PERSONAL ITEMS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 25 July 1928, Page 6

PERSONAL ITEMS.

The appointment lias been under the Valuation of Land Act, 1920, of 'Mr Alan Good as a, member or the Assessment Court for Taranaki. Mr. Geo, Russell and Colonel G. Barclay,, of Wellington, who officiated last evening at a Masonic, function, are among the guests at the Central Hotel.

Bishop Oleary travelled to Auckland from Hamilton in a hammock suspended in the train. He .stood the journey well. It is expected that he will have recovered sufficiently to attend the Eucharistic Congress at Sydney in September (states an Auckland Press Association message). iMr W. H. Christie, of Wanganui, has been engaged as assistant artist by the Ilawcra Orchestral Society to sing at its next concert on August 6. Mr Horatio Nelson will be Mr ‘Christie’s accompanist. In order to mark the great- service given by Mrs. M. J. Goodson to the cause of music, in Hawera, it has been resolved by the committees of the Male Choir, ‘Operatic and Orchestral Soceities to co-operate in a farewell social after’ the Orchestral Society’s concert on Monday, August G.

Old re.sieclnt-s of Hawera will learn with regret of the death some days ago at Auckland of Mr. IV. E. Dive, for manv years’ a leading settler of the district. Mr. Dive’s homestead was at-the end of what is known as Dive’s Avenue, now the residence of the Misses Good. Mr. Dive owned a large area of land from the ’ South Road to the sea, known as Ramanui. He was one of the early settlers, and was closely associated with the- life’ of the town in those far-off days- of 40 odd years ago. One of his sons is Mr. Bradshaw Dive, Mayor of Tauranga, and formerly of Eltham and M.P. for Egmont.

Bound on an Emnire tour. Sir John Russell, director of the Rotbamsted Experiment Station, England, will arrive at Auckland on July 31. He plains to spend 18 days in New Zealand examining various phases or agricultural problems'. After two days in Auckland Sir John Russell will leave- on August 3 for Hamilton. On the following day he will visit the Government Experimental Farm- at Mamaku, and will later proceed to Rotorua- Other places to be visited comprise Palmerston North, Wellington, Nelson, and various- other South Island centres. He will’ leave New Zealand on August 18. . Sir John is at present making an intensive tour of Australia.

The passing of Mrs. May Ann Wells, widow of the late Alfred Wells-, and mother of Mr. J. M. Wells, at Ca.stlecliff on Monday, at the age of 102, removes from Wanganui its oldest identity.; In spite of her great age, deceased retained all her faculties, and was able to take a. keen interest in everyday occurrences. ' Her 103rd birthday was due on September 16. She was horn in Ewell, in the County of Surrey, and there spent her early days. Her father kept the Spring Hotel at Ewell, a noted hostelry in the coaching days of England and on the- main road from London to Brighton. Deceased- well, remembered the hells tolling when Ring William TV died, and she saw Queen Victoria before the latter came to the throne. Mrs. Wells’s mother died at a comparatively earlv age. and her father married again. Her stepmother had previously been to Australia. and- opened the first school in Sydney. She obtained a grant of land in wlmt is now the Sydney business ,areu v hut the title of what is now valued in millions was lost.