SIXTY YEARS MARRIED

Evening Star, Issue 23355, 26 August 1939, Page 13

SIXTY YEARS MARRIED

MR AND MRS D. YOUNG CELEBRATE DIAMOND WEDDING FORTY YEARS A DAIRY FARMER During the past 12 months celebrations of marathon marriages have been comparatively common in Dunedin, and to-day another has been added to the list. At 77 Stafford street Mr and Mrs David Young are celebrating their diamond wedding. Formerly of Hooper’s Inlet, where Mr and Mrs Young ran a dairy farm for 40 years, the couple are now living in happy retirement. Some 40 guests were entertained at dinner to-day, and a huge wedding cake, bearing the magic inscription “ 1979-1939,” was cut as part of the proceedings. The guests included members of the family and very close friends. Congratulatory messages were pouring in all morning verbally from friends and neighbours, and by means of telegram. Mr and Mrs Young were married by the Rev. Alexander Gregg at Portobello on August 26,-1879. Mr Young, who is approaching his ninety-first birthday, and looks as youthful as a man 30 years younger, came to New Zealand with his parents in the ship Storm Cloud. His father, who had been an overseer in England, became a policeman in Dunedin. Dunedin was very quiet in those days, as most of the younger men of tho city were away in the hinterland prospecting for gold. After a fortnight of hopeless inactivity Mr Young’s father and an associate with whom he had become friendly, became “fed up ” and retired from the force. Mr Young, sen., was then fortunate enough to be offered a job more to his liking, being made overseer of the prison labour which was making a cutting through the Octagon and forming Stuart streeet. Later on lie decided to undertake dairy farming on tho Peninsula, establishing himself at Portobello. In those early days, said Mr Young, Dunedin was anything but a comfortable ci£y to move about in. The streets were very muddy, and it was not uncommon for one to have one’s boots sucked from the feet through the grip of mud. Most buildings were of clay, or merely tents, though most of the latter represented a floating population on its way to the goldfields. The decision to settle down the Peninsula did not mean a trek along roughly-formed roads over bare hillsides. Then the Peninsula was thickly clothed in bush, and it was not an easy matter finding a way to Portobollo. However, tho family got there, and (hat of all a mud hut was built to accommodate them. Later the bush had to be cleared to provide grazing for the cattle. Mrs Young, now in her eighty-first vear, was formerly Miss Mary Jane Kerr. She was born in Maitland street in 1859, her parents having come out on the Jura. Her father later took up dairy farming at Portobello, and it was there that she met Mr Young. After her marriage and the purchase of a farm at Hooper’s Inlet Mrs Young went in for making butter, and _ she was highly successful as an exhibitor at the Portobello and city shows. Sometimes she won as much as £2O at a show, and she was always considered a champion. . Mr Young never dabbled in Peninsula politics. “ I was always too busy,” he said. “ Dairy farming was my life, not politics. I* exhibited cattle and homes from time to time at the Portobello Show, but otherwise I did not take part in public matters.” Mr and Mrs Young have six children, 26 grandchildren, and, two great-grand-

children. One of the sons—Mr Joe Young—died about 12 months ago as a result of wounds received during the war. To-day both these people are very hale and hearty, moving about without the aid of any sticks, and they were not wearing spectacles this morning when a ‘ Star ’ reporter called upon them. It was difficult indeed to credit that ho was 91 and she 81.

Ltd., Australia, and which are subject to second-period import licenses, will be placed by the company. The hold up of steel supplies started in June, when it was announced that, because the Reserve Bank would give no guarantee that sterling would be available in respect of the import licenses issued for the second period, no shipments would be made by the Broken Hill Proprietary and subsidiaries unless payment could be made in Australia. In a subsequent statement in Australia the explanation was made that it was considered that continued shipment on the basis of deferred payment would virtually amount to a loan to New Zealand of capital which the industries concerned could better use to their own advantage. Australia is practically an exclusive supplier of steel to the building trade, which has suffered from the hold-up. The stocks hold by merchants for the engineering trade are very low, and there is some evidence that work by this industry has also been affected by the scarcity. Indeed, urgent representations on its behalf had already been made to. the Government*