HER LAST REWARD.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20561, 12 March 1935, Page 8

HER LAST REWARD.

Girl Guide’s Endurance and Fortitude. DEATH AFTER TRIUMPH. Saturday’s rally for Lord and Lady Baden-Powell was a red-letter day for most of the Guides, a day all eagerness, all excitement, but for one it was a golden day, one of tremendous incident, and the last of a life-time. Miss Gladys Emma Cleverley, a Post Guide, and an invalid for thirteen years, who received at the Showgrotinds on Saturday from Lady Baden-Powell a certificate for endurance and fortitude, became unconscious on Sunday morning and diet! early yesterday morning.

Miss Cleverley was born thirty-four years ago, and lived at Papakaio, North Otago, and in Southland. She contracted rheumatic fever at the age of nine, but so independent was the little girl that she insisted upon studying at home for a special proficiency examination to enable her to attend the Technical School. Here she fitted herself for a business life, and for a few years, interrupted by intervals of illness, she followed her business career as a stenographer, showing such ability that for a time she was manageress of Adams Bruce, Ltd., at Oamaru. But when she was twent} r -one, her family having moved to the North Island, she entered the Waikato Hospital, and was considered a hopeless case. For thirteen years she struggled against a relentless disease, fully conscious of its nature, and yet still determined to live every moment of life. She was a Post Guide for the past five years. Although in the last few her illness reached a dangerous stage, of which she understood the significance, Miss Cleverley, unaware that any certificate was to be presented to her, or that she was to be singled out in any way, made a courageous effort to attend the rally as an ordinary Girl Guide—and succeeded at great cost. Unaware, perhaps, of the significance of her own part in this poignant little drama, Lady Baden-Powell passed down the line of invalids, to shake hands with each, and, then returned to honour this Guide. She shook hands again, and said, “ Have this framed and hang it in your bedroom,” and then moved on. And the certificate will be framed and hung, just too late to give pleasure to its gallant recipient.