ROMANTIC MEETING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 71, 23 February 1932, Page 3

ROMANTIC MEETING

OPERA SINGER AND PLANTER. AUCKLAND, Feb. 22. When Mrs Anne Margaret Lewis Mellor, in New York, decided to go for a pleasure cruise in tho yacht Stella Polaris she little guessed that she would not return but would, within a few weeks, be married in Fiji and hastening. through New Zealand with her husband to Jive in Tahiti. Mrs Mellor is an opera singer under the name of Madame- Valdi. On the yacht she met Mr Charles Cutler Curtis, a planter of Tahiti, who had been in New York. When he decided to return home in the yacht instead of by ordinary means, friendship soon ripened, and it was not long before the couple announced their engagement. Then came the problem of how to get married on congenial soil. Tahiti was ruled out as French. It was decided to wait until Pago Pago was reached, but the captain shied clear of ‘ Pago Pago on account of infantile paralysis being reported there, so on they fared to Apia full of anticipation. But, alns, a wireless message informed tho captain that the harbour was unsafe because of heavy seas. So once more the course was shifted and the bow pointed for Suva. Landing on Friday week, the couple applied for n special license, but red tnpo delayed them. By Saturday morning difficulties were overcome, and at noon at the American Consulate the Registrar-General married tho pair in the presence of several fellow-tourists, including Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, of the American Museum of Natural History, and Dr. Brewer, Sur-geon-General of tho American Expeditionary Force to Europe, and several leading Americans from the yacht. Mr and Mrs Cutler left Suva by the Aorangi Inst Thursday afternoon, arrived at Auckland yesterday afternoon, and an hour later left by special ear for Wellington, where they will join the Monowai for Tahiti to-morrow afternoon.