Strange Family Re-Union

Waipukurau Press, Volume XIV, Issue 45, 19 April 1930, Page 6

Strange Family Re-Union

GIRL .MEETS FATHER IN BUS. EACH UNKNOWN TO OTHER. A journey on a long-distance bus running into London of a father and daughter who were unaware of the relationship each with the other has brought about a romantic family'reunion. The father, a. seafaring man, had been absent from England for over sixteen years. He had supposed his wife must be dead, and she had thought she must be a widow. The girl. Kathleen Mason, is their only child. On the journey toward London an elderly man, whom she had observed with interest beside her, had remarked: “I see we have both got the same name,” indicating the label of an attache case she carried. From his occasional remarks the girl gathered that before the war he had lived with his wife jn London. While with his ship in Australia when the war broke out he heard that a daughter had been born to him. “’She would be about your age now, I suppose,” he said. He had since been unable to trace his wife or get replies to his letters. It was Mr William Mason’s wanderings that had given rise to his wife’s fears. His ship was ordered to New York. There he became ill. and he transferred to an American ship trading to South America. In the Argentine he forsook the sea for health reasons, and because of his dislike of war conditions at sea, and went inland to work on a remote estancia. Mrs. Mason, with the long absence of news of her husband, left the tiny flat they had occupied in London, and went to Glasgow. The daughter, who recently started life as a lady’s maid, was travelling from Reading, where she had been with her mistress. When she next saw her x' • -Ji mother she related her experience, from the description the girl gave, Airs Mason felt convinced that the man was none other than her long-lost husband. The daughter remembered that Mr. 'Mason had mentioned tthat he was going on-to Brighton hotel for a holiday before returning to the United States. With this none-too-promisirig clue mother and daughter hastened to Brighton, where after a day’s anxious search, the. one was reunited to her husband, and the other found a. father she had never known.