Guy Osborne Reader as a Teenager
Guy Pulling Copper in his late years
Headstone of Guy Osborne Reader -
Died from Spanish Flu 1918
Guy Osborne Reader was the fourth son of Thomas and Ivy Reader.
He was born on the 5th of November 1885 in Leeston which is to the south of Christchurch. and was baptized in Ellesmere on the 27th of December 1885.
Guy worked for his father in the painter and paper hanging business, until he was reprimanded for missing work to skive off to band practice and recitals at the Saturday morning race meets; for which he had a passion for.
He married Laura Eveline Russ ( Eve ) which was the Sister to Ivy Alice Russ on the 22nd of June 1905 in a Registrars office in Hawera.
It is true that Guy and his bother ( Syd ) had an arguement within the family and moved out of Stratford to raise his family, whether it was regarding the marriage of the Russ sisters will never be known. Guy and Eve moved to Kawhia where they owned a store at Kawhia Beach . To reach Kawhia they would have had to travel from New Plymouth by boat .
Unfortunately the store was burnt down from a freak accident ; rats got into the store and ignited the stock of matches by chewing on them . The matches back then were not Safety matches like they are today.
While in the centre of the North Island they had their first child; it was a daughter which they named Gwyneth. she was born in Hamilton .
Guy and the family moved to Motuiti where he purchased some land to farm on. The times became very hard and income was short, Guy supplemented his income from rabbiting when ever he could.
Guy like many entered world war one and was one of the many that caught the Spanish Flew while celebrating in the festivities at the end of the First World War. He had a great heart and helped anybody whom required it, but was known for his tempered strictness.
It was said that in his hours of his death, that 2 o'clock in the morning he got up to deliver some lemons and blankets to his next door neighbors whom also were hit by the epidemic.Guy was dead by 10 am the next morning.
Apparently the trauma put Eve into labour as she had the flu also. Nellie was born at 4 o'clock that same day. Nellie was thought to be died as she was blue from the head to the toes. Fortunately the early birth cleared Lauras’ blood stream and saved her life.
Guy was only 33 years old when he died , it was the 12th of December 1918.
What was the Spanish Flu ?
The Spanish Flu was Known as Black November , it consisted of eight strands of deadly viral components which could not be killed off with the modern technology of antibiotics.
The time was November 1918 and it was not any flu, it claimed 8573 lives in three months.
Compared with World war One itself, which claimed 16688 over a period of four years it was in epic proportion.
There was no sure remedies or preventatives other than isolation, and no sure answer. Patients just prayed that it did not turn to pneumonia which meant certain death. The bodies of the victims of the 1919 flu often turn dark purple or black, adding to the grief and horror of those nursing them.
Where did it come from?
One theory is that the flu came form the animal kingdom. Horses and pigs are known to catch virus. This virus also infected pigs in the American Mid West. Another theory is that a secondary wave may have been caused by the mustard gas used as they found fruit fly and mould that had mutated which suggests that the mild flu may have had chemical compounds releases from the gas changing its makeup, therefore making its growth more rampant.
Doctors & nurses in 1918 learn to recognise the dark purple discoloration of cyanosis as a ominous sign. The black colour derived from the lack of oxygen in the blood as the patients chest and lungs air sacks become black as the blood struggles to fight the infection.
This could be confused with the burbles of the black plague.
The first New Zealanders to die in the 1918 pandemic were soldiers of the fortieth reinforcement on the troop ship Tahiti which encountered the rapidly spreading second wave at Sierra Leone in West Africa on the 22nd August. The convoy had called at Cape Town and was on its way on Plymouth. The fever was raging ashore at Sierra Leone, so none of the 1087 officers and men or the 100 crew were allowed on shore. However about 150 local came aboard to coal the ship passing the bags along the deck and chatting with the New Zealanders while the worked. Within two days back at sea 84 men paraded sick with the flu. The forty bed hospital was now full, by the 29th August both doctors were ill and 800 cases of the flu had been reported. By the 4th of September there had been 33 deaths including two crew members.
The last death on board occurred as the ship entered the Plymouth harbour on the 10th September.
The final death toll was 76 including 5 of the crew, but there were many seriously ill cases who were taken straight to hospital in special trains. Nine more soldiers and nurses died at Codford. The rest went to the Lark Hill camp where a medical inspection six weeks after arrival found only 260 men fit. The Tahiti was not the only ship to suffer in the nightmare convoy from West Africa. The Chepstow cattle and HMS Mantua suffered serve epidemics.
Yet the news of influenza, both at home and abroad worsened during October. A train comp for Maori and Pacific Island soldiers at Narrow Neck on the Auckland North shore was free until the 7th of October, when an epidemic suddenly flatten 226 men in two days.
In Christchurch it began on the 8th of October and spread rapidly among boarders and day boys until there were 127 boys sick on the 15th of Octobers (No deaths). The Niagara came into port with cases of the Spanish flu but it was decided that it wasn’t of any danger.
The epidemic got worse through November and phased out in early December 1918.
Photograph of his wife and descendants
Ronald Guy Osborne Bertram Joffree Norman Mervyn
Nellie Evaline Eunice Melva Gwyneth Ena Grace
Laura Eveline Reader ( Mother )
Descendants
Ronald Guy Osborne ( Known as Mick ) Born 5th November 1907 Kawhia, and registered in Hamilton Area
Bertram Joffree ( Known as Doy ) Born 9th August 1915 Toko, Stratford, Taranaki
Norman Mervyn ( Known as Bill ) Born 2nd July 1911 Stratford, Taranaki
Nellie Eveline ( Known as Bub ) Born 12 December 1918 in Motuiti, Foxton
Eunice Melva ( Known as Tup ) Born 10th February 1909 Stratford, Taranaki
Gwyneth ( Known as Gwyn ) Born 16th December 1904 Kawhia
Ena Grace ( Known as Grace ) Born 17th May 1913 Stratford, Taranaki
For descendant of the above contact me.
