A CENTENARIAN.

Evening Star, Issue 11890, 19 May 1903, Page 8

A CENTENARIAN.

Mrs Margaret Neave, the well-known centenarian, died at Guernsey on ’April 4 in her 111 th year. Mrs Neave, who had -.ravelled much in her younger days, ana w»s a most interesting personage, spoke several languages, and had a good memory of many stirring incidents which occurred during her lifetime. She was a woman of wealth, and resided at her charming estate in St. Peter’s Port with two nieces. She began to fail in November last, and death was due entirely to senile decay. Mrs Neave, who had no children, was a widow of over fifty years. A correspondent who had, the privilege of meeting Mrs Neave on her 105 th birthday, writes: “ I was more than astonished at the vitality of the old lady. I called on her with some Guernsey friends on her 105 th birthday. She received her guests sitting in the middle of her drawing room, surrounded by admiring visitors and innumerable presents and telegrams tn tables and chairs around her. Her ruddy color and particularly bright eyes struck me, while her gracious manner and quick intelligence showed how full of life she then was. ‘Do you know/ she said* in the course of a brief conversation, ‘f am 105 years old to-day. I can well remember en•■ertaining in this very house Napoleons generals before iTie battle of Waterloo, ana. what’s more, the great Marshal Ney was among them. Curiously enough, the ground at the time was covered with snow, a very rare occurrence in this ' island.’ ” Rouge Huyshe, the residence of Mrs Neave, was a mile and a-half from the parish church, yet as recently as 1895 the Ijrave old lady used to walk every Sunday to the church on the arm of her nephew, General Harvey, who_ at that time was living with her. Until just after her 101st birthday this old lady might be seen almost daily weeding in the garden in front of the house at Rouce Huvshe.