John Owen Waters was born in Waiuku on Saturday 10 October, 1914 and died on 9 May 1999. 

It is presumed he was born in the home of William and Anne Waters at Glenbrook. There were no hospitals in Waiuku.

His mother was Catherine May Waters  who was unmarried and aged 20 at the time. She was the eldest daughter of William and Anne Waters.

His father was John Owen.

Soon after his birth he was formally adopted by his grand parents, William and Anne Waters. His father, John Owen was killed in WW1 while serving in France with the NZ Expeditionary Force in 1915  or 1916. NZ Military Records at the Auckland Museum list 2 separate John Owen(s) as having lost their lives in WW1. One is from the Thames-Hauraki District, the other from the Gisborne District.  I can only surmise which John Owen was Jack’s real father. 

Apart from the immediate family the circumstances of Jack’s birth were a well-kept secret. When my mother and father married in 1927 they lived in Waiuku and Jack was a schoolboy at Waiuku Primary School. His parents lived about 2 km up Hulls Rd whereas my parents lived in a house near the school and Jack would come around to my Mother’s place for lunch.

Although in his young days he was a frequent visitor to our home in Waiuku I never knew the name of his father until long after my father had died. One cousin of Jack’s told me in later life that Jack’s father would always refer to him as 'Johnny Owen' when he was annoyed with him but he was Johnny Waters when he was pleased with him.  

Catherine Waters, his mother, later married Harry Millar and lived the rest of her life in Rotorua. She has two surviving children but whether or not they know that Jack was her son, I do not know. I saw them a couple of days after Jack's funeral, at the funeral of Myra Waters who was a sister–in-law of Jack. I told them I had attended Jack’s funeral but they did not seem interested. 

Jack served in the army during WW11 but did not go overseas. I think he was an army transport diver. He may have been slightly deaf which would have kept him at home, or likely that he had several children.  He later spent most of his life working as a truck driver for  various cartage firms. In the early 1950s I think he was living at Mercer which was listed as his place of residence when his mother died in June 1951. He as then shifted to Hamilton for a while and was living with his sister Octavia in London St Hamilton, before shifting to Papakura. 

I think Rita, his wife was from Pukekohe. She was certainly living there in the early 1940s when they married. In the 1950s Jack was a cartage contractor  and had his name J.Waters painted on his truck. 

Jack was supposed to have had a large nose. There were many jokes and stories about the Waters’ ‘nose’. One of my uncle’s, Don Waters was given the nickname ‘hook’ because he had a protruding nose. My Father, Philip, was sometimes referred to as ‘Garlick’ because a neighbour Phil Garlick had a big nose.