OBITUARY.

Wairarapa Age, 28 May 1936, Page 4

OBITUARY.

MRS. MARY MASTERS GAWITH. The death occurred quite suddenly at “Glenmore,” Upper Plain, yesterday, of Mrs. Mary Masters Gawith, Widow of the late Mr. C. F. Gawith. The late Mrs. Gawith, who was in her 83rd year, was a link with the days of early settlement in the Wairarapa. A daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. B. P. Perry, of Penrose, she was brought to this district as a young child by her parents when they first settled here and took up the Penrose property. On the journey over the Rimutakas from Wellington she was conveyed on a pack on the back of a working bullock. The late Mrs. ‘Gawith spent the whole of her life in the Wairarapa and to the last took a keen interest in all that went on within its borders. She had a wealth of interesting memories of the early days of the district, some of them of the Native hostility which for a time gave the pioneer settlers a good deal of anxiety.

Taking a very kindly interest in all with whom she came into contact, Mrs. Gawith was long associated with various activities for the good of the community. She was an active member of a number of church organisations and even in very recent times her interest and sympathy, particularly with organisations of young folk, were made manifest in a very practical way. Mrs. Gawith was a foundation member of the Masterton Sketch Club, and the art of painting, in which she had no mean skill, was one of her absorbing interests to the last. She was a life member of the Plunket Society and also of the Navy League. Mrs. Gawith was predeceased by her husband, Mr. C. F. Gawith, who was the first practising solicitor in Masterton, in 1911. Her surviving relatives, to whom much sympathy will be extended in their loss, include two sons, four daughters and ten grandchildren. The sons are Messrs 8. R. Gawith and A. C. Gawith, both of Masterton, and the daughters are Mesdames K. M. Ellison, Havelock North; B. V. Skeet and H. G. Moser, both of Masterton and Trevor Thomson, Auckland. The interment will be* private, but friends are invited to attend a funeral service in iSt. Matthew’s Church tomorrow at 10 a.m.