Van De Water, Francis

Francis John Orm Van De Water, known as Frank, was born on 25 October 1914. He was the only child of James Orm Van De Water (c1862-1931) and Alice Olive Margherita Van De Water (nee Hoskin) (1882-1960).

Frank’s maternal great-grandparents came to Taranaki on the first Plymouth Company ship William Bryan in 1841 but his father James immigrated in 1910 from Canada. Having worked as an oil driller in Austria and Queensland, he was employed in Taranaki by the Blenheim Oil Wells Reclamation Company. The family surname was sometimes hyphenated as Van-De-Water.

Frank attended West End School then New Plymouth Boys’ High School where he proved himself a talented sportsman, taking part in rugby, athletics, boxing, cricket and swimming. His love of rugby continued into adult life and he played for Tukapa in the 1930s, helping the club’s junior team win the Carbine Shield in 1936.

Frank’s father James died in 1931 and the young man then had several brushes with the law, appearing in court in 1935 for riding an unlighted bicycle around New Plymouth and found guilty of drinking illegally in the Imperial Hotel after hours in 1938. Later that year he was involved in a car crash on Devon Street West, driving a sedan that he claimed had to mount the footpath in order to avoid an oil drum in the street.

Frank was employed as a freezing worker and living near his mother Alice in Moturoa before serving as a sapper with the 2^nd New Zealand Divisional Engineers during the Second World War. He appeared regularly in rugby game results in the local papers until September 1941 then not again until May 1945 when he was listed as one of the senior Tukapa players recently returned from overseas. He was later awarded the War Medal 1939-1945 and the New Zealand Service War Medal.

Frank married Thelma Ethel Ingham (1917-1995) in 1946 and the couple had four children. He worked as a watersider until his retirement and died on 21 December 1986 aged 71. Frank’s body was cremated but he and Thelma share a plaque in Te Hēnui Cemetery.