AFTER FORTY YEARS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21781, 21 April 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

AFTER FORTY YEARS

SON TRACES RELATIVES AGED MOTHER'S GREAT JOY A quarter of an hour after the Melbourne Herald published the story of a New York man, John Jackson, who wrote to the Postmaster-General asking him if he could locate his family, who used to live in Buckhurst Street, South Melbourne, "in about 1895," a relative of the family telephoned to say that the Jacksons were now living in Thistlewaite Street, South Melbourne. Mrs. Harrietts Jackson, mother of John Jackson, was subsequently located. She was overjoyed to hear the news that her son, whom she had not seen since lie went to sea more than 40 years ago, and had not heard of in the past .'3O years or so, was living in 322 13th Street, Brooklyn, New York. Mrs. Jackson is an elderly woman, past her 80t.h year. She said that her son John once worked for a Melbourne firm. When his services were dispensed with ho said that he was "tired of hanging around the house," and a friend of the family, who was a captain of a freighter, asked him if he would like to go. to sea. John Jackson liked the idea and decided to go, the captain telling Mrs. Jackson that he would bring her ton back to Mclbourno on the return trip. John Jackson had his 21st birthday at sea while on that trip. Just after the ship had left Liverpool on the return voyage it sprang a leak and made back to port. Jackson then wandered about the wharves, according to letters he wrote to his mother in Melbourne, and by a strange coincidence met one of his uncles, who took him to his grandfather near I ondon. In the next letter Jackson said that he was going to America. Later still he wrote to say that he was in the American Navy. Then suddenly the letters stopped and John Jackson passed out of the family life. Ho ■is now 60 years of age. \