HALE AND HEARTY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23353, 19 November 1937, Page 6

HALE AND HEARTY

AN AUCKLAND CENTENARIAN EARLY RESIDENT OF DUNEDIN (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, Nov. 18. Still retaining a lively interest in current world affairs and manifesting an alertness remarkable in one who, as a young woman, saw the city of Dunedin and other parts of the Dominion in the making, Mrs T G Marlow, of Epsom, will celebrate her 100th birthday to-morrow. Born in London in 1837, the year in which Queen Victoria came to the throne, Mrs Marlow has survived the complete reigns of four British monarchs, and is well versed ir, the activities of the present Royal Far ’y. In the year 1865 Mrs Marlow was about to embark on the illfated London, but changed her plans and went to Melbourne in the Sussex. and continued on to Dunedin in the Alhambra. Mr Marlow first worked with a drapery firm in Dunedin and later with Messrs Ross and Glendining and Bing, Harris and Co. As travelling representative of the last-named firm he travelled throughout the Dominion, calling frequently at Auckland. In IP°’ the couple came to Auckland, where Mr Marlow joined the firm of Archibald Clark, and later they were engaged in farming for 10 years on a 1000-acre block at Katikati. Then followed a period of 20 years during which Mr Marlow was on the clerical staff of the Waihi Gold Mining Company at Waikino. He was well past 80 years of age when he retired, and died in February, 1930.

Princes street, Dunedin, when Mrs Marlow first knew it, was a mere cutting through Bell Hill, and she remembers the building of First Church, the laying out of the Octagon, and the erection of the Town Hall. A neighbour at the time was the Rev. Dr Burns, pioneer minister of the Otago settlement. Awake each day at about 7 a.m., Mrs Marlow spends her days actively, retiring at 9 p.m Possessed still of perfect eyesight, she is able to perform the most intricate and finest needlework and other fancy work. She is occasionally shown around the city in motor drives, and is even acquainted with the housing activities at Orakei. Although one of the pioneers, she is still alert and active. An. indication of the distance into the past to which her memory can travel was given by a remark she passed at the time of the Coronation. Her comment on the fireworks display at the time was that it was nothing compared with the display after the Crimean War