OBITUARY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7092, 28 August 1901, Page 2

OBITUARY.

We sincerely regret to learn of the death of the young daughter of Mr and Mrs W. Billingham which occurred last night. The little girl contracted rheumatic fever after a painful illness of five months' duration, passed quietly away as stated. The funeral will take place: at 2 o'clock to-morrow afternoon.

Mrs Reeve, of Foxton (says the Post), whose death at the age of 81 is announced to-day, was one of those plucky women who braved the risks and hardships of venturing into strange country with the pioneers of New Zealand sixty years ago, having come out to Wellington in the ship Slain Castle in the beginning of 1841. Her name was then Mary Fairbrass; but soon after arrival here she was; married to Mr William Reeve; For 24 year the deceased lived at Johnsonville after which she was at Foxton for 26 years. She leaves seventeen children, all of whom are married, and her further descendants number 50 grandchildren and 46 great-grandchildren. Mrs Reeve was an institution wherever she lived, for when sickness occurred in any home with wiich she was in touoh, there, all through her day of activity, she was to be found helping to fight it. A settler; well-known throughout the Wellirigton provincial district,: Mr Jas. Silbery, better known as "Jimmy Smith," has just died at Te Horo, near Otaki. Deceased came to the colony as a sailor and a whaler. He made several trips to Australia and New Zealand in the very early days, and in 1840 ran away from the boat he was engaged on and settled in Maoriland. For some years he lived at the Lower Hutt, and afterwards he spent a considerable time in Otaki, Rangitikei (where Feilding now stands), and in the district where Palmerston North is now located. - About '51 he returned to Otaki, in which district he resided until the day of his death, at the ripe age of 83 years. He was (says the Otaki Mail) a most active man for his age, and frequently rode in from Te Horo to Otaki until quite recently.