GIRL’S BRAVE STRUGGLE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 148, 26 June 1934, Page 9

GIRL’S BRAVE STRUGGLE

TAKING CHARGE OF FAMILY. MAGISTRATE SAVES HOME. “Like a chapter from Job,” was the comment of the magistrate at Willcsden, London, recently when he refused to allow tho local council to distrain on a family named Lever for rates. The magistrate came to his decision after hearing of tho brave struggle of a girl of 17 to keep the family. For 17 years, it was stated, the family lived in one of the largest houses at Willesden and paid £SO a year in rates. The father then had financial misfortunes and was compelled to move to a small house. A few months later he died suddenly from heart failure and the mother had a serious illness leaving her an invalid. There were four children of school ago and a daughter of 17, who took charge of the family fortunes. All that she had on her father’s death was. the. household furniture, and she had moved this to Westcliff-on-Sea, where she had taken a house and started a boardinghouse in order to keep her mother and brothers and sisters. She wrote to the court offering to pay the rates, which amounted to £25, in August, by which time she hoped to have made good. Some idea of the family’s changed fortune was given to a newspaper correspondent by the housekeeper, an Irishwoman. “When the blow fell after Mr. Lever’s death last October,” she said, “Mrs. Lever was prostrate, but Miss Doris took charge. Her idea was to establish a boarding-house here, but. of course, the season has not yet started, and we are still at a loose end “It seems a great shame. There are two sons, who used to be pupils at the Kilburn Grammar School, looking for work every day, and two younger daughters who were at pri”ate schools and are now at Hamlet Court Road Council School. “Miss Doris is very hopeful of success here. She is running .*JKe household and looking after the family accounts and doing it very well. These are changed days, hut I am glad 1 did not leave the family when the embarrassing times came. It is going to be a struggle, but there .is plenty of pluck in the family.”