three sons, William (Christchurch), Cyril (Rangiora), and Lester (Wellington), and a large number of her family are expected for her birthday, and hospital staff are putting on a special birthday dinner for the occasion.