Later Life
Howard retired from politics at the 1969 election, after a lifetime of service to her community. The Labour Party had introduced a compulsory retirement age for MPs, which applied to Howard, who had already been showing signs of aging. Once retired, she became increasingly isolated and paranoid, on top of the onset of dementia and pneumonia that she had already suffered while still in Parliament. On a court order, she was eventually submitted to Sunnyside Hospital, a mental asylum. She died there on 23 June 1972, having never married. She is buried with her father, Ted Howard, at Bromley Cemetery in Christchurch.
Read more about this topic: Mabel Howard
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“When man has neither the strength to subdue his underworld powers—which are really the ancient powers of his old, superseded self; nor the wit to placate them with sacrifice and the burnt holocaust; then they come back at him, and destroy him again. Hence every new conquest of life means a “harrowing of Hell.””
—D.H. (David Herbert)