LINKS WITH THE PAST

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3183, 28 May 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

LINKS WITH THE PAST

TWO LONG-LIVED WOMEN. The deaths were reported in March of two of the world’s oldest people. One was Mrs Arabella Bridgman, of Windsor, believed to be England’s oldest woman. She was 106 years of age, and for over eighty years had never slept out of her home. Maria Augusta Vaz, who has died at Vila Ruiva, Portugal, at the age of 115 years, never had to consult a doctor. She had lived in the same village for 100 years. Mrs Bridgman was a remarkable woman. She spoke French, Hebrew, and Latin fluently up to the time of her death| and read the Bible and signed her own cheques up to a few days before the end. Her last visit to London was made to hear Charles Dickens conduct his last public reading. A hater of many things modern, Mrs Bridgman refused to have gas or electric light installed in her house, which was always lighted by candles. She considered modem fashions disgusting. When she was 100 she went for a motor car ride, but afterwards preferred her horse-drawn carriage.