Francis Raymond Batchelor (Frankie) died 1924 age 2 ½ . He was the only child of Major Francis Roy Batchelor and his wife Helena.
Frankie’s father, Frank, was a member of the Salvation Army. He was born in 1885, in Charleston (West Coast), to Thomas Francis Batchelor and his wife Jane Tierney. Thomas was a farmer at the time.
Frank worked for a while in Queensland, where he likely met his wife Helena Hutton Elliot and married her in 1920. He then took charge of the Vivian Street Men’s Hostel for returned soldiers, and was then manager of the People’s Palace in Christchurch.
After the death of their Frankie in 1924, Frank and his wife ran an orphanage on behalf of the Salvation Army, until Frank’s death in 1934.
A funeral service was conducted at the Vivien Street Citadel (it was very hard to find a photograph of the original building) “…where hymns and other appropriate music was played by the Salvation Army Band, which also played the “Dead March” as the funeral cortege passed through the city streets.” The service was conducted graveside by Commissioner Cunningham. Frank was interred with Frankie.
(Lieutenant) Helena Batchelor died in Queensland in 1943, aged 57 and is buried in Gympie Cemetery.
