MARRIED 60 YEARS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 115, 9 February 1938, Page 6

MARRIED 60 YEARS

Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Price, Petone CONGRATULATIONS OF KING From their Majesties, King George and Queen Mary, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Price, of 20 Armidale Street, Petone, who were married 60 years ago yesterday at the parish church, Llanover, Monmouth, AA’ales, received a cable, extending to them “hearty congratulations and good wishes.” The Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon M. J. Savage, and his colleagues and Sir Michael Myers, P.U., the deputy to the Governor-General, also tele; graphed their good wishes aud congratulations. . , At their home where they have resided continuously for 35 years, Mr. and Mrs. Price met a representative of “The Dominion.” They are now 84 and 82 respectively. They came to New Zealand in 1885 and settled at Petone. They have lived there ever since. Their six sons are also resident at Petone. Until 17 years ago, when he retired, Mr. Price was a moulder at the railway workshops. , _ n Mr. Price recalled that less than oO years ago following floods he had gone down the present main thoroughfare, Jackson Street, on several occasions m a boat rescuing persons in tbe lowerlying parts of Petone. They were found on those occasions standing on tables and other furniture and were rescued through the windows. The flooding of the Hutt River was the reason for some early feeling between Lower Hutt and Petone, said Mr. Irice. Petone people formed a stopbank on the boundary between Cuba Street and the vicinity of Dr. Perry’s old residence on the Hutt Road near AVakelield Street. When the river flooded this stopbamr threw the water back into Lower Hutt. Early in the life of the stopbank some Lower Hutt residents dug it through, but after that more moderate counsels prevailed and the Hutt River Board was formed to carry out the excellent work it began at once and had continued thereafter. ri t When Mr. Price first came to Petone there were only 60 to 70 votes cast in municipal elections'; to-day the figure is approximately 7000. The railway workshops, now at Lower Hutt, were then on a site where the present Todd Motors assembly factory now stands near Petone railway station. Mr. Price had some 50 fellow employees at the workshops when he started there; to-day there are 2000 employees. Close friends of Mr. Price in the early times were Mr. George London and Mr. David McKenzie, former mayors. Though Mr. Price took no part in public life, he worked actively for the establishment of of the Petone AA’est School. He recalls how Mr. McKenzie and he in their zeal for collecting signatures for a petition for a school worked late at night and often obtained the signatures, in bed, of persons who had already retired. Mr. and Mrs. Price have one daughter, Mrs. J. de Rosa (nee Misw Alice Price I. Palmerston North, and six sons, Messrs. Joseph, Ernest, Thomas. Caleb. LleweiIvn and AVilliam Price, all of Petone. They have 20 grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren. They were fortunate in having about them yesterday all their family for the diamond wedding celebration in the house in which they had spent so many years of their lives. Mrs. I rice was formerly Miss Rosa Edmonds.