DAUGHTER’S SACRIFICE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 115, 17 May 1930, Page 7 (Supplement)

DAUGHTER’S SACRIFICE

LOVE FOR BUND MOTHER COST OF OPERATION. LOOKING FOR A HUSBAND. A poignant story of a pretty old girl’s self-sacrifice and love for her mother lies behind a letter lately received by the Lord Mayor of Newcastle, England, requesting that he might find her a husband on the sole condition that tho man is willing to pay for an operation to her mother’s eyes. When an interviewer visited the girl at her home at Gateshead, it was to find that she had no regrets in taking the step she had done. “I am going to stand by my request,” she declared. She is a girl of medium build, with fair hair and blue eyes. They are eyes of determination.

The caller was usherd into the house, and there, sitting in front of the fir© with her hands clasped, was the mother. Sho is a fine-looking woman of S(J, but is now wearing blue-tinted glasses. Tho sad tale of this woman’s sufferings and hei daughter’s wish to help was then i unf< luod.

“We lived at Newburn for many years,” said the mother, and I am a well-known spiritualist, having given many lectures on the subjects in all parts of the district. But I have had a struggling time for about 18 years. I have had ten children. My sons aro living at Throckley, at Newburn, at Whitley Bay, at Gosforth, and in Canada. My young daughter and I are now living with my married daughter upon whom we are to a great extent de pendent. “When I gave my lectures I managed to get along somehow, but a year ago I was knocked down by a bicycle in Newcastle, and as a result of the shock my eyesight suffered severely, till I got in such a condition that I was blind. “I am now practically blind. I can just‘see a little light, but it is very very little,” she said sadly. “I cannot use my hands or do anything, and of course, I feel it terribly. “We have been to a number of places about my eyes, but without satisfaction. We have been to a doctor at Wylani, who has been my doctor for many years, and he told me that ho thinks he can restore my sight if I go through an operation. “But, of course, operations cost money. My operation, I expect, will cost about £3O. And we cannot d > any thing like that. All my children are too badly off to be able to help to this extent. They would be only too pleased t.o holp if they could. “Then my youngest daughter, who hud been working as a nursemaid in London, came back to see me eight months ago. Poor girl, she got. a dreadful shock when she saw me. But what made matters worse, through staying with me and looking after me, she lost her situation in London. “Now, she has done this. She has done it all on her own accord. Please, believe me, when I tell you that I did not want her to do it. It is just like selling her soul for me, isn’t it?” she asked somewhat pitiably. But she is a very good girl, and is determined to help me all she can. But I do not her to do this,” she repeated. The girl who was sitting near now interrupted: ‘I want to do it for my mother. She has always been a very good mother to me, and I cannot sit by and see her blind and suffering as she is. I have said I will marry anyone on the condition that ho will see my mother through this operation as far as ‘he cost is concerned. And I mean it. I air prepared to go through with it all.’'