BACK FROM THE DEAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18885, 6 December 1924, Page 2 (Supplement)

BACK FROM THE DEAD.

FATHER AND SON MEET.

A TROOPSHIP ROMANCE.

SOLDIER'S WAR INJURIES.

Father and son, each believing the other to have died many .years .ago, recently met at Southampton, both alive and well. The death of the father at Johannesburg was reported in the London newspapers on February 7. 1916, and the son, reported missing in Franco in 1917, was later assumed to be dead. A few weeks ago troops arrived at Southampton to join a steamer which had been chartered to take them to the Near East'. Among them was Frank Hannaway Rowe, a drill instructor in the Royal Air Force, who had been stationed at Netheravon. Ho knew that his father had once lived in Southampton, but he had read in a newspaper an account of his death. Having an hour or two to spare before sailing, he visited the street where his father used to be in business as a herbalist. Afterwards ho called at a licensed house near by, and in the course of conversation revealed his name. " Why, I have got a photo of your father."" said the wife of the licensee, and showed it to him. ■" 1 suppose you know he is dead," said Mr. Rowe.

"It must have been very sudden," replied the landlady. " He died about eight years ago," said Mr. Rowe. " That's curious," was the landlady's comment. " Why, I saw him last Monday, and he appeared to be quite all right." . . ...-., " I Thought You Were Dead!" Mr. Rowe was incredulous. Ho repeated that. he had read an account of his father's death, but he was persuaded to. go to an address near.at hand, and there he met his father, hale and hearty in spite of 85 years of a strenuous life. " But I thought you were dead, too," said the astonished father. W. Hannaway Rowe, sen., had two sons in the war. The younger was killed, and Frank was wounded a third time in 1917. Later he returned to France, and news came that he was reported missing. Eventually his wife was given a widow's pension, the War Office being unable to say more than that be was " reported massing." It is now known that, wounded a fourth time, he was taken to a hospital in' France, and remained there about two years, his memory a complete blank. Eventually Mr. Rowe recovered, turned up at his wife's home, where he was shown cuttings from several London papers indicating that his father had died in February, 1916. at Johannesburg. Ho accepted the reports without question, as other members of the family had done,

Mr W. Hannaway Howe, the father, achieved some considerable prominence as '• Sequah," a famous quack doctor, to whom people flocked in thousands to have, their teeth extracted. He adopted strange methods—he believed in a brass band and a big drum—but he claims to have healed thousands of people in all parts of tho world.