The dead tell tales
Photo: Kathryn Mercer Historian Lyn Williams looks at who’s buried in our region’s cemeteries. hospital. The Ranui was new, and had been launched from Auckland shipbuilders Lidgard and Co on December 7. The launch was built of kauri, was 49 feet long and powered by a 63-horsepower engine.
Skipper Geoffrey Harnett, married with six children, was very experienced and had navigated the Tauranga bar hundreds of times. The Marine Court found no fault with the master or owners, but found that the capsize was caused by a single huge wave.
The four women on board, aged 19 and 20, were single – they came from Gisborne, Wellington and Palmerston North. Some families lost more than one member: Ivan and Lloyd Penwarden of Mangakino were brothers; Allan and Ivan Moore of Hawke’s Bay were brothers; John Carlsen of Auckland died with his son, Olaf; and Albert Bartz, of Tauranga, died with two sons, Gladwell and Idris.
Four of the victims were from the Waikato: 26 year-old butcher Jack Keith Williams of Dinsdale; Llewellyn Davis, a 23 year-old unmarried fitter and turner of Huntly; Lindsay Norman, aged 46, married, of Te Hoe; and Ernst Unger of Hamilton, single, aged 24, newly graduated from dental school in Dunedin and due to start work at Wellington Hospital on January 3.
Jack Williams had married just six weeks earlier; his wife, Fay, decided against the boat trip at the last minute. Jack and his brother-in-law, Des Millar, had been building a house for the newlyweds at 124 Rifle Range Rd, Frankton; by coincidence, the house was bought almost two years later by another, unrelated, Williams family – mine. The story of Jack Williams’ death became part of my family’s history. Jack Williams was buried in one of the returned services areas at Hamilton East Cemetery.