Deaths Of Islands People

Setareki M. Koto One of the last links with the old ijian Native Lands Commission that orked under Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna as broken on July 2, with the death : a Fijian authority on customs and nd ownership, Setareki M. Koto.

He joined the office of the District ommissioner, Lau, under Dr. St. ihnson before the outbreak of World r ar I, and later joined the Native mds Commission and worked with e late Ratu Sir Lala for several sars. He retired for medical reasons st before Ratu Sir Lala retired.

But he was re-employed because : his extensive knowledge and was ill working on a difficult and com icated task at the time of his death.

Mr. J. L. Mitchell The death occurred at Ramon, mbrym, New Hebrides, recently of ihn Leslie Mitchell, a New Hebrides oneer, and senior British resident in ic New Hebrides. He was 77.

Mr. Mitchell had first visited the ew Hebrides at the turn of the mtury, when on his way to the riomons, but in 1904, at the age of ), he began work for his uncle, Mr. . Zeitler, who owned a plantation 1 Ringdove Bay, on the island of pi. In his early years he traded om island to island, buying copra, indalwood and cotton, and running ie plantation. Later he acquired one f the former Hagen properties at amon and settled there permanently.

Mr. Mitchell was a popular and mch respected identity, who had fends in all communities because of is hospitality and interest in others. lr. Mitchell had visited Australia nly a short time before his death.

Mrs. Marie Keesing The death occurred in tragic cir umstances in California on July 13 f Mrs. Marie Margaret Keesing, 52, )e widow of the Pacific expert Pro per Felix Keesing, Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, alifomia, who died from a heart hack on April 22.

Mrs. Keesing’s body was found ia nging by a clothesline from a tree lear her house on the Stanford

University campus.

Police were told that Mrs. Keesing, dio was New Zealand-born, had been •espondent, and under medical care, l n? e Professor Keesing’s death HM, July, p. 145).

The late Mrs. Keesing met her husband in New Zealand when he

was studying at the University, and they went to Stanford in 1943.

There are two sons, Donald and Roger Keesing, and a foster son, Ole Holsti.

Mr. H. van Pel The death occurred in Holland in July of Mr. H. van Pel, who only recently had resigned as the South Pacific Commission’s Fisheries Offi cer. His death is reported elsewhere in this issue, and a longer report, with photograph, about Mr. van Pel’s career was published on p. 55 of July PIM, following his resignation.

Mr. J. Flemons The death occurred in Nadi, Fiji, in July of Mr. Joseph Flemons, who had operated a chemist shop at Nadi since 1948, and who was one of Fiji’s more colourful personalities.

Mr. Flemons was born in England, and after qualifying as a chemist set off to see the world. He worked in Peru and in the silver mines of the Andes. He later spent 20 years in Japan. He went to Fiji in the 1930 s and first joined Burns Philp as a pharmacist. Although more than 80 he was still running his own efficient business at Nadi at the time of his death.

Mr. Robert Austin Malone The death occurred in New Zealand in July of Mr. R. A. Malone, a former Treasurer and Collector of Customs in West Samoa (from 1938 to 1940) and a West Samoan Public Service Commissioner (from 1950 until his retirement in 1955). He was 62.

Samuel Sailele Ripley The death occurred in California in July of Samuel Sailele Ripley at the age of 78. Born in American Samoa, he was educated in Apia and worked there for a time before leaving for the US in 1908, where he later became prominent in com munity life in Richmond, California.

After World War I, Mr. Ripley re-visited Tutuila, and protested at what he called “the Kaiser-like methods of the US Naval Govern-

merit”, and protested to the US State Department. When he again visited Tutuila in 1921 the Navy prevented him from landing.

His sister, Mrs. Helen Wilson, still lives in American Samoa, and a nephew is Mr. E. F. Paul, prominent Apia businessman.

The late Mr. J. L. Mitchell.