Moffitt, Ernest James, details after mid 1925 please Australia only
Meury73
Ernest James Moffitt was born in NZ in 1897. We have all life details up to mid 1925, but after that there is a complete blank, with one or two people believing that he must have drowned, but there are no details of a drowning or of a death in this country.
Recently we have been told that there was a marriage in Australia in 1944 between an Ernest James Moffitt and a Spooner. There is no son of that name born to his Australian uncles, James and John who both appear in these journals. It is possible though that one of John Moffitt's sons could have had a son of that name who would be old enough to marry in 1944.
Ernest was known to his siblings as Pete, but he may have dropped that name. It was a family thing. His mother was dead, and his siblings had scattered, away form his home town of Waikaia, in Southland. He belonged to the George Moffitt line in New Zealand. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
by Meury73
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tonkin on 2014-09-29 04:36:13Hi Meury.
There was an Ernest James MOFFITT died in Victoria in 1958 aged 69 years. His parents were named John MOFFITT and Ellen MCCOUGH. I know this is not the Ernest you are looking for, but it may be the Ernest married to SPOONER in 1944 you were told about.
Just thought it may interest you to know there was another Ernest James MOFFITT in Australia.
Cheers.
ngairedith on 2014-09-29 05:22:28An Ernest James Moffitt married Nellie Pearl Spooner in 1944 in Waverley, NSW. They divorced in Sydney sometime between 1948-1952
Meury73 on 2016-03-23 05:27:13I'm a long time replying (been relocating to another island!) but thank you for this information. It helps to exclude people of the same name. Cheers.
janilye on 2016-03-23 17:52:04Yes I can see where they thought he may have drowned. Back in January 1951 an Ernest Moffitt from the Newcastle mines was one of several travelling on the S.S.Kiama from Newcastle to Sydney when it capsized around the Entrance/ Tuggarah, somewhere there and a couple of people drowned (can't access anything at the moment but google S.S.Kiama) anyway there was an Ernest Moffitt as a survivor, however he was only a young man and worked as a donkeyman in the mines.
Meury73 on 2016-03-24 03:03:20Now that is interesting. It would have been after 1951 when Ernest's brothers discussed the drowning story at a family wedding. It is possible that the age of the survivor was not known to them. Thank you for sharing this information. I will now Google SS Kiama.
Meury73 on 2016-03-24 03:11:33Oops, that does not make much sense. Sorry. I meant to say that maybe they thought that Ernest did not survive - before it was published that he was alive, and also before his age was published. They may not have seen further press notices??????? Or maybe the relative who overheard them got it wrong???
Meury73 on 2016-03-24 05:25:28Oops, that does not make much sense. Sorry. I meant to say that maybe they thought that Ernest did not survive - before it was published that he was alive, and also before his age was published. They may not have seen further press notices??????? Or maybe the relative who overheard them got it wrong???
janilye on 2016-03-24 20:49:13Survivor of the Collier S. S. Kiama Ernest Moffitt
NOTE he was 29, married and from Bondi which is in the Waverley shire see ngairedith's entry above.
Meury73 on 2019-04-13 10:34:05I've been mulling this over for years. Newspaper records are wrong on occasions. It could be that the survivor of the SSKiama was older than 29, but it is quite a stretch for it to be a mistake for 54.
Pete (Ernest) had been in hospital before he disappeared. My father did have time with him in between hospital and his disappearance. Hospital archivists have since checked records for me, taken on board all of my comments, and told me to check for him under another name. Their experience was, that when men wanted to run away they would do this, most likely choosing their mother's name.
I have found a likely candidate for a name, in this case a wicked stepmother's name. The archivists said this was also a pattern thing where the cunning step-parent wanted to distance the son from the father, thus becoming a wedge/conduit between them. They seemed to suggest that the stepmother would have been the person arranging the disappearance.
It is, of course, almost too difficult to unravel, let alone try to prove. What is worse the name has some terrible connotations. I will need to ponder this even more before continuing the search. I do think that this is the most likely thing to have happened. The hospital archivists said that he was well enough to care for himself. If so, then he has escaped what he feared, found a job, married, had a son, and died in his mid fifties.
DNA may one day link us to that son, or not. RIP Pete.