TWO MOTHERS-IN-LAW

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6857, 12 March 1929, Page 4

TWO MOTHERS-IN-LAW

JUDGE WHO WAS HAPPY WITH BOTH Most people cannot live with one mother-in-law, but there is a man in Australia who was happy with two! How the late Mr. Justice Woolcock, of Queensland, not content with the presence of one mother-in-law in his household, brought the mother of his second wife to his home, is a story of domestic amity rare in the chronicles of these hurried modern days. When a student at Sydney University, Jack Woolcock fell captive to the charms of a beautiful blonde, a Sydney girl, whom he married soon after he became established at the Bar. In their Brisbane home the young barrister and his wife lived in ideal domesticity. The social and domestic wheels of the Woolcock household always ran smoothly, even after the gentle hostess had entered upon a long, slow decline in health. The ideal mother-in-law, Mrs. Harper, became house-manager years before her daughter died, and, after the bereavement she remained in charge of the home and the weakly younger daughter. It is proverbial that men who have been truly happy in marriage rarely remain long in widowerhood. Jack Woolcock’s second choice was Ida Withrington, one of Brisbane’s loveliest girls. Neither she nor her husband would agree to Mrs. Harper’s departure, and the household continued in all its oldtime cheerfulness and goodwill, when Mrs. Withrington, the second mother-in-law, was added permanently to the menage. When the infirmities of old age began to afflict “Granny” Harper, and the boisterousness of the second family was likely to disturb her nerves, Mrs. Woolcock had a pretty_ bungalow built and furnished for her in a pleasant corner of the grounds, and she remained there carefully tended and constantly cheered until she died. At G 8 years of age Mr. Justice Woolcock died suddenly.

No judge has left behind him a juster record, and none a history of a better choice of mothcrs-in-law.