Deaths Of Islands People

Mr. E. 0. Sundin Mr. Eric Olaf Sundin, who died at Kavieng, New Ireland, late in October, worked for Burns Philp (SS) Co. Ltd. in Tonga, Fiji and Papua-New Guinea for 30 years.

He was born at Vavau, and worked for his employers there and at Haapai, before transferring to Fiji in 1941.

Mr. Sundin was the firm’s manager at Levuka from 1950 to 1959, and for a period was chairman of the Levuka Township Board. He went to Papua-New Guinea in 1959.

He is survived by Mrs. Sundin, and a daughter.

Mrs. P. M. Downs Mrs. Patrician Downs, a daughter 3f the late Dr. W. N. A. Paley, ?f Suva, died at Hutt, near Welling ton, NZ, recently. She is survived by aer husband and five children.

Lady Pilling

Lady Gladys Neville Pilling, only daughter of the late Mr. J. H.

Sarrick, well-known Suva lawyer and Fiji landowner, died in Kenya on November 3.

She was married in Suva in 1912 vhen her husband, Henry Guy Pilling, was a cadet in the Fiji Gov ;rnment.

He later became Assistant Colonial Secretary and Secretary to the Western Pacific High Commission.

Lady Pilling was an aunt of Mr.

Maurice Scott, of Suva, and cousins iving there are Mrs. Connie Har :ourt, Mrs. Olive Major and Miss [rene Milne.

Mr. M. Artack Mr. Matthew Artack, who was a Drominent Fiji sprinter in his younger lays, died at his home, Rukuruku, Dvalau, in October, aged 87.

Mr. S. J. Homan Mr. Sydney John Homan, manager >f the Mt. Hagen, New Guinea, branch of Steamships Trading Co.

Ltd., died at Mt. Hagen on October 12, aged 45.

He was well known as an active n-icketer, bowler, table tennis player md fisherman, and as a cricket official.

He is survived by Mrs. Homan.

Dr. V. Ivinikis Dr. Vladas Ivinikis, regional medical officer for Goroka, New Guinea, died in Sydney early in November, aged 56. He had gone to Sydney for medical treatment.

Dr. Ivinikis, a Lithuanian, joined the P-NG Public Health Department in 1950, and served in several areas before taking up his Goroka post in 1964. He is survived by Mrs.

Ivinikis and two married daughters.

Mr. T. Costello Mr. Thomas Costello, one of five brothers from Maryborough, Queens land, who lived in Fiji at some time or other, died in Sydney early in November, aged 83, He served for many years with the Queensland Railways and on his retirement went to Fiji.

He settled at Vatukoula, the gold field which his brother Pat played an important part in developing.

G. C. (Jos) Holmes Many Territorian visitors to the United Kingdom lost a friend there with the death of Mr. G. C. (Jos) Holmes on November 10, He was a W. R. Carpenter man for 30 years, the last 20 of them, before he retired in 1959, in the London office of the company, but his acquaintance with the South West Pacific went back to 1913.

Jos was a man who made friends easily in and out of business, and once made they never forgot him.

After his retirement they beat a path to his home in Leatherhead, Surrey, and later to his last home in Dorset.

Although few even of his closest friends knew them, his Christian names were George Christie. He was born in the south of England in 1892, son of a schoolmaster, but before World War I he was in the Australian outback working on stations at £1 a-week-and-keep and occasionally going to Sydney to spend the lot.

It was in 1913 on one of these Sydney sprees that a friend advised him to try the Solomons and for several years he worked there as a plantation overseer for Lever Bros.

He moved on to Port Moresby and at the time that the German assets in New Guinea were being liquidated in the early 1920’s he was in Rabaul for Nelson and Robertson Pty. Ltd.

N & R and Jos parted company for some reason and for half a dozen

years he lived in Sydney, returning to New Guinea for W R. Carpenter, then in its youth, at the end of the 1920’5.

His first wife died in Kavieng in 1937 and two years later he and his son Geoffrey left for Europe. They were in Amsterdam when World War II broke out. Geoffrey joined the RAF and was killed on a raid over Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Joe is survived by his second wife, Fanny; and by his daughter Heather, wife of Mr. H. P. Seale, District Commissioner New Ireland, P-NG.

Although Jos was English-born and spent the last 20 years of his life there, a large part of his affec tions remained in the South West Pacific among scores of friends. It was always a matter of great regret with him that he was never able to revisit New Guinea or Australia.

Mr. N. K. Wallis Mr. Norman Kingsbury Wallis, a Sydney businessman with many in terests in the Islands, died suddenly in November. He was 65.

Mr. Wallis, who was managing director of Wallis Bros, timber merchants, conducted extensive ex ploration for timber in the Solomon Islands, New Hebrides and New Guinea, during the years 1946-52, and had timber interests there to the time of his death.

He was producer-photographer of many documentary films on the Pacific including some for the Western Pacific High Commission, ABC, Department of Territories, as well as New Guinea and Solomons timber and mining companies.

Mr. Wallis was in the RANVR during World War 11, and com manded several ships in New Guinea and Pacific waters. He was a noted yachtsman.

Mr. and Mrs. Eric Sundin.