Deaths

of Islands People

Flora Stewart

Flora Stewart, an almost legendary figure in the history of Papua New Guinea for most of this century, at Lae in May.

Mrs Stewart, 93, universally known as ‘Ma’ Stewart, was born in Scotland and arrived in Papua New Guinea in 1906 when she was 20 years old. She became widely known in the gold rush days of the twenties and thirties, and was a pioneer in some of the inland areas where gold was found, par ticularly in Wau. She was in volved in many business ventures and many miners were able to carry on only be cause of the help and credit which she gave them. More re cently Mrs Stewart was invol ved in ventures which helped

in community development of

Png.

Unni Sirdar

One of two surviving founding members of Then India San

marga Ikya Sangam in Fiji, in

February, aged 97. Born in Kerala, India, Unni Sirdar ser ved his indentures at Lovu, near Lautoka, and set up as a cane farmer near Nadi. He helped found TISI Sangam in 1926 and was instrumental in

building several Sangam insti

tutions in and around Nadi, including the Nadi Subramani

Swamy Temple, Nadi Sangam

School and Shri Vivekananda

High School.

Howard

Farnsworth

Personal bodyguard to Sir Robert Menzies in 1954-55, and to Prince Charles while he was schooling in Australia, in hospital on Norfolk Island after a long period of ill-health.

Aged 74, Howard Farnsworth, first went to Norfolk in 1957 after 25 years in the British police force and service in Aus tralia. Later he served at the Australian Embassy in Mos cow and on Christmas Island before returning to settle with wife Kay on Norfolk in 1970.

Grace Nicholson

Mrs Grace Frances Nicholson, who lived in Fiji for more than 40 years, in Sydney in April, aged 84. She went to Fiji from Australia in 1920 to marry W.

T. A. Nicholson, an electrical engineer in Suva. She and her husband, who died about 17 years ago, left Fiji in the mid 19505. During World War II Mrs Nicholson was an active worker for the Red Cross in

Fiji.

Flora Stewart ... at her Lae home 1976