Of Tragedy and Valor
Kevin John Carpenter

Kevin John Carpenter was born May 2nd 1961, the son of Dorothy Gladys Rumbelow and John Kevin Carpenter. Kevin was the grandson of Walter Malen Rumbelow. He had 4 siblings;  Patricia, Heather, Timothy & Narelle.

Kevin lived in Meningie with his parents who managed the station for Yarli Pastoral Co.

In September of 1968, he was reported missing and the subject of a newspaper article. It was determined he drowned accidently on 10/09/1968 aged 7 years.

Burial: Headstone shows Son of John & Dorothy, Brother of Patricia, Heather, Timothy & Narelle.
Cemetery:  Meningie, Plot/Grave/Niche:  706,
Date of Burial:  1968-09-14, Minister Officiating:  Rev Sutcliffe, 

Hopes Dwindle For Missing Boy

September 11 1968
MENINGIE SA

There are still hopes, though they are dwindling, that Kevin John Carpenter, 7, missing since Tuesday, will be found safe tomorrow.  There is thought to be a chance that he may have obtained a 90-mile lift to the Adelaide Royal Show or still be lying injured in scrub country near his station home. 

A description of the boy was broadcast over loud speakers at the show yesterday and his description was circulated to police patrol cars in the metropolitan area. 

Kevin Carpenter is the son of Mr. John Carpenter, manager of Yarlie station, about 14 miles from Meningie. 

Yesterday he told his aunt, Mrs. Mary Olson, whose husband owns Yarli, that he was disappointed that his two sisters Pai, 15, and Heather, 13, and cousin Lesley Olson, 18, had decided not to take him with them to the show because they feared that he might become lost in the crowd. 

Mrs. Olson said that at the time she did not take seriously the boy's remarks that he would try to get a bus ride to the show. 

Police and other searchers, who today followed the boy's tracks for about three miles along the sandy Lake Albert foreshore of Yarli, will tomorrow intensify land and air search over more than 20,000 acres of six lakeside stations. Mr. Carpenter said tonight: "I haven't given up hope. I feel it may be a question of whether we can find Kevin in time.

"If he is lying injured in scrub-covered country on Lake Albert station, where I was searching today, I could have passed two feet away without seeing him."

First Constable C. M. Williams and other members of the police aqualung squad today followed the boy's barefoot tracks for three miles along the shore to where they turned landward at the boundary of Yarli station. The boy's tracks led and Mr. L. Mann's Lake Albert station. 

Before the boy left home at 1.30 p.m. yesterday he told his mother that he would not walk further than this boundary. 

However, Mrs. Carpenter, a member of the well-known Rumblelow seafaring family at Victor Harbor, fears that the boy may have been drowned attempting to catch a cygnet as a pet.  There are also fears because searchers noticed tiger snakes active and vicious. 

Although there is shallow water along the lake shore, this suddenly deepens at many points to holes 15 feet to 18 feet washed by a current through the narrow link between Lakes Albert and Alexandrina. 

Local fishermen said tonight that if the boy had fallen into a water hole he could have sank into the soft silt bottom. 

The boys tracks led from Yarli station homestead to a windmill on the lake shore, Then they led for a half a mile west to an island about 12 feet square which the boy must have reached by wading through water 18 inches deep. There were still three swan eggs in a nest on this island.