#52 Ancestors 2020 - Week 51 Winter

 #52 Ancestors 2020  Week 51

Winter

There aren’t many places in Australia where it snows enough to build a snowman.  When I was a child in Glen Innes, on the New England Range in NSW, it often snowed in the winter, but usually it was a sleety dusting which passed quickly.

One night, in the winter of 1958, it really snowed. 

The next morning must have been a Saturday as our parents were still in bed and called us to come into their room, which faced our front garden.  “Look out of the window,” they said, thinking that we would see the lawn covered in snow.

We opened the curtains.  There, looking in on us, was a snowman, complete with hat, scarf and pipe.

The teenagers who lived next door had built it in the night as a surprise for us.

Here we are later in the morning as the snow is beginning to melt.  Rugged up against the cold I am here with my sisters and brother, three of the neighbourhood kids and Lillah Smith, one of the builders of the snowman.

#52 Ancestors 2020 - Week 41 - Newest

 #52 Ancestors 2020 

Week 41 - Newest

I thought for this prompt I would share my newest discoveries relating to the Whitten family, which have come about because of a recent visit to Quirindi, the family’s home town in the central west of NSW.

After several months when most of us in Australia were unable to travel anywhere because of COVID 19, the idea of a trip was very attractive.  We planned to visit the local Museum, which holds my grandmother’s wedding dress, and the cemetery, and to stay at a guesthouse which is attached to the tiny church which was the Quirindi Methodist Church before the creation of the Uniting Church.

This little church had been the centre of my Quirindi ancestors’ lives and in acknowledgement of my great grandmother Charlotte it is now named “The Whitten Room”.  There is a plaque on the wall inside:

 As we checked in, I mentioned to the receptionist that I had attended a service at the church when I was a child.  The occasion had been the dedication of a memorial to my late grandfather, Frederick Whitten and involved some work on the church organ.

“Would you like to see it?” she asked.

She led me down a corridor to the organ which now sits, unplayed, but visible to all who stay at this place.*

The highlight of our visit to Quirindi was the Wedding Dress.  I wrote in a previous blog (#25 Ancestors 2020 Week 23 – Wedding) about my grandparent’s wedding and used this beautiful photo of my grandmother.

The dress lies in a tissue-lined box.  It’s very fragile now, and the silk lining is beginning to disintegrate.  The silver thread on the bodice has tarnished to a rather dramatic dark grey. It’s nevertheless still a spectacular dress and I’m grateful that it’s still here after 109 years and is lovingly cared for.

Small country town museums do a wonderful job on a shoestring.  All of their workers are volunteers who love their history and try hard to preserve it.  This little town has been shrinking for years with faster cars and highways making the large nearby regional city of Tamworth easily accessible for shopping and services. I don't think there is anyone left in Quirindi to whom I am related or who would even remember much about my pioneering family, so I am especially grateful for their care of this precious family heirloom.

* sadly I have since learned that this is not the original organ restored by my Grandmother, but a more recent acquisition.  The original was taken by a family member who convinced the Church that it should have been hers.  I have no idea where it is now

#52 Ancestors 2020 - Week 40 - Oldest

 #52 Ancestors 2020

Week 40  Oldest

The oldest members of my mother’s family were her cousins, twins Betty and Edith “Peggy” Cavill. 

They were born in 1916. 

Betty died aged 101 in 2017.  Peggy died aged 103 in 2019.

Betty and Peggy were the children of Bessie (nee Fleming) and Thomas Cavill.  It was Bessie’s parents, William and Mary Josephine Fleming who had taken in my grandmother Josie and her sister Elsie when their parents had separated. (see 52 Ancestors 2019 “Nurture”)

Betty and Peggy had two brothers, one older and one younger.*They had a happy childhood full of music and entertaining.  Their mother played the piano and their father had a beautiful singing voice.  They were in the same class at school and sat together – apparently Peggy always came top of the class and Betty came second.

They remembered their teenage years as being full of balls and parties.  My mother, whose sister was about their age, reminisced about the times they would come to Quirindi to visit and all the girls would go off to dances dressed in beautiful gowns. 

Both the girls met their future husbands at a dance.  By this time World War II was on, but they married (Peggy in 1940 and Betty a year later) and when their husbands came home, they bought houses very close to one another.

Peggy had two girls and Betty had two boys and the families grew up together, spending their holidays on the south coast of NSW.  When the children grew up, both Peggy and Betty got jobs at Channel 10.

They never lived more than a suburb apart, and in their old age, both widowed, they moved to the same nursing home.  Here they celebrated their 100^th birthday in 2016 and were TV celebrities for a day when the morning shows ran the unusual story of twins celebrating 100 years.

 

 

*Their sister-In-la w, wife of their older brother Alan, died shortly after her 104^th birthday in 2017.

#52 Ancestors 2020 - Week 39 - Should Be a Movie

 #52 Ancestors 2020

 Week 39 Should Be a Movie

In 2014 my family made a movie.

The movie was conceived as a way of showcasing and celebrating my mother’s 90 years, and it had its premiere at the party held for her birthday in December, 2014. 

The idea was that, in the early months of 2014, we would take Mum to all of the significant places in her life and film her there, talking about people and events that had made an impression on her. Various family members would attend each place and hold the camera and ask the questions, although it was never difficult to get Mum to tell a story.

A large crowd of family and friends came together for the party.  A huge screen was set up across the courtyard.

Then a surprise beginning.  The familiar strains of the ABC’s “7.30 Report” and the familiar face of its presenter, Quentin Dempster, who announced that tonight’s 7.30 was showcasing the story of a remarkable woman – Gwynn Gleeson. 

(My brother, Michael, had been an ABC reporter and had arranged this – it was an impressive - and very professional - start.)

From there the camera went back to scenes of Mum packing, and then taking off in the car with my sister and her husband to the sound of Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again”.  Off to where it all began, in Quirindi, NSW where Mum was born and grew up, and where she married in 1943.

                           A map of NSW showing Mum's places                               

Here there were stills from her childhood and a voiceover from Michael, and then the highlight of the Quirindi section – a visit to the local picture theatre.

All of us knew the story but Mum told it again in situ.  Aged about 13, she was sitting with her young sister and sniffling through “Captains Courageous” – the scene where Spencer Tracy says goodbye to the young Freddie Bartholemew -  when there was a tap on her shoulder from the man seated behind her.  “Is that you, Gwynne Whitten?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr Gleeson” (her new English teacher!)

“Haven’t you got a handkerchief?”

“No”

“Here, have mine”

Mum took it home and washed it and ironed it and returned it at school.

Reader, she married him.

(Six years later, after he had left town and she had left school)

Together my parents moved to Young, NSW where the first four of their six children were born.  At Young, we filmed their old house and the High School where Dad had taught, and Mum talked about their neighbours and the friends of their early marriage.

On to Glen Innes, where the family moved in 1953.  Here the filming was at the school where Dad taught, the school we children attended, the local swimming pool, and “the house that Bill built”

It was in Glen Innes that Margie was born in 1956.

The swimming pool featured because all of us children were keen swimmers and we knew our mother had been a swimmer but Glen Innes did not have a pool until 1955.  The day it opened was a red letter day for the community and everyone turned up, eager to take the plunge.  The pool was not heated, and it was October.  Mum said she dived in and completely lost her breath, it was so cold!  She swam to the other side, got out, and never swam in Glen Innes again.

                                                                 Directing in Glen Innes

The next stage of the journey was a side trip to Brunswick Heads, where Mum and Dad had honeymooned in 1943.  Then a sleepy little seaside fishing village, it is now a busy tourist town.  Nevertheless, there were elements that were unchanged and she sat by the Brunswick River, opposite the famous Brunswick Hotel, and reminisced about their honeymoon and the many times she and Dad had returned here with their small children.

In 1960. Mum and Dad moved to Dubbo in the Central West of NSW where they were to live for the rest of their lives.  Their youngest child, Michael, was born here in 1965.  All of us grew up here and eventually left.

There were a lot of Dubbo stories.

Skilfully edited throughout the movie were video clips from my parent’s 40^th and 50^th wedding anniversary celebrations and other short clips which indicated some of the social changes that Mum had lived through in her 90 years.

And at the end, Quentin Dempster again, wrapping up this special edition of the 7.30 Report and wishing Mum a happy birthday.

It was quite a movie.

Mum enjoying the movie.

Gwynneth Joyce Gleeson 1924 -2018

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 37 - Back to School

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 37 - Back to School

N.J. Gleeson and wife Gwynne at his graduation with M.A from the University of Sydney 1952

 Everyone can probably remember a teacher who had an influence on them – for good or ill – but those of us who are teachers remember some of those who taught us because either we wanted to emulate them, or because we never wanted to become like them 

My father started school in about 1920 and began his career as a teacher in a small two-teacher school in 1935.  When he retired from teaching in 1973 he was the Principal of a large High School in country NSW.  Writing some reminiscences of his childhood, he recalled the first Headmaster he encountered, the man in charge of South Lismore Primary School in the 1920s.  

 The Headmaster of South Lismore Primary School was B.J Reilly, whose name I believe was Bernard, but who was always “Ben” to the pupils of South. Ben was an old-style disciplinarian. In other words, he wielded the cane with gusto, appearing to take pleasure, like so many of his kind, of small boys (the oldest, after all, would have been twelve or thirteen, fourteen at the outside) cowering before him.  He was, I suppose, the sort of disciplinarian remembered fondly by lovers of the “good old days” when they lament the decline of “discipline” in today’s schools.  Such advocated of the “Spare the rod and spoil the child” school of thought are wont to recall with pleasure the thought that a good hiding never harmed anyone, with implication that their own sterling characters are the result of such treatment.  One wonders if, in fact, they were ever the recipients of such treatment and, if so, whether they were so enthusiastic about its benefits at the time.  For my money, far from being a model of perfect discipline, Ben was a sadist who might have made an interesting study for a psychologist.

Dad had not really wanted to become a teacher but as a bright boy of poor parents had few options.  For many years, the NSW Department of Education offered scholarships for teacher training at either University or Teachers’ College.  For Dad, and later for his children, this was the only affordable way to get a University degree.

He wrote:

It seems to me that many of the teachers that I have known in the course of my career did the very same thing and, having committed themselves to several years of training,  followed by several more years of being bonded to the Department of Education, came to accept it and even to like it, as they did it to the best of their ability, feeling, as I did, that the rewards – certainly not financial – outweighed the disappointments and frustrations.  Many talked of leaving and trying some other career but became finally hooked when, in the words of Bacon, they had “given hostages to fortune” by marrying and having children.  Some never reconciled themselves and simply became bad teachers, who never could get along with children, who had never-ending problems with classroom discipline and for whom, every day they spent in the classroom must been sheer purgatory.  Those who finally made the grade were, first, those who had a genuine vocation and really loved teaching and second, those who made a determined effort to do it as well as they could.  It helped to recognise that you would never really be much good unless you really liked children and unless you recognised also that the teacher had an important part to play in preparing the next generation to take its place in society.  It was important, too, to acknowledge that teaching was a professional skill and that it could not be done “off the cuff” without serious preparation and an assiduous attention to its basic principles.

Dad used to say that people who did not like children should not be teachers.  That seems obvious, but people become teachers for many reasons and all of us have encountered the teachers who speak down to children, who don’t believe them or trust them, and who judge too harshly. 

An incident in my childhood comes to mind.  I was kicked out of a class for giggling – by a teacher who was notoriously short-tempered and was struggling to find a way to deal with a group of giggly  10-year old girls.  Sent to the Mistress in charge of Girls (of whom all of us were terrified), I dawdled my way to her office and was hugely relieved when she wasn’t in.  As I wandered back, wondering what I was going to say, I encountered the Headmaster who was watering the garden.

This Headmaster was a kind and courteous man, always beautifully turned-out in three-piece suit, who was loved by his students and his staff.  He was a keen gardener, who did nearly all the school gardening and won prizes for it.  He invited me to walk around with him and extracted the story from me.  We chatted until the bell went, and he sent me off, happy and relieved, to my next class.

The antithesis of Dad’s first Headmaster was the man who was the Principal of the High School to which he was sent in the early 1950s.   This man was a huge influence in my father’s life, and in the kind of Principal he became himself.

Dad wrote: “Frank was an object lesson in how to treat children.  He loved children and treated them with enormous compassion.  To see him worming the truth out of a child who had done something wrong was an education in itself.  It was made easier for him because the child knew that he was not going to be punished by being caned or deprived of anything…he was convinced that children could not be taught by being hit.

(In an era when the cane was routinely used by teachers to discipline or punish even minor infractions, a school where it was banned was an anomaly).

“He also used to say, even of hulking 18-year olds, “They’re only little boys” (he had done most of his teaching in boys’ schools) and “I’m a teacher and it is my job to teach them what is right and what is wrong.”

Dad is remembered by his pupils and colleagues as a man of compassion and fairness.  He always thought of Frank as the most interesting person he had ever met. When he became a Principal himself, he often asked himself, “What would Frank do?” when faced with a problem or a difficult person. 

Two of my sisters and I became teachers and I think we all tried to bring to our classrooms our memories of the kind of teacher our father was, and the lessons he had learned from Frank, which were often the subject of dinner time discussions when we were growing up.  While there have been many changes in schools and in teaching practices in the years since 1935, the essential role doesn’t change and the qualities needed to do a good job and have a positive influence remain the same.

#52 Ancestors 2020 - Week 36 - Labour

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 36 - Labour

It is only since my father’s generation that there have been people in my family who did not work with their hands.  My grandfathers, and their forefathers back as far as I can see – into the 17^th century – were almost all labourers.  Most of them were agricultural workers and very few of them owned the land they were working.

My great grandfather Anthony Whitten was an exception in that his father was a landowner.  The problem was that there were several sons and a finite amount of land.  Anthony and two of his brothers left Ireland to seek their fortune here in Australia in the 1860s.  All of them became land owners, but they nevertheless had to labour hard on their land to make a livelihood.

More typical of my Irish forebears was my other great grandfather James Patrick Gleeson who left County Clare with two of his brothers and a sister in about 1885.  His father worked all his life as an agricultural labourer and the family was very poor.  When I spent time in the Family History Society of Ennis in 2017, we found only one reference to Michael,  which indicated that he had owned no land and paid a pittance for the hut where his family lived. James worked as a labourer in Australia, including on the railways, before finding a mid-life career as a publican.

This 19th century farmhouse is  bigger and better than the one Michael Gleeson lived in.

The English immigrants on Dad’s side of the family were also labourers.  Charles White landed here in 1853 with his wife and four children under the age of 6.  They knew nobody in the colony, but Charles was a gardener and was clearly confident that he would find work.  When he died in Lismore in 1898, his obituary recorded that he had carried on a “market garden in South Lismore and was renowned for the excellence of his produce, which he exhibited at Spring Shows”.

Charles White

James Golding and his wife Eliza also came as Government assisted immigrants from England.  James is described as a labourer – the Goldings form a long line of agricultural labourers who lived in two Suffolk villages – Glemsford and Cavendish.

The immigration papers of another pair of my 3 x great grandparents, Patrick and Mary Power, tell a similar story.

His business is stated as “Farming” and his heath is assessed as “Very Good”.  Mary’s business is “Dairywoman” and she to is in “Very Good” condition.  Considering that they were fleeing from Ireland in 1840 (pre- famine but always poor) this is a good report.

There is some evidence that Mary Power’s father, Bernard Murphy, was a “Hedge teacher”.

Hedge Schools sprang up in Ireland in the 18^th and 19^th centuries to secretly provide the basics of an education to the children of Catholic and other non-Anglican families, for whom there were no other provisions.  Under the penal laws, only schools for those of the Anglican faith were allowed.

The name implies that the classes took place outside (next to a hedgerow) but in fact they were usually held in private homes or barns. Subjects included reading writing and grammar of the Irish and English language, and maths (the three “R’s”). In some schools the Irish bardic tradition, Latin, Greek, history and home economics were also taught. Payment was generally made per subject.  It is unlikely that this was enough for Bernard to support his family, so he probably also worked on the land.

 “The people of Ireland are, I may almost say, universally educated:…. I do not know any part of Ireland so wild, that its inhabitants are not anxious, nay, eagerly anxious for the education of their children.” [Wakefield, Account of Ireland, Vol. II P 307].

 A surviving hedge school

In 2020, I can’t name one member of my extended family who works as a labourer.  Machines and robots are increasingly making manual work a thing of the past in first world countries.  Such manual work as we do – like gardening or woodworking – is done for pleasure and personal fulfillment rather than as a means of keeping a roof over our heads and food in our mouths.

But to find a teacher amongst all the labourers is very exciting. There have been teachers in the family from the 1920s to the present day – now we know that this honourable profession was recorded in our family as long ago as the 1750s and as far away as Ireland. 

#52 Ancestors 2020 - Week 35 - Unforgettable

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 35 Unforgettable

The children who die young are often the forgotten members of our family trees.  They don’t grow up enough to make any mark on the world and they don’t marry and have children and grandchildren.

I have often thought about these forgotten children but the one who is truly unforgettable is this one:

Dulcie Eunice McCann was born on 26 December 1913, the 7^th child of Charles and Alma McCann, Paul’s paternal grandparents.  Two years before her birth, her parents had lost their 5^th child, a boy called Percival Alfred.  He was only three years old.  The Coroner’s Report states that he died of septicaemia as a consequence of an abscess in the pleural cavity – a condition easily treatable these days with penicillin.

We don’t know when this photo of Dulcie was taken but it must have been shortly before her death.  She died on 31 July 1915, when she was only 18 months old and the awful irony is that she died from injuries she received when she was kicked by a horse.

I have never been able to find the Coroner’s report and we don’t know where she is buried but this little photo is a poignant reminder of her short life.

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 34 - Chosen Family

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 34 - Chosen Family.

My siblings and I had plenty of aunts and uncles but there were two women who were constant in our lives who were not related to each other or to us.

Mum and Dad's 25th wedding anniversary with children and the "two Margies" either side of my mother.

When my parents were first married, they moved to the small south-western town of Young, in NSW. My father was a teacher on the staff at the Young High School and my mother was busy at home with babies – four of us born between 1945-1952.  The teachers at the school were mostly young and living in boarding house accommodation so Mum and Dad’s house became a meeting place. Several became lifelong friends of my parents including two of the young women, who were both named Margaret.  They became known in the family as “the two Margies”.

For the next 60 years they were present at every significant family event, but they also enriched our lives in other ways.  I decided to write about one of them – Margie Beavis – because I realise that as she remained single and had no children, there is nobody to write her story.

I know very little about her early life.  She was born in 1923, one of three children.  She alluded to a father whose life was forever changed by WWI.  I’ve looked at his war record and found that he enlisted almost as soon as war broke out and was sent to Gallipoli.  Here he was rapidly promoted through the ranks and had become a Captain by the end of 1915, when he was sent to France.  By 1916, after being involved in the fighting at Pozieres,  he was being repeatedly admitted to hospital with “Neurasthenia” and he was invalided home at the end of 1917.  “Neurasthenia” was the common term for shell shock - what we now call PTSD.  Although he married in 1919, and returned to his job as a teacher, he never really recovered and there were times when he lived apart from the family.

Margie was a clever girl who attended Sydney Girls’ High School at a time when it was “the” school for bright girls in Sydney.  She got a good pass in the Leaving Certificate in 1940 with Honours in Mathematics and won a scholarship to the University of Sydney to study science.

Margie would have graduated with her B. Sc Dip Ed at the beginning of 1945.  She came to Young either that year or the following one.  I don’t know how long she stayed but she was back in Sydney by the time I was born (1949) and then she went overseas.  In England she taught in a rough school in the East End of London, then hitchhiked around Europe with a friend from Australia.

On her return home, in the mid 50s, she decided that she didn’t want to teach any more, and she got a job with the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) in their National Standards Laboratory at the University of Sydney.  She remained there for the rest of her working life.

Margie always had time for us, and she created some great memories.  My younger sister and I remember one visit she made to us when we were probably aged about 9 and 7.  She spent the morning with us, creating a kite, and then the afternoon tearing up and down the street outside trying to get it to catch the wind.  I don’t think it worked very well but it was great fun.

When we were older, she made sure that we had some city experiences on our visits from the country.  One by one she took each of us to see the Australian Ballet.  When Libby started at Sydney University, she bought her a sleeping bag and took her to the snow for her first skiing trip.  She loved the bush and was knowledgeable about plants and rocks – she took me one day on a perilous walk around West Head (north of Sydney) which involved getting far too close to the top of a waterfall.  She took me to Jenolan Caves, too.

My older sister Jenny was mad about swimming and swimmers and desperately wanted to go to the Australian Swimming Championships at the famous North Sydney Pool.  This was about 1962, a golden era of Australian world record holders.  I seem to recall that the other Margie came too and they both braved the night sitting in the stands while Jenny and I watched our heroes.

When I announced my engagement to the young man who became my first husband, Margie was a little horrified that I had no engagement ring (it was the '70s and we had no money).  She gave me an opal from her collection of precious stones and had it set for me as a gift.

All of us remember Margie’s involvement in one of the most notorious murder mysteries in Australian history – the infamous “Bogle-Chandler” case.

Dr Gilbert Bogle and Mrs Margaret Chandler were found dead on New Years morning 1963 beside the Lane Cove River in the Lane Cove National Park.  Bogle was a physicist at the CSIRO; Margaret Chandler was the wife of another CSIRO scientist, and they had both been at a New Year’s Eve party the night before.  So had Margie.  She gave evidence that she had seen Bogle leave the party, and believed him to be alone.*

The inquest was the biggest story in Australia in 1963.  One night my parents opened the door to a distraught Margie, who had driven the 250 miles to our place to escape the press attention.  She rested and recovered with us.

When she retired Margie pursued her interest in Aboriginal culture by taking herself off to Central Australia to study the Pitjantjatjara language of the Western Desert people.  Most white Australians know nothing about aboriginal languages, so this was a very unusual thing to do.  When she returned to Sydney she became involved in the teaching of the language through the WEA (an adult education organisation).

She also travelled in Asia long before it was fashionable and she learned Mandarin.  She was an enthusiastic and dedicated bush regenerator, working with the National Trust on various bush regeneration projects around Sydney.  She was a passionate supporter of anti-war and anti-nuclear causes – I found her name on a petition published in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1988 urging the Prime Minister not to allow American nuclear armed warships to dock in Sydney.

Like many liberated women of her age, Margie was a smoker, and although she finally gave up – in her 50s, I think- there was enough damage to give her a difficult time as she aged.  By her 70s, she had emphysema and she must have had some intimations of mortality because she decided to give away the jewellery she had inherited from her mother and aunts.  All of us were given a piece of jewellery.  I have always treasured this Victorian piece and worn it often. It had been owned by Margie’s aunt, and I think was probably never worn by Margie.  It’s still in the original box.

Margie died aged 86 in January 2010.  My sister Libby spoke at her funeral about her special place in our family.  Not an aunt, not a godmother, but a significant and loving influence.

*. The case became famous because of the circumstances in which the bodies were found and because the cause of death could not be established. In 2006 a filmmaker discovered evidence to suggest the cause of death was hydrogen sulphide gas. In the early hours of 1 January an eruption of gas from the polluted river bed may have occurred, causing the noxious fumes to pool in deadly quantities in the grove.

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 33 Troublemaker

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 33 - Troublemaker.

When my youngest brother was born and my parents decided to call him Michael, my grandmother was not happy.  “Uncle Mick” (her brother in law) was a drunken no-hoper, and she thought it was a mistake to give the new baby the same name.

Not believing that naming him Michael would doom him, my parents went ahead.  But when I began my research into the family, I was curious about the origin of my grandmother’s hostility to my great uncle Michael and determined to find out more.

Sadly, lots of it was true.  Michael was trouble.

Michael Garrard Gleeson was born in 1892, the second of five children born to James Patrick and Mary Gleeson (nee Crummy.)  He was born In Lismore, NSW where his father worked for some years on the railways and then in the construction industry.  With his partner Jeremiah Finn (his mother-in-law’s third husband), James formed the company Gleeson & Finn, who were responsible for building many of the early streets of Lismore, and three of the reservoirs.

In about 1903, when Michael was 11, the family moved to Brisbane.  It’s not clear what they were doing for the next few years but by 1916, my great grandfather had a new career as a publican. He worked at a succession of Brisbane hotels, including the famous Regatta at Toowong and the Alliance (at Spring Hill).  In both of these places Michael worked as a barman.

In 1914, when WWI broke out, Michael enlisted in the Australian Army. He served for exactly one month before he was discharged for health reasons – “bad elbow” was the written excuse.

In 1916, with Australia desperate for new recruits, he tried again and was accepted.  On his admission sheet for this enlistment, he records one brush with the law – a conviction for drunkenness*.1  He is described as being 5’6” tall with fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair.  He weighs only 133 lbs (about 52kilograms)

Michael sailed on 24 January 1917 on the troop ship “Ayrshire”.  By April he was in France with the 15^th AIF who fought on the Somme, by July he was in trouble.  His war record states that on 7 July he was charged with “hesitating to obey an order” and “violently resisting arrest”.  In September he was absent without leave for 24 hours and had his pay docked, then he was hospitalized with trench fever and sent back to hospital in England.

This seems to have been the end of Michael’s tour of duty – he remained in England for several months, during which he was constantly recorded as ‘Absent without Leave” and “Absent from Parade.”  In May of 1917 he was shipped home.

Once home, Michael resumed work as a barman at his parents’ hotel.  This was perhaps the worst imaginable place for him to be.

The first newspaper report I can find is dated November 1918.  Michael was charged with stealing a sum of nine pounds and a few shillings, which was the change left on the bar when another soldier paid for their drinks.  He then refused to give it back.  The case was reported extensively in the Brisbane papers, but in the end the Judge concluded that all the men were drunk, and as Michael had agreed to return the money, the case was closed.

In 1919, Michael was charged with stealing a bicycle.  The policeman who brought the charge explained to the magistrate that he would not proceed on the grounds that “the accused was too drunk at the time of the alleged offence to be capable of knowing what he did.” In discharging him, the magistrate said, “My advice to you is to leave the drink alone.”

He didn’t.  There is a string of offences throughout the 1920s.  In 1921 he was charged with stealing some boots while drunk, and in 1922 with breaking into a warehouse with another man and stealing some beer and stout.  In that year, a prohibition order was taken out against him, forbidding anyone from selling alcohol to him.  In 1926, when he was arrested again for breaking a glass shop door while under the influence, he was remanded on the basis that he be admitted “to Dunwich”*2

According to Wikipedia, “The Dunwich Benevolent Asylum was a benevolent asylum for the aged, infirm and destitute operated by the Queensland Government in Australia. It was located at Dunwich on North Stradbroke Island in Moreton Bay and operated from 1865 to 1946."

One of the reasons for his admission may have been evidence given of an apparent attempt on his own life in 1921.  There is a newspaper report of him being admitted to hospital after being discovered with a wound to his throat “recently inflicted” and with blood flowing.

When James and Mary Gleeson bought the freehold of the Club Hotel in Warwick, Queensland in 1926, it may have been partly an attempt to remove Michael from Brisbane, but his problems didn’t go away.  There are a few arrests for drunkenness through the 1930s and in 1938 a more serious attempt on his life.  Again, he cut his throat, but this time inflicted worse damage, with a razor, and was admitted to hospital in a serious condition.  The newspaper reported that he was not living at home at this time but was found in the vicinity of his parents’ hotel - I wonder if his parents had given up on him?

Surprisingly, Michael married in 1944, when he was 51.  Nothing is known about his wife, May Austin.  Was she a drinking companion or a positive influence in his life?

If the latter, it was really too late.  Michael died aged 54 in 1947.  His death certificate records “chronic alcoholism” as a major cause of death.

Michael's grave at Lutwych cemetery in Brisbane

I felt incredibly sad reading the trajectory of Michael’s life through the numerous police reports on “Trove”.  While the police, and perhaps his family, saw him as a troublemaker, he was clearly a very troubled soul. 

There are so many unanswered questions.  Was his problem with alcohol already beginning to manifest itself in 1914, when he was first arrested?  Did his time in France during the War make everything worse, or would it all have happened anyway?  Was there something in his childhood or his family relationships which sowed the seed?  There is no one left to ask.

*1October 1914.  Charged 5 shillings or 6 hours in the lock up.

*2 see clipping

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 32 Small

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 32 - Small

This small album came to us recently from Paul’s cousin.  It belonged to her father, Charles Leslie (Les) McCann who was the second child and first son born to Charles and Alma McCann. Paul’father Cecil Eric (always known as Pat) was the eighth of the family of nine children.

The album measures 3’ x 5”.

This is the inside cover:

So it’s a gift from Stan to Les (Mac), in 1917, when Les was 17.  Who was Stan?

There are 24 small photos in the album.  It consists mostly of photos of boys and men with bikes – mostly motorbikes of the period, although there is one of a pushbike and another of a very early touring car fording a flooded causeway. 

All the McCanns were keen on wheels.

Here is Charlie McCann. Les’ father, driving a very fancy motorbike with a sidecar.  Charlie seems to be wearing a “duster” coat of the kind popular at the time for such outings as they were designed to keep the dust and dirt off the clothes underneath. 

The first photo in the album is of Les sitting in the same sidecar with a beach behind him, there’s one of Les leaning nonchalantly against the bike and another photo further in of the same bike disappearing down a dusty road.

 Two photos are of a large group of men and women with an array of bikes – it looks like the beginning of a race or a rally.

There are several beach photos.  As we live in this area, we have tried to match them up with the beaches we know, but so much has changed since 1917 that it’s all guesswork.  There are more buildings now,  and there has been coastal erosion so it’s difficult to be sure.

There are also photos of the river – we assume it’s either the Richmond or Wilson River at Lismore where the family lived.  One shows a cream boat, a sight not seen now since at least the end of WWII.

 Its job was to deliver empty cans and collect full cans of cream from the dairy farms on the river for conveyance to the Norco Factory in Lismore, but the cream boats also carried other goods and occasional passengers.  Improvements in roads and road transport put an end to this leisurely passage up the river by the cream boats.

There is no one alive now who can truly identify these photos.  We can speculate, but we will never know the full story behind the pictures, or the friendship between Les and the mysterious Stan.

Maybe this is him?

#52Ancestors 2020 Week 31 Large

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 31 - Large

Growing up, I was one of six children, which was regarded as a large family in the 50s and 60s. More typically of the early years of the 20^th century, my father was also one of 6 and my mother one of 8.  Going back another generation, families were much larger.  Here are my maternal great grandparents, who had 13 children and 24 grandchildren.

Anthony and Charlotte (Mason) married in Muswellbrook in 1865, when he was 25, and she 22.  Their “honeymoon” was spent riding their horses and several head of cattle over the Liverpool Range to the land Anthony had taken up at Gaspard, near Quirindi.  Their property, called Lowestoft, became their lifelong home and the birthplace of all their children.

Lowestoft in 1914 - the centre of family life

 Robert Whitten was born on 17 January 1866.  He was known as “Bob” or “Fernie”.  He married Marion McGregor in 1896 and they had two daughters, Iris and Eileen.  The family spent many years in New Zealand, but Bob returned to Quirindi on his retirement and died there on 3 September 1951.

 

Robert "Fernie" Whitten

Jane “Jennie” was born on 3 Feb 1868. She married Samuel Betts in 1903, and they had two daughters called Winice and Mavis.  She died on 11 April 1962.

Jenny and Sam on their wedding day

 Edward “Ted” born 12 July 1869.  Ted did not marry and spent all his life on the land at Lowestoft.  He developed a passion for astronomy and enjoyed educating his nephews about the night sky.  He died on 24 July 1938 and is buried beside his parents at Wallabadah.

Ted with his telescope - his mother and nephew Lawrence Betts

 Frederick “Fred” was born 21 January 1871.  He married his childhood sweetheart Annie Newcombe in 1902 but she died the following year shortly after the birth of their daughter. Nine years later he married Josephine Morgan, and they had 7 children together – Keith, Jackie, Ruth, Connie, Royce, Gwynne (my mother) and Joan.

Fred and Josie with Keith, Ruth, Connie and baby Royce in 1921

 Henry “Harry” was born on 23 October 1872.  Like Ted, he never married and stayed on the farm all his life.  My mother remembered him as a shy man, who always had a lolly in his pocket for the children.  He died on 3 October 1943.

Harry and his dog, Roger

 Anthony “Tony” was born 6 July 1874.  He married Hilda Dawson in 1913 and they had 3 children, Victor, Doris and Beryl.  Like his brothers, Tony was also a farmer.

Tony and Hilda on their wedding day

Eliza, known as Lucie, was born on 6 November 1876.  She never married.  She died in Sydney on 13 April 1937. Little is known about her – it would be good to know why she lived away from home as a single woman.  Perhaps she had a profession?

Lucie Whitten

Richard  and

Joseph were born on 18 May 1878.  Richard died aged one month, on 6 Jun 1878.  Joseph lived until 5 September 1880.  They are buried in the orchard at Lowestoft.

Charlotte “Lottie” was born 21 August 1879.  She fell in love with her cousin, Albert Moore, but her parents didn’t approve and sent her away.  She killed herself by hanging from her bedpost on 9 December 1906.

Charlotte "Lottie" Whitten

 Albert was born 25 April 1881 and he trained as a Methodist Minister.  While he was studying in the United States he met and married Caroline Steere on 10 April 1918 in Maine. They had a daughter, Winice, who died at birth, and a son, Maurice.  Albert died on 2 April 1949 and is buried in Limerick, Maine.

 

Albert and Caroline on their wedding day

Alfred was born on 5 March 1883.  He also trained as a Methodist Minister and went travelling with his brother Albert to Europe and the USA.  In his case, it seems that his parents were also interfering in his love life, trying to keep him from Ethel Cock, whom he married on his return in 1914.  They had five children, Phyllis, Lloyd, Wesley, Beth and Olwen.  Alf died on 5 Aug 1958.

Alf and Ethel on their wedding day

Beatrice was born on 7 October 1885, twenty years after her parent’s marriage.  She married Charles Betts, known as Bill (brother to her sister Jennie’s husband) on 7 November 1911.  They had two children, Daphne and Lawrence.

Beatrice Whitten

This was a large and tight-knit family.  Except for Albert and Alf, all the men were farmers on this land or nearby, and Lowestoft was the centre of family activity.  The grandchildren who lived elsewhere came for holidays and they stayed close all of their long lives.