Deaths Of Islands People

The Rev. John Metcalfe The Rev. John Rudd Metcalfe, ho died in Melbourne on January was for 37 years a Methodist lissionary in the Solomon Islands.

He was in his 81st year and retired om the mission field about 15 years »o to live in Melbourne.

Mr. Metcalfe was for many years ationed on Choiseul Island. On the direment of the veteran Methodist lissionary, the Rev. John F, Goldie, e became chairman of the Methodist fission district and lived at the fission headquarters at Roviana, few Georgia, during the difficult ost-war reconstruction period.

During the war from 1942 to 1943 e assisted coastwatchers in his area.

In 1958 he was awarded the OBE Dr “valuable contributions to the Dcial and educational advancement f the Solomon Islanders”.

Judge Charles Macaskie Judge Frederick Cunningham lacaskie, British judge of the New [ebrides Joint Court in 1955, 1958 nd 1959, died in Queensland re ently. He was 81.

Mr. William Stone The death occurred in Honolulu n January 13 of Mr. William tandish Stone, a long-time American esident of Tahiti and author of everal books on that and the urrounding islands.

Mr. Stone was born in the United Itates in 1907, the son of a naval ifficer. Much of his youth was spent n such places as Manila, Nagasaki ,nd Guam, After studying at Harvard Uni rersity, Mr. Stone became chief pilot >f an aviation school and made many ;harter trips into Mexico from fucson, Arizona. Later, he studied aw and opened a practice in Tucson.

In 1935, after selling a short tory to Vanity Fair magazine, he vas stricken with polio, and went o Warm Springs for treatment.

Vhile there, he saw the Charles Gable film version of Mutiny on the Bounty. This film, ogether with Alec Waugh’s book Hot Countries, led Stone to visit Fahiti in the hope that swimming in ;he warm lagoon waters might benefit lis condition.

He stayed in Tahiti and nearby Huahine for six months before re turning to the US. However, within a few months he was back in Tahiti

for good. He married a Huahine girl, Teuru, and settled down to make a living as a writer.

Mr. Stone published four books, The Ship of Flame (1945), Tahiti Landfall (1946), Two Came by Sea (1953) and The Coral Tower (1959).

Tahiti Landfall, which is largely autobiographical, is generally re garded as his best. He is survived by his wife.

Father P. Carl Laufer Father P. Carl Laufer died recently at the age of 66 in Germany. A priest for 42 years, he spent 26 of them as a missionary with the South Sea Mission in the Apostolic Curacy, now the Archbishopric of Rabaul, New Britain.

Illness forced him to return to Germany where he continued his work by giving lectures on ethnology and missionary work at Oeventrop High School.

Dr. Marie Janousek One of the pioneers in establishing child health services in Papua-New Guinea has died in Sydney at the age of 63. She was Dr. Marie Jaroslava Jirina (Mimicka) Janousek, who died in St. Vincents Hospital after a long illness.

Dr. Janousek was born in 1906 at Kralovice in Czechoslovakia and graduated in medicine with distinc tion at the University of Presburg and

Prague, in 1932. For the next 17 years she gained experience in child health and infectious diseases at Prague’s Charles University Infants’

Clinic and later in the Tabor district of Czechoslovakia.

Dr. Janousek arrived in the terri tory in 1949 with her husband, Mr.

J. J. Janousek, who took up a posi tion with the Department of Law as a Legal Officer.

She immediately commenced duties in the old Ela Beach clinic with Dr.

Refshauge and was responsible, as the first pediatrician, for the develop ment of health services for children in the Port Moresby area.

Paying tribute to the memory of Dr. Janousek, Director of Public Health, Dr. R. F. R. Scragg, said she was a pioneer in the development of these services for children and was instrumental in gaining the con fidence of mothers in health services.

In her later years in the territory, Dr. Janousek was also responsible for initial development in the field of family planning and first tested many modern methods of family planning among Papuan women.

In July, 1960, she became one of the few married women to be granted an exempt employment contract under the Public Service Ordinance because of the nature of her service to the territory and the quality of that service. . . .

Dr. Janousek also was a visiting pediatrician at St. Therese Hospital, Koki. She retired from the service of the Public Health Department in March, 1968, after more than 17 years service and returned to Sydney with her husband where she con tinued in failing health for some time.

Sotoa Rapi

A senior Senator and traditional leader of American Samoa, Sotoa Rapi, died in Tutuila on February 2.

He was a noted traditionalist and saw the need for compromise between the old ways of Samoan life and methods. He was made a special ad visor to the Governor in recent years.

Mr. Les Love Mr. Les Love, radio operator in the New Hebrides from 1935 until his retirement in 1959, died recently in Sydney, leaving a widow and three children. He was 68.

He started Hebrides work on inter-island Burns Philp ships but in 1936 he joined the Vila Radio Station, at which he later became controller, and assisted American communica tions during the Pacific War. A keen fisherman, he returned twice for holi days to the Hebrides following his retirement.

Dr. Marie Janousek.