Cecil John Bouchier was born on 11 August 1899. He was the son of Irish-born Thomas Bouchier and Maria Agnes Mulvihal.
He served in the 1st World War as a gunner.
After the war, he worked as an agricultural scientist and early in the 1920's, he accepted a post in Jamaica and set out to sail to the Bahamas. In 1923 (aged 23) he arrived in San Francisco in California, United States, travelling on the ship Tahiti[1]. His next of kin was recorded as his mother Mrs T. Bouchier of Mount Shannon, Hope Street, Cape Town.
For reasons which are obscure, he never made it to Jamaica and instead settled in Rarotonga (Cook Islands) where he met his love, Agnes Catherine Mitchell (the daughter of Ernest Hamilton Rea Mitchell). They were duly married on 10 July 1924 in the Catholic Presbytery of Saint Joseph's Church at Avarua [2].
Together they had six daughters; Eileen, Doreen, Cecilia, Rosina, Catherine and Thresea.
They had been living a comfortable life in the Cook Islands with Cecil earning a good salary as second-in-charge at the Agriculture and Fisheries Department when tragedy struck. In 10 February 1935, Cecil was swept from his waterfront office by a tidal wave during a Hurricane. His right leg was badly damaged having sustained a compound fracture, and was eventually amputated, but while he was in Hospital waiting for a boat to New Zealand for treatment, gangrene set in and he died, aged just 35. Cause of death was also recorded as Pulmonary Embolism[3].
After his death his young widow Agnes moved to New Zealand with their six daughters, whose ages ranged from two to twelve.
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Categories: South Africa, World War I | Cook Islands | Accidental Deaths