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Friday 21 October 2011

Raymond Edgar Claude Plaisted 1921 - 1952

Raymond Edgar Claude Plaisted was born on 22 September 1921 and as far as the records go he is considered illigitimate, with his father not believing his wife that the child was indeed his.  Ever since then it has never really been proven, however if you look at the family photos, Raymond was definitely a Plaisted.



Due to his father leaving him with his mother, he was not raised with his own siblings, he was raised with his half siblings, all of which were illigimate.  Raymond was known as William Robinson when he was growing up, there is a record for him at Eltham School in Eltham, Taranaki that shows this.  There are two other references that I know of with Raymond been called William (Bill) one is on the back of his wedding photo and the other in on his mothers death notice, though he had pre deceased her by quite a few year.

My first big break with Raymond was getting a copy of his Army record.  It seems that he had joined twice, he put this next of kin as Mrs Anderson, who happened to be his mothers sister.  When I had started I had three siblings, Raymond & Jack Plaisted and Roy Robinson.  To say it was a shock to find 9 more children is well..........funny......infact when i told my husband we had a good giggle about it, still not realising all the funny goings on (that was explained in the last blog) 

I don't know what sort of childhood Raymond had, he did end up in Social Welfare Care for a while with some of his Robinson half brothers, this was probably going on when the police caught on that their mother was in a bigamist marriage.

Raymond joined the Army whilst he was still single.  He married Mary Josephine Ridley on 23 January 1943 in New Plymouth, New Zealand.  As family stories go Mary Josephine  Ridley also know as Smith was illigimate, she was the daughter of Violet Eliza Ridley and the story goes that she jumped the fence and got pregnant to the neighbour who was Maori.  Nothing has ever been proved, the story or the Maori bloodline.

Raymond and Mary had one son called John William Plaisted.  According to his fathers army record he was born in July 1945, however my mother in law says different, I have still yet to buy a birth certificate to confirm his date and month of birth, we do know that the year is correct.

Raymond and Mary divorced, both remarrying, the only child ended up with two lots of half siblings.  Raymond married Olive Marie Murray and they had one son Paul Ivan Plaisted on 15th May 1950 in Christchurch.  I presume form this that Raymond who was in the army yet again was training or re training at Burnham Camp.  Raymond was posted back to Linton Army Camp.  Whilst on duty on the 8th January 1952. Raymond died from a Coronary Thrombosis.  He had a Military Funeral at his wifes request, from memory he was cremated.

Was this the start of heart problems in the family?  I'm not sure, though is father died young too, it was meant to be because of a car accident, once again I really need to get a few death certificates to prove what happened.

Mary Josephine Ridley married Jack Callander, I have not yet managed to track down the children of this family.  Olive Marie Murray also remarried and had another son.  It was noted that at her request in her Will Olive was buried as Olive Marie Plaisted.

Well if I think of anything else I will blog again or edit what I have already written.

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