ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1412, 17 June 1915, Page 4

ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY.

Romance and tragedy were curiously blended in the life of Captain Charles Edward Leer, one of the Australian officers killed at the Dardanelles. For many years Captain Leer bad been a teacher in the New South Wales Department of Public Instruction, and it was while stationed at Rockdale public school that he met the lady who was to become his wife. She was a pupil at the school, and at one time was in the class taught by him. The romance of their courtship continued through a portion of their married life, and when the captain, then an ordinary soldier, went to South Africa to fight in the Boer War his wife and baby took up their residence near the scene of hostilities. In the next war in which the F.mpire was involved the romantic career of Captain and Mrs Leer closed in a tragic series of events. Captain Leer had not been In camp long before his wife became ill. It was a serious illness, and Mrs Leer, realising there was no possibility of recovery, expressed to her relatives the belief that it would not be long before her husband would be sent after her by an enemy bullet, and there would be a happy reunion hereafter. A short time afterwards, or about a fortnight before Captain Leer sailed, she died ; and now, after a lapse of less than eight months, her husband has been killed. Captain Leer went away a grief stricken man, because the sorrow of the death of his wife was accentuated by the loss of his mother a week later.