Deaths Of Islands People

Mrs Wan Kong One of the best-known pioneer Chinese residents of Papua-New Guinea, Mrs. Wan Kong, died at the Angau Memorial Hospital, Lae on December 20.

At her funeral service, conducted by the Rev. H. Brown of the Lutheran Mission, were her two sons and seven surviving daughters whose names read like a P-NG Chinese community Who’s Who.

They are Mr. Wan Jin Wah and Mr. John Wan; Mrs. Chin Hoi Meen, Mrs. Bernard Chan, Mrs. Tam Po Yin, Mrs. Liu Chiong Fatt, Mrs.

Tong Pung Ming, Mrs. Woo Ping Chiu and Mrs. James Fong.

Mrs. Wan was born in Canton and went to Rabaul with her husband in 1910 when New Guinea was still a German colony. Mr. Wan died in Hong Kong in 1940; a daughter also died there before the war and a second was killed in an air raid at Adler Bay, New Britain, during the Japanese occupation in 1942.

Over 100 of Mrs. Wan’s de scendants now live scattered all over Papua, New Guinea and the Aus tralian States.

Mrs. Walter Hickson Mrs. Walter Hickson, wife of the well-known Noumea theatre pro prietor, died on January 3, after several months illness.

Formerly Caledonian, Germaine Deruelle, Mrs. Hickson married her Australian husband 47 years ago.

Much beloved by Noumea cinema enthusiasts, whom she greeted regularly each night either at the family’s drive-in or two city theatres.

Mrs. Hickson is survived by her husband, married son Bob and her daughter, Mrs. Georges Lavoix.

Mr. E. L. Lancon The death occurred on Norfolk Island on January 1 of Eugene Laurent Lancon, better known there and in the New Hebrides as Jim Lancon. He was 67.

He was born in the New Hebrides where his father was a planter on Epi and one of the first to introduce Tonkinese indentured labour. Jim Lancon was educated in New Cale donia and at Riverview, in Sydney.

He then worked with his father and eventually inherited the family planta tions.

However, he later sold out, and joined the New Hebrides Condo minium Government as Superin tendent of the Works Department. In

1946 he joined Burns Philp (NH) Ltd. and served in that company until his retirement in September, 1969.

Mr. John Stegler, BP manager in Vila, said of him at the time of his death: “He personified the spirit of the Condominium. He was a wonderful man—he got on with everyone and everyone liked him.

It didn”t matter to him what nationality, race or religion another man was.”

Mr. G. H. C. Carter The death occurred suddenly in Lae, New Guinea, on January 2, of Gordon Henry Charles Carter, aged 57. He went to Port Moresby as a draftsman with an oil company in the early post-war years but, with his wife, Joan, later set up a photographic and importing business which they operated in Port Moresby for some years.

In 1960, he joined the P-NG Public Works Deparmtent and was attached to the Water Resources Branch in Lae when he died. He is survived by his wife and two small daughters.

Harry Oscar Freeman The death of Harry Oscar Freeman at Anelgauhat, Aneityum in the New Hebrides, at the age of 73 recently, marks the end of an era which extends back into the whaling days and severs a link between the Freeman family and Aneityum which has lasted nearly 100 years.

Harry Freeman was the youngest son and last of seven children of the late Frederick and Marguerite Freeman, both of whom are buried on the family property at Aname.

Harry was buried on the plot also with his two eldest brothers.

Born in Prussia in 1842, Frederick Freeman came to the Pacific as a young man. He arrived at Aneityum as a member of a whaling ship and later worked ashore on a whaling station there. Subsequently he and his Wife settled at Port Patrick where he conducted business as a planter and trader. He had seven children, all of whom survived him.

Harry became well-known in the southern part of the group and was knowledgeable about Aneityum custom and legends and was well versed in the bird and insect life of the island. The late Miss Evelyn Cheesman. the entomologist, who visited Port Patrick on collecting expeditions in 1930 and 1955, wrote a delightful account of Harry in her book. Who Stand Alone, pub lished in 1965.

Mr. E. J. Hart News of the death in October in London of Mr. E. J. Hart, has just recently been received. He was a member of the British Colonial Ser vice and was stationed in Fiji between 1927 and 1946 as an accountant in the Public Works Department.

He retired in 1953 to live in the UK.

He was born in Surrey, and was 68 at the time of his death.

He leaves a widow, Thelma, four daughters and a son. All five children were born in Suva and the girls at tended school there.