DEATH AT 107

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22852, 6 October 1937, Page 13

DEATH AT 107

RESIDENT OF SYDNEY MRS. SARAH MUSGRAVE OLDEST AUSTRALIAN SYDNEY. Oct. 5 The death has occurred of Mrs. Sarah Musgrave, of Auburn, a suburb of Sydney. She was aged 107 and was reputed to be the oldest inhabitant of Australia. She had lived in New South Wales all her life. Mrs. Musgrave, who possessed all her faculties, died in her sleep. An outstanding example of the virile pioneers of the Australian bush, Mrs. Musgrave celebrated her 107 th birthday anniversary on May 5. She was one of an early family of the Young district, being born on the Burrangong homestead, near Sandy Creek. She was the eldest daughter of the late Mr. John White who, in 1834, became bushed between Marengo and Burrangong and died from starvation and exposure. Mrs. Musgrave, who made her first visit to Sydney by bullock dray, published in 1926 a book of reminiscences rich in incidents of bygone days. On the eve of celebrating her 107 th birthday she had one complaint. Her children and relatives, she said, kept too strict a watch on her and prevented her, to us- j her own words, from "sneaking out." "There is a lot of fun in this world for me yet, and I have no intention of missing it," she said. "I am as happy as anybody else, I have not an enemy, and people still like coming to see me." She smiled mischievously when the interviewer asked ■ if she thought she would see out her 108 th birthday. "You listen to me, young man," she said. "I am here until I pass. 110: then I will be quite prepared to go to Heaven." Mrs. Musgrave believed explicitly in religion, but she did not make a fetish of it. She read and wrote letters, and used only one pair of normal spectacles. Occasionally, she admitted, she chafed under the necessity of being forced to remain in bed, but, she added: "You can tell the world that being 107 is not as bad as some might think." Mrs. Musgrave was a severe critic of the modern young woman. She said she had never used powder in her life and had never had an argument. Nor had she ever danced. If she could live her life over again, she said, she would go on the land, where she would never see young women with painted fingernails or short skirts.

"One of the reasons I have kept my health is that I never danced," she said. "Dancing twists girls' insides. There would be less sickness among them if they were not gallivanting about at dance halls until midnight and after." Aeroplanes were another of Mrs. Musgrave's bugbears. "If God had wanted men to fly, He would have given them wings," she said. "It is tempting Providence."