SMALL BOY DROWNED

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 102, 27 October 1945, Page 9

SMALL BOY DROWNED

SEARCH FOR MOTHER P.A. AUCKLAND, October 26. The body of a small boy who apparently had been -drowned was found by another boy in<the grounds of Takapuna Grammar School early this morning. Later the police.found a hat, overcoat, and shoes belonging to the boy's mother on the beach about 400 yards away, and a police party began searching by launchiin Rangitoto Channel this afternoon in the belief that the mother had gone into the water after her son's body had been carried into the school grounds.

The child was Graham Colestone Rosser, aged three years. His mother, Mrs. Gwenyth Elaine Rosser, aged 25 whose husband, Private C. L. Rosser, has been overseas for two and a half years, lived with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. G. H. Strange,. One Tree Hill. She had been in bad health for some time and she was still recovering from a severe attack of influenza when she left home at about 2 o'clock' on Thursday afternoon with her son. In addition, the absence of her husband is stated to have been causing her considerable worry. She had been anxious for news of his return home.

At dusk on . Thursday evening a woman who was walking along the beach noticed a woman and a boy answering to the description of Mrs. Rosser and her son sitting on the beach. A newspaper boy discovered the body of the child lying on the grass at the side of the pathway about 20 yards inside the St. Leonard's Road entrance to the school. The boy was fully clothed and the clothes were wet when the police arrived. A shopping bag containing Mrs. Rosser's ration books and other articles was found near the body. About 400 yards away on a-bank near the foot of the steps on to the beach, the police found articles of clothing belonging to Mrs. Rosser. During the morning, while the police were continuing their search, ': the Queen's Wharf police received a message from a scow which had just arrived stating that an object which might have been a body was seen in Rangitoto Channel. The police launch was sent out and a search of the area was made till dusk, but there was ho trace of a body.

A letter written by Mrs. Rosser and posted in the city on Thursday afternoon was received by her parents this morning. In it Mrs. Rosser referred to her state of health.