The Viles family

Jessie Christina Waters was one of the daughters of John and Eleanor Waters.  she was Alister's great grandfather Herbert Bertram's first cousin.

Jessie married Walter Franklyn Viles, second son of Josiah Viles of the  Wairarapa, on 25 September 1896 at St Mary's Church in Ashhurst.  Walter was born on 12 December 1870 and died on 15 December 1963.  He is buried with Jessie, who died on 15 August 1946, in the Feilding Cemetery.  They had at least two children, including a daughter, born in West Street, Feilding (at the home of a Mrs Groves) on 21 March 1898.  Sadly, their ten year old son, Walter Frank Viles, died on 19 April 1912 after a freak horse riding accident. One account of the accident is as follows:

DRAGGED TO DEATH.

HEAD SMASHED INTO PULP.

FEILDING, April 19. Walter Viles, aged eleven, was riding to school at Waiata this morning on a brokendown racehorse which he had not ridden before, when the horse bolted, stumbled, and threw the boy, whose foot was held by the stirrup.

He was dragged four hundred yards, and when picked up his head was smashed into a pulp. The boy immediately expired. His sister witnessed the whole occurrence.

He is also buried at the Feilding Cemetery.

Walter was a witness in a divorce case in Feilding between Henry Bailey and his wife (who seemed to get around somewhat...) in 1907.  He deposed that the respondent wife had told him that another man was the father of her second child.  Much fun was made, by the lawyers, of the fact that Walter was extremely deaf and that the woman would have had to have yelled it at him for him to hear!  Poor Walter!  The account of the case is interesting to me from a legal perspective, because lawyers involved include well known names like Cooper, Innes, Fitzherbert.  

They produced five children:


1. Eleanor Veronica Viles (21 March 1898).  Married James Campbell.  


2. Jessie Franklyn Viles (14 August 1900 - 29 July 1981).  Married Newell Pearce.
 2.1 Kevin Pearce
 2.2 Alvin Pearce
 2.3 Winston Pearce
 2.4 Noel Pearce


3. Walter Frederick Viles (16 May 1902 - 19 April 1912)


4. John Keith Viles (24 April 1905 - 23 May 1990).  Married Elsie Green (10 November 1906 - 21 August 1989).  They are both buried at the Feilding Cemetery, where Anette's ashes are also interred.  
 4.1 Trevlyn Keith Viles
 4.2 Anette Elsie Viles (3 August 1945 - 12 August 1990).  Married Ralph Faulkner - two children.  


5. Rita Evelyn Viles (1908) 


See more information about the Viles family tree here.