Deaths Of Islands People

Mrs. Olive Betham Mrs. Olive Betham, wife of Mr.

G. D. Betham, MP, and Western Samoa’s former Minister for Finance, died recently, aged 58.

The second-eldest daughter of the late trader, O. F. Nelson, she gained a law degree at Auckland University and became the Island’s first woman barrister and solicitor, winning the Butterworth Prize. She is survived by her husband, and their two chil dren.

Mrs. Betham was an extremely popular personality and hostess of Apia. She took a keen interest in local culture and as the wife of one of Samoa’s former government men she was more than an asset to Mr.

Betham. The couple married in 1942.

Mr. Tsang Sang

Mr. Tsang Sang, New Guinea Islands hotelier, trader and planter, died in Kavieng, New Ireland, re cently. He was 79.

He arrived at Rabaul from Canton, China, in 1903 and lived at Nama tanai, New Ireland. He owned the Kavieng Hotel up to World War U. After the war he ran the hotel briefly before starting his own trading business. A widower, Mr. Sang had 10 children.

Mr. Louis Peyroux Well-known Rarotonga resident, Louis Heitiare Peyroux, 29, was drowned while spear fishing at night on February 10. He was married with three children.

He and three other men were underwater fishing in a reef passage near Arorangi School. When the other three returned to the reef after fishing outside it they discovered that Louis Peyroux was missing.

They searched for him, unsuccess

fully, then called in help from Arorangi village. Mr. Peyroux’s body was found floating in the lagoon.

Louis Peyroux was born in Tahiti and educated in Rarotonga and New Zealand. He returned to Rarotonga from NZ in 1964 where he worked in the post office and was appointed supervisor, a post he held until last year.

Since then, he was a clerk in the Premier’s Department. He was a keen fisherman and musician, and founded and played for two well known local bands. He introduced electronic instruments to Rarotonga from Tahiti—the first to do so.

Viliam! Molofaha Viliami Molofaha, a prominent leader of Tonga’s northern Vavau Group, died recently. The Vavau member on the kingdom’s Agricul tural Council and a former Vavau People’s representative in Tonga’s Legislative Assembly, he was an out standing athlete.

Viliami served for many years in the Tongan Police Department and is survived by his wife, Aulola, and one daughter, Ilaisaane.

William Daniel Allen William Daniel Allen, a retired senior administrative officer who served in the Papua-New Guinea Ad ministration for 20 years, died in April, aged 52.

From Sydney, he joined the Ad ministration in 1946 as a patrol officer. He served in various districts and worked his way up to an acting district commissioner before becom ing a senior administrative officer with the Department of Native Affairs in 1961.

He later became departmental lands officer and district inspector. In 1966, he resigned to become general secre tary to the Australian Council of Tobacco Growers, based in Canberra.

In 1968, he moved to Brisbane, and purchased a small business.

High Chief Rapi Sotoa

High Chief Rapi Sotoa, an American Samoan civil servant who rose from sanitation inspector in 1949 to advisory assistant to the Governor in 1968, has died in Pago Pago. From 1958 to 1968 he was president of the Samoan Senate, and in this capacity he made several trips to the US, and to other Islands territories, where he made many friends.