After a year in New Zealand, Australian miner William Joynson and his wife Kim had begun packing their belongings, ready to return to Queensland.
The photo albums and other personal items had already been shipped across the Tasman.
After sons Jonathon, 13, and Benjamin, 10, finished the school year, the family planned to leave their modest cottage and move home early in the New Year.
The Joynsons had shaped a life in New Zealand, centred around the Pike River coal mine and the Jehovah's Witness community, of which they were active members.
Friends James Ashby and Rodger Griffiths described the man they know as Willy Joynson as a "typical Australian".
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