100 Days of Heroes: Baby girl never knew her soldier dad Oliver Page

WRITER Margaretta Pos’ grandfather Oliver Page left behind a wife and unborn child to serve in World War I.

Margaretta Pos in front of the replacement tree planted for her grandfather Oliver Page on the Soldiers’ Memorial Avenue. Picture: ALASTAIR BETT

WRITER Margaretta Pos’ grandfather Oliver Page left behind a wife and unborn child to serve in World War I.

“My mother, who was his only child, was born six weeks after his death,” Ms Pos said.

When he enlisted in August 1916, Oliver had recently been appointed as a lieutenant in the Commonwealth Military Cadet Corps and was made a sergeant in the Australian Imperial Force after attending training at the Royal Military College (Duntroon) later that year, but he would never set foot on the battlefield.

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Oliver Page in uniform before his World War I service.

Margaretta Pos with her grandfather’s plaque and tree. Picture: ALASTAIR BETT

Oliver was born in 1877, the youngest of seven children to Jane and Alfred Page, a Legislative Councillor from 1889-1909.

He attended the Kempton State School and was working as a stockbroker when he married Laura Macleod, daughter of Loudoun Macleod, the most recent mayor of Hobart, in January 1917.

He sailed for England that August and arrived in October, sending his wife a gift from Egypt while in transit. Later that month he was hospitalised with the mumps.

Oliver then contracted triple nephritis (kidney inflammation) and succumbed to his illness while staying with his sister, on sick leave, on November 27, 1917.

He died, aged 40, at his sister’s house in Edinburgh and was buried at Warriston Cemetery, Scotland, in a polished oak coffin.

The then Lord Mayor of Hobart, Rob Valentine, shows Margaretta Pos the original plaque for the tree commemorating her grandfather, Oliver Page, on the Soldiers Memorial Avenue on the Queens Domain in Hobart. Picture: KIM EISZELE

Before his death he had posted home a little girl’s outfit from England. “My late mother, Ann Olivia Page … was very touched that shortly before he died he sent gifts to his wife and unborn child,” she said. “It’s nice to think he wanted a daughter.”

Sergeant Oliver Alfred Page is remembered at tree 352 on the Soldiers’ Memorial Avenue and on the honour roll at All Saints Anglican Church in South Hobart.

His nephew, Company Sergeant Major Lyndon Forrest Page, was killed in action in November 1916 and is remembered at tree 482 on the Avenue.

Both men were descendants of the colonial entrepreneur Samuel Page — publican, coach proprietor and pastoralist — while Lyndon Page was the grandson of the artist Haughton Forrest.

Cameron Allen is a UTAS journalism student.

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Sergeant Oliver Page’s plaque on the Soldiers’ Memorial Avenue. Picture: ALASTAIR BETT