GLOWING TRIBUTE PAID TO WIFE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18063, 25 January 1927, Page 10

GLOWING TRIBUTE PAID TO WIFE.

ROMANCE OF PUBLISHER IS SHOWN IN WILL. LONDON, November 22. Living in a brick-built house at Friern Road, East Dulwich, there is a grey-haired, gentle-mannered woman with clear brown eyes and aquiline features who is the perfect wife. This is the tribute paid to her in a clause of the will of Mr Alfred Holness, a publisher, late of Paternoster Row, who died in October last, leaving ovtr £20,000. Mr Holness records her “splendidly intelligent support, counsel and unswerving devotedness,” and her untiring labours for over 40 years, without which he could never have achieved success. As her grateful husband I venture to affirm that there can be but few parallels to the example afforded by her gentle life and influence, as a wife, as a mother, as a loving congenial companion and a true friend. The fragrant memories of her beautiful Christian character will assuredly be devotedly cherished long after both mother and father have passed away. On looking over these many years I can only testify that in sunshine or in storm my beloved wife has been my truest friend on earth, standing by me bravely in days of stress and difficulty, and rejoicing with me, too, when success attended our united efforts. Humble Beginnings. Apart from the romance of her married life, Mrs Holness revealed to a “Daily Chronicle” representative that her husband’s business success _ also possessed elements of the romantic. “He was born near Canterbury,” she said, “and came up to London to accompany a business mail to South America. But when he arrived it was to find that the man had gone bankrupt. < J “My husband was always very ener-1 getic, never without a book in his hand, and walking down Paternoster Row next day he decided to enter the publishing business. “I can't remember when or where I first met him. I seem to have known him all my life. And when we started in business on our own account he had only a small capital, and we established ourselves in a garret in Paternoster Row. ' . . . ‘ . “At that time we were living m this district—l have been in the house for 45 years—and every morning we went to the City together by the 8 o clock train. We dealt principally in Sunday school literature. It meant hard work and long hours There were times when we were so busy that we missed the last train home, and used to stay the night at an hotel. j Advice to Girls. It was the young wife’s duty in this business partnership to attend to the retail customers—a. duty only interrupted by the bringing up of a family of four. When Mr Holness retired in 1919 he had established a profitable business. “We were pretty successful from the start,” Mrs Holness confessed, “and had many ‘ups’ and very few ‘downs.’ ” Asked her views of the modern girl 1 as a wife, Mrs Holness summed up her philosophy thus: “They must pull with their husbands, and not against them.”