And more about William Daniel Bird

 And more about William Daniel Bird  Posted 11 July 2022

Today I have decided to nearly do a Marie Kondo to all the boxes and files of papers that I have collected over the last dozen or so years.

I found some notes I wrote after I spoke to Pat Barrett, an office bearer of the Wallingford Sports Club. I had asked him if there was any record of Will as I knew his obituary mentioned he was a Life Member. Pat kindly trawled through the minute books and came up with a few snippets.
 Interestingly Will resigned in January 1939 as he had "left the district"
On 5 November 1945 he is recorded as a Vice President with 29 others. He is also recorded as being a Gate Keeper. 

So where did you go to Will? Your absence coincides (almost) with the Second World War. But you were too old to have served...

(In 1978 the W. Bird Cup was re-donated by a W Manning. Pat thinks the original may have gone missing.)

Some random pieces of information: Will is recorded as being called up to the 1st Division Reserves of the NZDF in 1916 and recorded as "Contractor, Wallingford". That was the First World War.
Will would have been living at Wallingford Station then as Charlie and Joe had taken over the farming operations after leaving school. Will would have been 44years old.

In the Hawkes Bay General Electoral Rolls of 1949 Will is recorded as "Farmer, Wallingford Station"

Will's death certificate records that he died in Porirua Hospital in 1953, so in November 2005 I contacted Capital and Coast District Health Board to see if it was possible to find out if he was a committed patient. I rang at lunchtime and the receptionist said she would enquire. To my surprise I received a couriered parcel of photocopies of his entire record!

It appears he was admitted on 6th December 1951 from the Waipukurau Hospital where he had been a patient for about 12 months. There is all the correspondence between the institutions pertaining to his being committed because the Matron couldnt manage him in the Hospital. She contends he waved his walking stick around, talked incessantly about his youth and bygone times, and had "unclean habits". Will's next of kin was his sister Addy and her son James Brown. There is a strongly worded letter from James refuting the assertion that Will was violent and expressing concern that he and Addy had refused to sign Will's removal order, and he had been moved against their wishes.

I have a friend, Margaret Cooper whose mother was a Nurse Aide at that time. She remembered Will and that he tried to put the lights out by "peeing on them". Hence the Matron's "unclean habits"!

A change of clothes and his
Prayer Book and Rosary Beads

Will had two pairs of lower dentures, one of top, and two pairs of spectacles amongst his belongings . 

He was 5 feet 3 inches tall with blue eyes.

There is a record of Will's visitors in his file- James Brown, Ethel Cassin and Fred Cassin. Fred and Ethel (Will's half sister) visited a few times at the beginning of 1953 before the telegrams that were sent regarding Will's final hours. I have seen a letter Ethel sent to his brothers Joe and Charlie, admonishing them for letting Will be sent to Porirua Hospital "after he had been so good to you". She only found out in the last months of Will's life that he was there- and was in the process of getting him taken to the  Home of Compassion at Island Bay when he passed of bronchopneumonia and cardiovascular degeneration. He was 80 years old when he died.

Will was taken back to Waipukurau and buried "privately" in Waipukurau Cemetery

Early 1950's communication of relatives

failing health and death.

 

 So  Will, now I am going to file your records and one day find out where you went to school in Napier and where you disappeared from Wallingford to during the second World War. 

This coming November marks 150 years since you were born!