DIAMOND WEDDING.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 10 August 1917, Page 4

DIAMOND WEDDING.

An event, very rare indeed in any 'oommunity, was celebrated at the i foresters' Hall last Wednesday, when ,Mr and Mrs Jft. M. J. de St. Laurent i commemorated the sixtieth anniversary lof their wedding. A large number of relations and friends gathered to offer congratulations. It is noteworthy that of twelve children all were present but two. The old couple were married in 1857 at Wellington by the late Rev. John Moir, one of the earliest ministers in that city. Rev. E. O. Blamires, in proposing the health of the bride and bridegroom, said that at wedding functions it was'usual to wish long life, but on this occasion they could offer congratulations on the fulfilment of the wish. He said that Taranaki was famous for its hale and hearty old folk, and at an old folks' j service held occasionally it was noticeable that great records could be put up. On behalf of .relations and friends he offered hearty congratulations. Rev. H. B. Gray proposed the boys absent at the front. In the course of his remarks he said that Mr and Mrs Laurent had four grandsons in the fighting line, besides numerous other relations. Among other toasts enthusiasfically honored wa6 "The Franco-British Alliance,," responded to by Mrs Blamires. In her speech 6he referred happily te the fact that Mr Laurent was of French, descent, while his wife wae from the borders of Scotland, a happy augury for the permanency, of the entente oordiale. la the evening a social was held., at which a large number of friends were present. A good programme wae given, the muaio being supplied by Moosman'e orchestra. Mr Laurent was born in 1827, at Malen, in France, and; graduated for the army, in which he held a commission as Lieutenant in a Zouave regiment, seeing active service in North Africa. He was present in Paris when the great Napoleon's remains were brought to France from St. Helena and inteired in the Arc Triomphe, his .regiment being one of the guards of honor at the ceremony. .He left France in 1853, and after a year in the States came to New Zealand in 1854. Mrs Laurent was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1837, the eldest daughter of a nautical man, Capt. W. Scott. She came to New Zealand in the early fifties, and with her husband' shared" the strenuous life of the early colonists in Wellington, in the days when, as the old couple can tell," from the rising around behind the seashore, they could easily count the number of dwellings on the beach.