52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - 2025

Week 2 - Favourite Photo

 

Figure 1 Elsie Barnes (nee Morgan) 1920s

 

I have chosen to write about this photo of my great aunt Elsie, who had no children and perhaps now is only remembered by the children of her nieces and nephews.  I remember her only as an old lady, but she was much loved by my mother who told us many stories about her.

Elsie May Morgan was born in Surry Hills, an inner suburb of Sydney, NSW on 11 April 1884.  She was the third child of George Frederick Power Morgan and his wife Mary Jane (nee Black).  Her older siblings were Max (born 1881) and Josephine (1882) and in 1886 a little brother, Edward, was born.

Elsie’s world was torn apart by events in 1887.  Her brother Max died after being hit by a cart in the street.  Sometime – either just before or just after this – she and her sister Josephine were taken to live with their paternal aunt (also Josephine) and her family in Summer Hill, Sydney.  Her mother took the baby and apparently disappeared – we think the children never saw her again.

Josephine and Elsie were absorbed into the large and loving Fleming household.  Their aunt Josephine and her husband William Fleming had been married only eight years and already had six children when they took their nieces in.  The girls’ grandmother Bedelia Morgan, who had been widowed in 1880, also lived with them.

What a generous couple they must have been.  Josephine and Elsie were absorbed into their growing family (there were five more children born between 1888 – 1899) and the two women spoke lovingly of their “Aunt Sis” all their lives.  

The girls also lost touch with their father when they were quite small, as they grew up believing they were orphans.  In fact, George did not die until 1921.  Their mother went on to have two more “marriages”, at least one of which was bigamous, and when they learnt of her death in 1933 Josie and Elsie discovered a whole new family of half siblings.

By this time both were married.  Josephine (my grandmother) married Fred Whitten in 1911, and we believe that this photo was taken at their property, “Woodstock” near Quirindi, NSW.  Elsie probably met Jack Barnes during a visit to her sister as he and Fred had known each other since childhood.

Elsie had stayed in Sydney after her sister married and was working at a store in Ashfield (my mother thought it was a drapery).  She was a member of the Ashfield Philharmonic Society and had also been a dancer.  My mother recalled a photo of her in costume with one leg straight up the wall – she thought it was amazing!  I have also found accounts of her performances with the Railway and Tramway Musical Society, including one in which she sang the role of Pitti Sing, one of the “Three Little Maids from School” in “The Mikado”.

Elsie was 42 and Jack 37 when they married so there were no children.  In some ways they seem to have been ill matched.  She was a city girl who loved music and dancing, and he was a country boy who had barely left the area in which he was born.  There is a story told by my aunt that he was embarrassed by a performance she gave once so he seems not to have appreciated her talents.

Her nieces loved her.  My mother and her sister Joan especially loved and always remembered her laughter and singing and kindness to them and mourned her death, which came in March 1974 at the age of 90.