WIDOW'S WINDFALL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19061, 4 July 1925, Page 2 (Supplement)

WIDOW'S WINDFALL.

A LONELY MAN'S FORTUNE. BEQUEST OF OVER £41,000. GRATITUDE FOR KINDNESS. COMPANION-HELP'S REWARD. A lonely man's gratitude, for the care bestowed upon liirn by his companionhelp was rovealed when the will was proved recently of the late Mr. George Parkin Cooley, of Mansfield Road, Nottingham. The whole of his fortune of over £41,000 is left to Mrs. Jane Holt, a widow, who resides in a modest house somo 50yds. away in Huntingdon Street. Mr. Cooley had no near relatives, and tho more remote ones, it is said, had not shown great interest in his welfare. Six years ago he engaged Mrs. Holt to look after the house. Sho continued to livo in her own home, but went to her employer's house daily to tidy up. She also went with him as companion on more recent travels, and tended him in the illness from which ho died. "He always said he would make me a lady," Mrs. Holt stated, "but I had no

idea he would leave me so much. He scarcely used the house except for sleeping in, and would not have a fire lit for a year at v a time. He called it the stores. I used to take him a glass of hot milk in tho morning, and he would have some coffee later and lunch at the Constitutional Club."

Mrs. Holt has been engaged in sorting Mr. Cooley's papers with the assistance of a friend. Since the announcement of her good fortuno she had received piles of letters from all over the country. Mrs. Holt paid a tribute to tho goodness of heart of her benefactor. "If he would not have a fire in his own house, ho insisted on me having a good one in mine," she said. "When lie came for a cup of tea he would often bring firewood hidden under his cloak."

Although Mr. Cooley's house passes to Mrs. Holt she does not propose to occupy it. She has set her heart on the eroction of a bungalow in the garden, leaving the old house available for sale or rental. Mrs. Holt is a native of Strat-ford-on-Avon. Her husband died some years ago.

Mr. Cooloy was a member of a Northampton family; and in his youngfcr days served in the merchant service. Before the war ho travplled extensively.