Date: Fri 22-Aug-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

Marian-Treble-99-years-old

Full Text:

At 99, Marian Treble Doesn't Count Years But Enjoys Each Day

B Y D OROTHY E VANS

It's not every nonagenarian who looks forward to greeting a third century in

one lifetime.

"If I live to see the year 2000, I'll have seen three centuries," Marian

Treble said Tuesday morning from the living room of her Knollwood Drive home.

Her daughter, Joan Treble, who comes to visit nearly every weekend from New

York, sat nearby to help welcome a visitor with a good strong cup of coffee

and a few biscuits.

A hairy, round poodle named Mindy scampered underfoot, visited the kitchen, or

sat in Marian Treble's lap when invited up.

"She's my little papoodle. I couldn't do without a dog I don't think. You can

talk to a dog where you don't seem to talk to a cat," Mrs Treble said fondly.

Her voice revealed a British accent still very much in evidence, even after

nearly three-quarters of a century spent living in the United States.

Born outside of London on July 15, 1898, Marian Lock Treble has been a Newtown

resident for nearly four decades. She moved here in 1959, shortly after her

husband, book publisher Arthur L. Treble, retired from his New York City job

with the London-based publishing house of Frederick B. Warne.

Mr Treble, who had been an Olympic runner in 1912, enjoyed a long career with

the Warne company, which made author/illustrator Beatrix Potter and Peter

Rabbit, as well as the name of Caldecott, household words in the field of

children's literature.

Arthur and Marian Treble met when she was a young stenographer also working

for Warne. They were married in New York's City Hall in 1922, a year after he

had moved to the firm's New York office.

Mr Treble had been away in India during World War I, she said, "but thank God

he was one of the ones who came back."

The couple lived on Long Island for 30 years, where they raised two daughters,

Cicely and Joan, and later welcomed two granddaughters.

After a brief period living in West Redding, they moved to Newtown in 1959.

Right away, she said, they knew this would be a place where they could retire

and be content.

"He'd read about it, you see, and I liked it very much from the start. It was

so quiet," Mrs Treble recalled.

Arthur Treble died in 1966, but the sense of quietness and peace around their

one-story home is still present. The house is set well back from the road, and

the yard is deeply shaded by the overhanging branches of several large maple

trees.

A stone wall out front is graced by ferns, periwinkle and a thick patch of

lilies-of-the-valley just to the left of the drive.

The large hostas, unfortunately, have not survived destruction by foraging

deer, Joan Treble remarked, and her father's tuberous begonias that once

thrived in the garden are long gone.

But the chickadees and a bright red cardinal make regular visits to the

feeders, which Mrs Treble and her daughter keep well stocked.

"I try to take a walk around the house once a day," Mrs Treble said.

"The squirrels manage to crawl across the screen and scrabble up into the

feeders," she said, and her daughter agreed those squirrels were "much too

clever by half."

Candles And Motor Cars

Despite her 99 years, Mrs Treble is only lately beginning to think about

getting reading glasses.

So far, she has been managing quite well with a magnifying glass and by

reading large print books.

"We are devoted users of the library," said Joan Treble.

Mrs Treble watches the news on television at noon, makes her own breakfast and

supper, and is visited by Meals On Wheels three times a week, which is a

"great help to her," Joan Treble said.

She loves listening to music, but her hearing is not what it used to be.

When asked what early memories she has of her childhood in the suburbs of

London, Mrs Treble was ready with several stories.

She was only seven years old when her mother and two siblings died, so she and

her brother lived "with relations," she recalled.

"I remember rationing during the war and reading in bed at night by

candlelight. We children didn't have so many toys, but we jumped rope - it was

called `skipping' - and we rolled our hoops.

"The girls had wooden hoops and the boys had iron ones. If a boy's hoop broke,

a blacksmith could fix it. For a girl, there was nothing you could do," she

said.

Early automobiles were a great source of excitement. If one drove by, the

children ran outside shouting, "A motor car, a motor car!"

Once, when she was about 10 years old, a scratch on her leg became infected

from her black stocking and she had to be "taken to hospital by horse

ambulance."

She stayed there for two months to recover from blood poisoning, she

remembers, adding, "They didn't have antibiotics then. They used hot

fomentations" to draw the infection out.

One distressing memory from World War I was of seeing a German zeppelin blimp

being shot down outside London by anti-aircraft fire.

"We watched it burn and everyone ran out and cheered. But I just couldn't

cheer. It felt terrible to think of those men going down in flames," she said.

Happier memories surrounded certain holidays like Christmas and Guy Fawkes

Day, when she and the other children would create a "guy" out of old clothes

and set a bonfire around it.

Then without pausing, she recited a childhood jingle:

Remember, remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plots,

I see no reason why gunpowder and treason

Should ever be forgot!

Mrs Treble's mind is brimful of the rhymes and songs of her youth, and she was

able to repeat many verses after only the briefest reminder by her daughter.

Even the date of her birth on July 15, St Swithin's Day, prompted a snatch of

poetry that Mrs Treble had committed to memory long ago.