CENTENARIAN’S DEATH
MR ANTHONY COORY
Mr Anthony Coory, whose death occurred yesterday at Gore, at the great age of 101 years, was a native of Mount Lebanon, Syria. He went to Australia with his wife more than 60 years ago and came to the Dominion in the nineties. He had lived in Dunedin practically all the time since his arrival in this country. Up till a few months ago he was a familiar figure in the city streets, and in an interview published in the Otago Daily Times last August he stated that he was still capable Of walking to the Town Hall and back with no more assistance than was provided by a walking stick. Mr Coory added that during his long life ne had enjoyed almost uninterrupted good health, and he still derived pleasure from a game of cards. He is survived by his wife and one daughter. -Otago Daily Times, 4/2/1943.
THRILL FOR SOLDIER
VISITS RELATIVES IN LEBANON
HAPPY WAR-TIME EXPERIENCE
Private J. A. Bacos, of Dunedin, now serving in the Middle East with the 2nd N.Z.E.F., experienced a great thrill when he was able to get leave and visit a small village in Lebanon to meet relatives of his mother, who left there 40 years ago to come to New Zealand. "I am writing to you to-night to give you some great news," he says in a letter to his mother. Mrs Bacos, of York Place. "Yesterday I went to Deir el Amar and saw your two sisters, my aunts. Najebie and Zaheyee, also Cissie and her family who were formerly in South Africa, and my auny Sheriffy, widow of your brother, Maghoul, besides, of course, all their families.
"I looked up the map and saw where Deir el Ahmar was, about six miles from Baalbeck. I went by truck to Baalbeck, arriving there about 9.15. Then I walked down the road leading to the Deir. You will know the road well. I walked for about one and a half miles, when I got a lift in a truck the rest of the way to the village.
"I didn't know my aunties' names at all, so set out to make inquiries. I asked some people if anyone could speak English, and they took me to a shop where the man could speak a little. I told him that I was a Lebanese, that my mother's name was Saada, that she went to New Zealand over 40 years ago, and that she had a sister in the village. That was all the information I could give him. He didn't seem to know, and, as he couldn't speak English very well, he said he would take me to a place where they could speak it well. So he closed his shop and 1 went with him.
"He took me to a house, and then a woman came into the room who spoke English quite well. I told her what I had told the man in the shop. Then she said: 'Your name is Joe Bacos, your mother's name is Saada, and your father's name Habib Bacos.' I was very surprised, and I said, 'Yes, that's right.' Then she put her arms round me and kissed me several times. It was Cissie. whom I thought still in South Africa. She left there five years ago. You will remember that I told you in a previous letter that I had written to her in South Africa. Then she told me you had two sisters in the village, Najebie and Zaheyee, so she went for them.
"After a while Najebie came and was overjoyed to see me. She kissed me, cried a little, and asked all the time how you were; — she hadn't seen you for so many years. Later Zaheyee arrived, and gave me a similar welcome. . . . You have no idea how thrilled I was to see my own two aunties, the first I have seen, the only two I have. I nearly cried myself. . . .
You have no idea how excited they were, and how they fussed over me. Later your brother Maghoul's widow came to see me. She spoke English quite well, and seemed to know most of the people back home. She asked after them all. I gave her all the news, find she was surprised to learn that old Mr Coory was still alive.'' (This was a reference to Mr Anthony Coory, who died in Dunedin at the beginning of February at the age of 101).
Private Bacos also described his meeting with cousins in Baalbeck, and said how delighted they were to see him. They had a letter written by his father, and had asked a number of New Zealand soldiers if they knew him. He, himself, had passed their place in Baalbeck several times, and had never thought for a moment that he had cousins there In Cairo he met a number of relatives of his father.
Before going abroad on active service Private Bacos was on the staff of the Public Trust Office. Dunedin. -Evening Star, 20/2/1943.
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