SEEKING MOTHER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21736, 27 February 1934, Page 6

SEEKING MOTHER

STOWAWAY'S STORY INQUIRIES IN MELBOURNE PROSPECTS OF SUCCESS Customs officials in Melbourne stated recently that they believed they had traced the existence in Melbourne of the mother of Roy Penberthy, the stowaway in, the Mariposa. They worked fast-* on' the day the steamer left Melbourne for Los Angeles, via Sydney and Auckland, in an endeavour to check her movements since she was last heard of in 1915, but the Mariposa sailed before she could be located, and Penberthy went- with the ship. Penberthy will be handed over to the immigration authorities at San Francisco whore, he says, he stowed away in the Mariposa on January 9. But he says he is determined to return to Melbourne. He said that he would not rest until he had secured a job on a vessel which would bring him back again. "I have never seen my mother to remember her," Penberthy said. since I have known of her existence communication between us has been restricted. In England, where I was for 15 years, the people I lived with always placed every obstacle in the way of anything in the nature of letters between us. I know that correspondence t-o me was burned. Seven Years' Quest "The people I lived with in England were not relatives of mine. I have carried on the search for seven years, and it will not finish now. Ever since I have been a child I have planned to meet my mother. I thought 1 had found a way when I boarded the Mariposa at San Francisco, but fate was against me. I have had some knocks since I battled on my own as a boy of 15, but nothing has made me feel as hopeless as this set-back."

Penberthy said that he last heard of his mother in 1915, and he gave her name as Airs. Mabel Mear, and her address as Chapel Street, est Melbourne.

Customs officials ascertained that in 1915 Mabel Penberthy married Lionel Mear at the Methodist parsonage, North Fitzroy, Melbourne. The then address of Mrs." Mear was# Church Street, South Melbourne —an address bearing sufficient resemblance to that given by Penberthy to make it feasible that his recollection, after 18 years, if inaccurate, was in good faith. At any rate, it seems clear that Penberthy, assuming his bona-fides, was mistaken in his recollection of his mother's address as Chapel (or Capel) Street, West Melbourne. There are more than a score of houses in the West Melbourne section of Capel Street .—there is no Chapel Street, West Melbourne- —and *no jMts. Mear or Mears is known to have lived there.

Penberthy had no identification papers of any description. He may be deported to England, after the Mariposa's arrival at San Francisco, if his claim to English birth can be supported. .If he is refused permission to land in England, as he has been in Australia and will be, under the immigration laws, in the United States, his position will be a tragic one. He will have nowhere to go. Penberthy's Story Elaborating on the story told to customs officers in Sj'dney, Penberthy had previously said that he was 22, single, and was born at Camborne, Cornwall, England. He had been parted from his mothef when four months old, and had not;seen her since. The last time he heard from her she had re-married and was at Capel Street, West Melbourne. That was 15 years ago. His father bad died before he was born. He claimed that he was a radio engineer, and a member of the National Radio Institute of America, and that he had entered America from Canada without identification papers.

"I boarded the Mariposa at San Francisco," Penber-thy said. "At 11.30 a.m. on January 9 I walked up the gangway, getting past the checking officer by telling him that my uncle was a passenger. A passenger assisted me to' Honolulu, giving me food and a bunk. He eren allowed me to use his razor. But he disembarked at Honolulu, and a day after the ship sailed I gave myself up.''