A Question of Age
In February 1916 Kate Cheale was not happy about her son enlisting.
Since leaving Princes Hill State School the boy had taken up a good job at Griffiths Bros, the tea merchants and was only just eighteen. Kate had lost her husband in 1912 and it can’t have been easy bringing up the family on her own.
But young Louis had been in the cadets and the appeals to the young men of Australia to come over and help their mates on the battlefields of France must have been irresistible.
Finally Louis persuaded his mother that he must join up. But she was determined to keep him at home for as long as possible. Hence she wrote on his enlistment papers, where parental consent was required:
29/2/1916 135 Barkly St W, Brunswick
I hereby give permission for my son Louis Cheale to volunteer for enlistment on the condition that he be not called for service out of Australia till he has reached 19 years of age in accordance with the conditions of the regulation to this effect which has been issued. Kate Cheale
Kate was quite within her rights to make this demand. Aged 18 years and 3 months Louis would have to wait until July 1917 before he would be free to be sent overseas.
Yet it would appear that as the months rolled by Louis chafed to get away and somehow wore his mother down.
On the 12th January 1917 Kate wrote the following letter:
Sir I hereby grant consent to my son’s embarkation before the date of his 19th birthday and repeal the conditions of his enlistment. I would also request that he be granted a few days leave previous to my departure for New Zealand, on Wednesday next, and trust that my petition will be complied with, and remain, Yours etc K Cheale (135 Barkly St W, Brunswick)
And by the 19th February 1917, Louis Isaiah Cheale, aged 18 and 7 months was on board a troop ship bound for Europe.
After four months training in England Louis finally made it to the front lines in Belgium on the 8th September 1917.
Less than a month later, on 3rd October 1917, Louis was killed while stretcher bearing near Ypres. His body was never found but his name is recorded at the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.
When he died Louis was 19 years and three months old.