Chch woman dies in 106th year

Press, 27 June 1987, Page 8

Chch woman dies in 106th year

Mrs. Mabel Mahala' Thomas 'died in Christchurch yesterday — just three weeks short of her 106th birthday.

Mrs Thomas was bom in Yarmouth, Britain, and started work at the age of 12. She led a life similar to . that shown in the television; .series, “Upstairs Downstairs,” working as a serving girl in a large house where she carried brass cans filled with water from the ground floor to the top floor where she did the washing.

She married at the age of 24 but her first husband died of consumption two years after the marriage.

Mrs Thomasworked again, looking after an elderly woman, and later became a house-keeper in 7 London before she saw. a picture of New Zealand that was to change her life.

She boarded a ship to New Zealand which berthed at Sydney where she worked at the People’s Palace. She arrived in Christchurch in 1913 and became head waitress at the People’s Palace in Manchester Street. It was there that she met her husband, Mr

Alexander Thomas. He was a guest at one of the tables she waited on. The couple married in Christchurch a year later, on March 8, 1914, and moved to Invercargill where they lived for four years. The couple had two children — Mr Alby Thomas, who died three years ago, and Mrs Phyllis Drake —• seven grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. The couple spent most of their married lives in Canterbury, living intermittently in Invercargill and on the West Coast. .... - Mrs Thomas lived for 10 years with her daughter and: soh-in-law after her husband died, before needing more specialised care and moving into Holdsworth Home in Christchurch, where she stayed for two years.

She. moved into Churchill Home for the Aged two years ago, aged 103, .1 and remained sprightly until, a few weeks ago when she suffered ill health after surgery..

Apart from her longevity, Mrs Thomas will be remembered 7by . her friends as a woman who lived an interesting and full life. ;. : ?