PERSONAL

Taranaki Daily News, 13 December 1932, Page 6

PERSONAL

The estate of the late Mr. Charles Rhodes, of Auckland, has been sworn at under £BO,OOO, states a Press Association message.

Mr. J. Battersby, Hamilton, arrived at New Plymouth on Sunday evening to fulfil an engagement with the Choral Society.

Visitors at the New Plymouth Rotary Club’s luncheon yesterday were Messrs. Bruce Lucas (Palmerston North) and W. H. Skinner (New Plymouth).

*Mr. K. J. Caverhill, accountant to the Wellington District Public Trust Office, has been appointed District Public Trustee at Masterton. Mr. W. A. Veitch, M.P. for Wanganui, has completed 21 years’ continuous service in the House of Representatives. He was elected at the poll taken in 1911.

An improvement in the condition of Squadron-Leader M. C. McGregor was reported by the Palmerston North hospital authorities last Saturday. The airman was stated to be a little brighter. Mr. Ewen McGregor, of Hamilton, father of Squadron-Leader McGregor, who has been in Palmerston since Sunday, returned north on Friday afternoon. Sympathy with Squadron-Leader M. C. McGregor, who . was recently injured in an aeroplane smash at Palmerston North, was expressed at yesterday’s meeting of the committee of the New Plymouth Aero Club. It was decided to Write to Mr. McGregor expressing the club’s hope for a speedy and complete recovery.

At the medical examinations recently held at Dunedin Mr. J. K. O’Dea, Hawera, passed his final medical examination in medicine, surgery, midwifery and gynaecology, obtaining his M. 8., Ch.B. degree. Dr. O’Dea has accepted the position of house surgeon at the Napier Public Hospital, to take up which position he left Hawera yesterday. The death occurred on Sunday at the residence of her son-in-law, Mr. H. Sinclair, Egmont Village, of Mrs. Mary Jane Price, relict of the late Mr. Richard Price. Mr. Price was associated with a number of local bodies in the district, including the Taranaki- County Council and the New Plymouth Harbour Board. Mrs. Price, who was 83 years of age, had resided in the Egmont Village district for very many years, and had many friends in Taranaki. Sympathy with the widow of the late Rev. Professor Hewitson, moderator of the Presbyterian general assembly, and the deep sense of loss felt with his passing, was expressed by the New Plymouth Rotary Club yesterday. Professor Hewitson had been the guest of the club on occasions, said the president of the club (Rotarian T. C. List), and he was one of the finest men it had been the club’s pleasure to meet. ' He was a great scholar, a literary man of wide culture and a great churchman. In his passing the church had lost one of its finest ornaments and the Dominion a great and distinguished son.

The golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. James Thomas was celebrated last week. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were well-known residents of Thames in the goldmining days. Bom in South Wales, Mr. Thomas arrived at Thames in 1868. He was in charge of mines in both islands at different times during the "boom” period of gold mining and was appointed mining .engineer to the London and Thames Gold Exploration Syndicate. Mr. Thomas in his younger days was a noted athlete, and took an active part in Rugby football, cricket, rowing, running and rifle shooting. He was a member of the Thames representative Rugby fifteen in 1875 and 1876, and in 1897 was selector of the first Thames team to beat Auckland at Thames. Mr. Thomas was a member of the Thames Borough Council, the Harbour Board and the Waihi Hospital Board. He was also a keen church worker. Mrs. Thomas is the third daughter of the late Mr. Samuel Gribble, who discovered perhaps the richest gold patch in the Albumia mine. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have a family of two sons and three daughters. There are 13 grand-children. The golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. William Dimery, of. Grey Lynn, Auckland, will be celebrated to-day. Mr. Dimery, who is the eldest son of the late Mr. William Dimery, of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, arrived in Auckland by the ship Ocean Mail on November 24, 1875, and for a time was employed on a farm at Mangere, a short distance from the farm on which the late Mr, Massey was at that time employed. Some years later he and the late Mr. John Rich established the carrying and contracting busi- ■ ness of Rich and Dimery, which was well known in Auckland some years ago. Mrs. Dimery, who was born at Auckland over 71 years ago, is the fifth daughter of the late Mr. Thomas Booth, an old colonist, who arrived in Auckland in 1859. The marriage was celebrated in the Franklin Road Primitive Methodist (now Methodist) Church on December 13, 1882, the officiating clergyman being the Rev. James Guy, -who is now living in Christchurch. Mr. and Mrs. Dimery have always been prominent church workers. Mr. Dimery is an enthusiastic bowler, being one of the foundation members of the Grey Lynn Bowling Club, and at present an active member of the Auckland Club. He was for six. years a member of the Grey Lynn Borough Council, .