Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

When World War 1 broke out, Ralph Stobaus was very quick to enlist, signing his attestation paper on 17 August 1914. Aged 25, with both parents dead, he cited as next of kin his brother Robert living at 60 Cardigan Street, Carlton. Ralph had previously served with the Victorian Rifles, a part-time militia group, from October 1910 to June 1913 and noted that he had "left own accord". In September, the month before he left Australia, at St Jude's Vicarage in Carlton he married Mary (May) Evelyn Kniese aged 19 who of course became his next of kin. Interestingly, he gave his religion as Church of England which is what it would have been in his early years. He embarked on the HMAT Orvieto on 21 October 1914 and six months later was killed in the landing at Gallipoli. But for eighteen months he was officially posted as "Missing in Action" and his army file is full of letters from his relatives, sometimes anguished, sometimes exasperated, trying to find out what had happened to him. That they feared the worst from the very beginning is clear from a paragraph in The Age on June 22 under the headline Careers of the Fallen where Ralph is described as the nephew of Mrs Murray (his aunt Catherine who had married William Murray in 1913) a dressmaker of Cardigan Street. A plasterer by trade, working at Williamstown, he had married a month before leaving for Egypt and his wife was residing at 55 University Street, Carlton. 1By October 1915 his elder sister Maudie, now Mrs Anthony Egan, living in Berrigan NSW, was writing to the Minister of Defence seeking an explanation. Mail sent to the front was being returned to the family with the envelope marked "Missing in Action" on the front and "Killed in Action" on the back. She forwarded the envelope to him as requested and received the reply, "There is no official report that he is killed". In November a letter to his wife May, who had moved to Balaclava, reported that there was still no news. By this time she was the mother of a daughter Myrtle, whose father must have been dead before she was born. Maude in Berrigan received a similar letter in January 1916. In February 1916 his aunt Catherine, still living at 158 Cardigan Street, Carlton, wrote seeking news. "As he is nearly 12 months missing I thought you might have heard something of him by now". "Nothing more is known" came the reply. In March 1916 May was granted a war pension of £52 p.a. with a further £13 for Myrtle. On the first anniversary of the Gallipoli landing, a Prendergast cousin placed a notice "in loving remembrance" in the very long column of death notices on the front page of The Age.

On 20 November 1916 Maudie wrote to the Officer in Charge of Base Records asking for any further news of Ralph and also for the correct address for her youngest brother Driver Victor, as parcels and letters sent to him had been returned. At almost exactly the same time she received a letter dated 21 November 1916 from the Red Cross.

"We have now received two reports from our agents ... but regret to state that they contain very little information. However, we are sending them to you knowing that any news, however meagre, is welcome. Major A D Luxton states that on May 25 near Lone Pine Private Stobans' body was found. Lieut. D Robertson states that the name should be Stobaus not Stobans. Stobaus ... was known to him. Stobaus was missed with others after the landing and understood by his company to have been killed. This information is sent to you on the understanding that is unofficial and that we do not vouch for its accuracy ..."
Of course she wrote immediately to the Officer in Charge of Base Records. "Would you kindly enquire into the matter and find out if what Major A D Luxton says be true. Surely an officer commanding the 5th battalion would not give such evidence without foundation." What neither Maudie nor the Officer in Charge of Base Records knew was that on 3 November 1916 a court of enquiry into Ralph's case had been held. In his army file there is a typed report, its origin unclear but dated 28 November 1915, which may have been used as evidence at the court of enquiry.

"Witness says his correct name is Ralph Gerald Stabous and he was a mate of his and married a Broadmeadows girl just before his departure. He heard nothing of him on the peninsula after April 25th but he saw in an English paper (name and date unprocurable) that he was in hospital in England."
The court finally pronounced Ralph "Killed in Action". Even then it appears that the result was not immediately passed on to his family; the letter to May attaching the report was dated 2 March 1917. With the truth now known, Anzac Day 1917 was marked with a notice in The Age from the Prendergast family at 437 Rathdowne Street, Carlton followed by one in The Advocate in May. "In loving memory of my dear nephew Private Ralph Stobaus ... inserted by his fond aunt, Mrs C Murray, 226 Station Street, North Carlton, and his brothers on active service abroad, Driver Victor Stobaus and Robert Stobaus." Ralph died intestate, but in September 1918 during the process of realising his assets there was a notice of sale of a double-fronted house of four rooms at 22 Castlemaine Street, Yarraville.2,3,4However, the family's problems with the army bureaucracy were not over. In February 1918 Ralph's effects were sent to the address of his brother Robert, his originally-named next of kin rather than to his wife May. One letter to Robert was addressed to him at May's address in St Kilda instead of his own in Carlton. In September 1920, when correspondence over the delivery of his medals had begun, an exasperated Maude wrote, "If you will look up your Records you will find my Late Brother Private R G Stobaus ... that his wife is dead twelve months last July [May had died of influenza in 1919 when Myrtle was just four] and I am his Elder Sister also Trustee of his Little Girl Myrtle Stobaus. Therefor the Child or myself is entitled to his 19/14 19/15 Star. Kindly forward it on." In June 1921 Maude received a letter from the army asking if anyone in the family had any letters or reports which would help to establish where he died or was last seen alive. She replied, "We were told that a Major Luxton found his body at Lone Pine. That is all we know. I hope and trust you will be successful in tracing my poor brother's grave". It was a vain hope. Ralph's death is recorded at the Lone Pine Memorial, one of five memorials on the peninsula which commemorate servicemen killed in the campaign but who have no known grave.

Forty years on, in 1967, Mrs Myrtle Carter wrote from Tuppal Station, Tocumwal, NSW, asking whether she was entitled to the Anzac commemorative medallion as the daughter of Gustav Adolph Ralph Stobaus. In due course she signed a formal request form agreeing that she would surrender the medallion if someone with a better claim applied.

Notes and References:
1 The Age, 22 June 1914, p. 10
2 For decades the name Stobaus was regularly misspelt not only in newspaper reports but in all kinds of official documents, including marriage, death and military records.
3 The Advocate, 4 May 1918, p. 18
4 The Age, 28 September 1918, p. 3

http://www.cchg.asn.au/greatwar.html