54 YEARS’ ABSENCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 197, 21 July 1937, Page 9

54 YEARS’ ABSENCE.

RETURN TO DOMINION

TOURISTS FROM U.S.A; Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, July 20. Returning to New Zealand for a short visit,"after 54 years’ absence, are two members of a party of American tourists, which arrived at Wellington t0 They are Mr G. Hemus, Colorado Springs, Colorado, and his sister, Mrs E S. Buttenvorth, Los Angeles, California. They spent their childhood m Auckland. Their father, Mr G. Hemus, was a member of the city council in 1880, and their grandfather, Mr B. Keane, was one of the early settlers in Auckland, coming out from Scotland in a sailing ship. He owned a brickyard and lime works, and operated a line of schooners between Fiji and Auckland. Mr Hemus is instructor in printing nt the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind, and his daughter is head of the music department. . 'Hie school is a State-supported institution with a 'faculty of 50 and w ith 500 pupils, whose ages range from six to 21 years. Mr Hemus said that since a few years ago all deaf pupils were instructed in lip-reading and were kept apart for four years from those who communicated by signs. Later they learued the sign language. Mr Hemus remarked that most of the smaller American towns had done away with street cars and substituted buses. In Colorado Springs three persons in every five owned a car, which they could afford to do, with gasoline at 15 cents a gallon.