DAVIS, Noel

Name – DAVIS, Noel
Born – 3/10/1942
Died – 3/10/1942
Location – No 58 Methodist Section
Mother – Muriel Daphne Fagan
Father – Leslie Norman Davis

Notes – Noel (boy) and Leslie (girl) Davis, were born to Muriel and Les Davis (grandparents of Linda Peterson) in October, 1942.

Just prior to their birth, Muriel contracted measles from her brother Keith Lawrence Fagan QX38625, who was home on sick leave from the Army with the same illness. Muriel became very ill and was taken to hospital in Tara where she had the poor little mites who were born very premature. Sadly, the twins did not survive their birth.

The story told to Muriel Davis granddaughter Linda Peterson, was that Muriel was too sick to even name her babies, so the matron of the hospital named the wee boy Noel because he was born not long before Christmas and the little girl Leslie. Athol would have been nearly three when the twins were born. Les was away working at the time of the birth. He worked at various jobs including the building of the road from Chinchilla to Condamine. Muriel and Les had seven other children, Daphne, Norman, Cynthia, Athol, Joyce, Trevor and Faye.

After the twins death, their parents bought their own farm at Burncluith north of Chinchilla, before they moved to Goranba. While living at Goranba, the Davis family had multiple charcoal pits on the go for making their own charcoal. This was used in the refrigerators of the time. Muriel and Les lived out near where Fagans Road is today.

The twins have no headstone yet. This I believe, was because the family legend had it that the twins were buried in Dalby. Current members of the family did not realise they were buried in the Tara Cemetery until recently.

Newspaper Article –

War Service File  –

Learn more about the Tara Cemetery here.

Below is a photograph of Noel’s siblings at about the time of his birth.
Left to right – Cynthia, Norman, Athol and Daphne DAVIS.