Sarah
Hawkins Genealogy Site
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Taunton Courier. Bristol and Exeter Journal, and Western Advertiser. Wednesday 24 Jan 1923
Page 1 Column 6
SOMERSET CENTENARIANS.
TAUNTON WOMAN'S INTEREST IN EGYPTIAN DISCOVERIES.
An ardent Egyptologist at the age of 100 is surely a rarity even among philosophers and archæologists, who generally live to a good old age.
Mrs. Harriet WHITE, of the Mill House, Staplegrove, Taunton, who has just celebrated her 100th birthday, has a considerable fund of Biblical lore and Hebrew history.
Seen on Saturday by a Press representative, the old lady said she is keenly interested in Lord CARNARVON's find in the Valley of the Kings at Luxor.
She showed the reporter a photograph of a grandson, an officer in the West Somerset Yeomanry, who was killed in the war, standing amid the ruins of what is obviously the very temple erected at Luxor by King Tut-ankh-Amen.
Mrs. WHITE's faculties are wonderfully well preserved, and she enjoyed her birthday cake and glass of champagne, in which beverage her health was cordially drunk.
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Another Somerset centenarian, Mrs. Mary Ann PATTEN, has died at Muchelney, near Langport. When she attained her 100th birthday last February, Mrs. PATTEN sang a number of old Somerset songs reminiscent of old-time festivities.
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The funeral took place at Ruishton village churchyard on Saturday of Mrs. Sarah HITCHCOCK, widow of Mr. George HITCHCOCK, of Henlade, who was in her 99th year. She had been very active up to three years ago, when she fell and fractured her leg, but otherwise retained her faculties.
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HALE AT 108.
NORTHAMPTON NATIVE'S CLAIM TO AUSTRALIAN RECORD.
Mr. Thomas THOMSON, who was born at Northampton 108½ years ago, and is now living at Ballarat - Australia, has issued a challenge to the rest of the Commonwealth to produce an older man.
He is in good health, and every Sunday walks half a mile to church.
At a recent mayoral reception he climbed the stairs as well as a man of 70.
In 1920 he was presented to the Prince of Wales, to whom he remarked: “I was a lively young fellow of 23 when your great-grandmother was crowned Queen.'
<NOTES: Mrs Harriet WHITE is Harriet COUSINS daughter of Robert COUSINS and Elizabeth SLADE, married William PESTER and Lawrence WHITE
Mrs Mary Ann PATTEN is Mary Ann CHISLETT daughter of Solomon CHISLETT and Sarah PALMER, married Robert PATTEN>