100 TOMORROW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27385, 10 May 1950, Page 8

100 TOMORROW

Mrs E. Keiinard RESIDENT OF DUNEDIN FOR 80 YEARS Mrs Elizabeth Kennard, of 19 Rutherfor street, Caverham, will be 100 years of age tomorrow. A centennial birthday is a great occasion—visitors, family parties and telegrams make it an exciting day—and Mrs Kennard is looking forward to it all with the keenest anticipation. When she was interviewed by the lady editor erf the Daily Times, Mrs Kennard was sitting up in bed, with a radio on the bedside table and a magnifying glass and the newspaper close at hand. “She likes listening to the football and some of the programmes,” said her two daughters, with whom she li-ves. “And she enjoys reading the Daily Times.” Of recent years she has had to give up her needlework but she usually gets up for an hour or so each day and retains a lively interest in all domestic affairs. Mrs Kennard recalled her arrival in Dunedin more than 80 years ago. She and her husband, the late Mr Richard Kennard, left their native Devon to board the sailing ship City of Dunedin and, after a fine voyage, landed at Dunedin on January 11, 1870. They were met by the late Mrs Lane, of Lane and Co., and stayed with her for a few weeks before taking the coach to Milton, where Mr Kennard joined his brother (who had preceded him to New Zealand) in business as blacksmiths. There they stayed for some time. Milton was a busy place for blacksmiths then: coaches and wagons continually passed on their way to the goldfields. Mrs Kennard remembers the gold coach with its armed police escort passing through Milton. “The fine horses and the wide crinoline skirts worn by the ladies. I used to wear one myself—the horrible things,” Mrs Kennard said.

After their return to Dunedin Mr and Mrs Kennard lived for a time in Maitland street, then moved to Caversham They were two of the foundation members of the Caversham Methodist Church. Their family grew up and were educated there. Of that family of eight, the six surviving children are expected at the family reunion tomorrow and with them will be five grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Mrs Kennard still enjoys a joke. When the lady editor complimented her on her fresh complexion she rejoined: “That will be the Devon cream and cider I was brought up on ” —and there, unmistakably, after 80 years in New Zealand was the authentic Devonian pronunciation of “ cider.” In her young days on the farm at Kingsbridge, where she lived until she married, there was a cider press worked in the old way with true horse power, and cream was plentiful. Last year Mrs Kennard heard from a distant relative in Devon and from the the editor of the Kingsbridge Gazette. It gave her much pleasure to feel that she was remembered in her birthplace although she has been a resident of Dunedin for so long. Mr Kennard was one of a family of eight, of whom seven followed the family occupation of blacksmith, some in Devon and some in New Zealand. The trade is still carried on by members of the families.