OLDEST RESIDENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 100, 24 October 1940, Page 16

OLDEST RESIDENT

WANGANUI'S NONAGENARIAN

AEROPLANE RIDE AT 90

Visiting Auckland at present Is a re-j markable old lady, Mrs. Jessie Watt, of Wanganui, who is looking forward to her 100 th birthday on May 15. writes I the "New Zealand Herald.'7 J Mrs. Watt is the oldest resident orj Wanganui, for she has lived there, with one short interval, for the past 78 years. She was born in Glasgow, and came to New Zealand in 1862 to join a brother who had settled at Wanganui. Soon after she married the late Air. Andrew Watt, a farmer in the neighbourhood. During her earlier married years war was being waged intermittently in the districts round, and the family several times had to remove into the town for security. However, their homestead was never harmed by the Maoris. Mr. Watt served for a time in the colonial cavalry volunteers. TRIP TO AUCKLAND. Of Mrs. Watt's eight children, only four are now living. Since her husband's death about ten years ago, at the age of over 90, she has resided with friends at Wanganui, preferring not to leave the place, although none of her descendants are living there. She lately made the journey to Auckland by train with a friend to visit a son, Mr. G. H. Watt, of Golf Road, Titirangi. Having been up in an aero-j plane on her 90th birthday, she seri-! ously thought of going south by air j liner, and decided against it merely! because she would have had to land at New Plymouth and go on by rail, j Few people, on meeting her, would j imagine that she was over 80. Although ; now rather deaf, she hears quite as 1 well as most nonagenarians. Most rej markable are her powers as a walker.; She still prides herself on keeping upi the almost lifelong practice of taking j a daily walk, which is still of very fair | length, although not the five miles or iso that she once used to do. She attributes her longevity in part to inheritance and in part to regular exercise and never eating anything but the plainest food. She has 25 grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.