QUAINTANCE, Ernest Joseph
Born 28 February 1892; died 3 December 1918; buried 5 December 1918; age 27
Ern QUAINTANCE, a linesman and father of three young children, died when the worst of the flu epidemic was almost over in Wellington.
Ernest Joseph Quaintance grew up in Wainuiomata, an isolated settlement behind the eastern hills lining one side of the Hutt Valley. His father, Joseph, a native of Exeter in Devon, had married Mary Ann BOLT in 1861 when he was 22 and she was 19. The couple migrated to New Zealand in 1873, sailing on the Douglas and were briefly quarantined with other passengers on arrival because of an outbreak of smallpox and scarlet fever early in the voyage. Released after 3 days, Joseph found work as a Wellington City Corporation labourer. The couple had two daughters before they left England and had three more over the next few years. A son died at ten days. Mary herself died in 1886.
Shortly before her death, Joseph had been appointed custodian of the Council’s reservoir in Wainuiomata, and the family moved there from living in Hopper Street in Te Aro to be closer to his work. Wainuiomata was then a small sawmilling community.
Joseph remarried in 1889. His new wife was Emily Louisa GLADWIN. Joseph and Emily had a daughter in 1890 and a son, Ernest Joseph (Ern), born in 1892. Ern, the subject of this obituary, attended a small school which had been established in Wainuiomata in 1857. He was there from 1897 until his last day in 1906 when he was 14.
A year later, Joseph died aged 67. He was described in the Dominion newspaper on 10 October 1907 as ‘probably the oldest employee in the service of the City Council’. He had been custodian at the reservoir for 23 years and had retired just a few weeks earlier.
Ern, although still young, had possibly already moved away from Wainuiomata to board in Wellington closer to where he began working as a linesman. When old enough to enrol as a voter (1914), he gave his address as 11 Garrett Street, off Cuba Street.
The woman he was to marry, Margaret Dorothy STRONG, probably moved to Wellington after completing school. She was born and educated in the Far North town of Hikurangi. They married in 1914 and began living on the lower slopes of Mount Victoria, at 3A Vogel Street. Their first child, a son named Ernest like his father, was born in 1915. Two daughters followed, Dorothy in 1916 and Edna in 1918. Like other young men, their father enlisted when conscription for military service began in 1916 but having up to three children meant that he was not included in the ballot and not called up.
In late 1918, after the peak of the influenza epidemic and when he might have thought he was out of the danger period, Ern became ill. Taken from his home in Vogel Street to the temporary hospital at Wellington College, he died there on 3 December. He was 27 and his wife was left to support and raise children aged 3, 2 and less than 1. She remarried in 1923, to George MILLER.
Memorial notices were published in the Evening Post for several years by family members, friends and on behalf of the three children:
You left behind some daddies kind and true,
But there will never be a daddy quite like you.
Researched and written by Max Kerr
Grave Information:
Section: PUBLIC2
Plot: 300 J
Born 28 February 1892; died 3 December 1918; buried 5 December 1918; age 27
Ern QUAINTANCE, a linesman and father of three young children, died when the worst of the flu epidemic was almost over in Wellington.
Ernest Joseph Quaintance grew up in Wainuiomata, an isolated settlement behind the eastern hills lining one side of the Hutt Valley. His father, Joseph, a native of Exeter in Devon, had married Mary Ann BOLT in 1861 when he was 22 and she was 19. The couple migrated to New Zealand in 1873, sailing on the Douglas and were briefly quarantined with other passengers on arrival because of an outbreak of smallpox and scarlet fever early in the voyage. Released after 3 days, Joseph found work as a Wellington City Corporation labourer. The couple had two daughters before they left England and had three more over the next few years. A son died at ten days. Mary herself died in 1886.
Shortly before her death, Joseph had been appointed custodian of the Council’s reservoir in Wainuiomata, and the family moved there from living in Hopper Street in Te Aro to be closer to his work. Wainuiomata was then a small sawmilling community.
Joseph remarried in 1889. His new wife was Emily Louisa GLADWIN. Joseph and Emily had a daughter in 1890 and a son, Ernest Joseph (Ern), born in 1892. Ern, the subject of this obituary, attended a small school which had been established in Wainuiomata in 1857. He was there from 1897 until his last day in 1906 when he was 14.
A year later, Joseph died aged 67. He was described in the Dominion newspaper on 10 October 1907 as ‘probably the oldest employee in the service of the City Council’. He had been custodian at the reservoir for 23 years and had retired just a few weeks earlier.
Ern, although still young, had possibly already moved away from Wainuiomata to board in Wellington closer to where he began working as a linesman. When old enough to enrol as a voter (1914), he gave his address as 11 Garrett Street, off Cuba Street.
The woman he was to marry, Margaret Dorothy STRONG, probably moved to Wellington after completing school. She was born and educated in the Far North town of Hikurangi. They married in 1914 and began living on the lower slopes of Mount Victoria, at 3A Vogel Street. Their first child, a son named Ernest like his father, was born in 1915. Two daughters followed, Dorothy in 1916 and Edna in 1918. Like other young men, their father enlisted when conscription for military service began in 1916 but having up to three children meant that he was not included in the ballot and not called up.
In late 1918, after the peak of the influenza epidemic and when he might have thought he was out of the danger period, Ern became ill. Taken from his home in Vogel Street to the temporary hospital at Wellington College, he died there on 3 December. He was 27 and his wife was left to support and raise children aged 3, 2 and less than 1. She remarried in 1923, to George MILLER.
Memorial notices were published in the Evening Post for several years by family members, friends and on behalf of the three children:
You left behind some daddies kind and true,
But there will never be a daddy quite like you.
Researched and written by Max Kerr
Grave Information:
Section: PUBLIC2
Plot: 300 J