Old Wedding photos – something to treasure

In the 21st century, we take photography for granted.  Almost all of us have a good quality camera in our pocket all the time, as part of our phone.  We snap photos all the time, for all sorts of purposes.  However, not that long ago, photography wasn’t that easy.  Even twenty years ago, before digital photos became a thing, film was limited (12, 24 or 36 photos to a roll) and had to be sent away for processing.  You didn’t know if you had a good photo until well after the event was over.  For many families (mine included) the cost of this process meant that photographs were chosen and posed carefully, and a bad shot was mourned – because it couldn’t be snapped again in the moment.  Families tended to take photographs to document the important events in their lives, and weddings are definitely in that category.  Some families are lucky enough to have wedding photographs going back through generations.  For others they are lost, descended to a different branch of the family or were never taken.  I’m lucky – I have a few, going back into the 19th century (just).

24 June 1896 – Freestone Creek, Queensland (near Warwick)

Emily Smith married Henry Thomas Eastment

A cherished family portrait, which was actually reprinted for us by the original photographer’s firm in the early 1980s.  Unfortunately, while having the photograph is amazing, the only source we have for who is in the photo is the couple’s daughter, who wasn’t born until twelve years after the event.

The information we have is:

Back Row, standing, l to r
Annie Eastment (nee Shaw) (half hidden), Alfred Smith, Leslie Staff (short man), Isaac Ball, Edward Latter, William Noble.

2nd row, standing, l to r,
Charles Eastment, Lucy Smith, Alice Eastment, Annie Ball nee Eastment, Mary Jane Latter nee Eastment, Mary Jane Noble nee Smith, Edith Noble, Annie Smith (we think), Ada Brunckhorst nee Smith, Charles Brunckhorst.

3rd row, seated, l to r:
John Eastment, Salome Eastment, Henry Thomas Eastment, Emily Eastment nee Smith, Elizabeth Smith, Henry Smith

Front row:
Maude Eastment, next two possibly Annie Ball’s daughters, last two probably Smith girls.

I live in hope that someday, somebody, somewhere, will be able to confirm what we have and fill in the gaps.  However, as it’s now over 120 years ago …

We have photographs from the weddings of three of Emily’s siblings (Ada Priscilla and her husband, Charles Brunckhorst, married 1895 on the left, Alfred and his wife Lucy Mundey married 1889, and Thomas and his wife Jane Gomm, who married in 1898on the right.

That we have surviving photos from four out of the nine weddings in that family, suggests to me that this family strongly valued photography and the photographs produced.

Queensland – date unknown

Beatrice Maud Haid married William Henry Richard John Benjamin Thomas Foster

On a completely different branch of the family, but not too far away (somewhere around Ipswich, Queensland), Beatrice Maud Haid (half-sister of my great-grandmother Gertrude Ihle) married Mr Foster.  According to the Queensland birth, death and marriage indexes, this marriage took place in 1909.  A very formally posed portrait.

The Next Generation

By the 1920s, the children of Henry and Emily Eastment were themselves getting married.

On the left, the first wedding of Elsie May Eastment.  She married Laurence Bale, in 1928.  The attendants were her sister Vera, and Vera’s husband Dudley Francis (left hand photo).  The right hand photograph shows Leslie Charles Eastment with his wife, Ethel, who he married in 1931.    Their younger brother, Alan, married in 1943, to Ruby Lickiss (photo below).

1976, Elsie, having been widowed in 1971, married again to Nolan George Taylor (really awful newspaper photo)

Auntie Elsie’s Stories

Long, long ago in the dim and distant past (I think it was 1979) my mother and I sat down with a tape recorder to interview my great auntie Elsie (my grandmother’s sister).

Elsie Eastment (aged about 8)

Elsie was born in 1908 in Warwick, Queensland, the seventh of nine children of Henry Thomas Eastment and Emily Smith.

Although Auntie was nervous to start with, she soon forgot the recorder was there as she started to tell the stories, some familiar and some new.  She was ten years younger than my Nan, so had a different view of some of the stories to those we had heard before.

She spoke of many things from their childhood, games and events with her brothers and sisters.  She spoke of their pony, and of taking a sulky to school (and parking the horse in their aunt’s paddock for the day) as if it were the most normal thing in the world.  To them it was:

We had a pony, “Taffy”, for us kids, he was a drafting pony, and he’d be racing after cattle.  When a cow would veer away he would turn practically on a halfpenny.  Eric could never ride him, he would just go straight off.  If Ve or I fell off he’d go for his life, but if Merle and Alan were on him (and one day he went straight under the clothes line and swiped both off his tail) he just turned around as if to say “well, what are you doing down there, hurry up and get on”.  He’d wait for them to get on, but if it had been us, he’d have long been gone.  He must have liked them better , or perhaps it was because they were little.  One day I was after a cow and he turned quickly, and I got round his neck, hanging on with my arms and legs, and he put his foot up on me and pulled me down.

We never rode him to school, we always took the sulky or walked.  We walked when we went to the Sladeville school, but when we went to Warwick school we always had the sulky.  Either Roy or Les would drive.  Aunt Janie Noble lived in Warwick, she had a big yard, and we’d leave the horse and sulky there.  That’s how we got to know Auntie Janie so well when we were kids.  We didn’t have that far to walk to school from her place.  She used to run a boarding house at that stage.

Apparently one of their houses was haunted! She didn’t remember it directly, but knew the story her sister and brother had told over the years.

In one house we lived in, your mother and Os were detailed off to do the washing up, and sometimes they’d go out and this apparition would be standing on the pile of plates on the table – it was transparent and if you got close to it it just faded through the wall.  It looked like a person.  I was only a baby, so I can only go from what they told me.  One night Mum went into the bedroom and it was standing on the bed, and she screamed, of course, and it just faded through the wall.  Anyhow, we shifted from that place afterwards down to Wood Street.  The place was demolished and they found a skeleton under the floor, so we presume it was him.

There were hard time as well as fun times.  When their house burnt down in 1926, the family lost almost everything.

The house at Sladevale on the Darling Downs burned down.  I wasn’t home at the time, but Ve was, and Merle and Alan, and of course Aunt Ethel was there with baby John and Dad.  Ve woke up first, she had her trousseau there, and she threw all the drawers out of that cupboard out the window and saves her trousseau.  Then she realized that Dad and Aunt Ethel weren’t up, so she tore in there and she grabbed the baby, and Dad panicked, of all people to panic, and he was running round and round the house saying “oh, it’s on fire, oh, it’s on fire”.  He just panicked.  I would never have thought that he would.  Ethel did, too.  She lost all her wedding presents – she had some beautiful wedding presents, she had beautiful linen, a lot of Madeira work and hand-worked stuff which would have been done in the islands, she lost all of it, also a Shelley china teaset she had, a Japanese afternoon teaset which looked like eggshell china, and all the silverware too.

Only for Ve, John would have been dead, because they ran out of the house and left him there.  He was only a little fellow, I’ve forgotten how old he was – seven or either months or something like that, but Dad and old Ethel forgot about him.  They didn’t save a thing, all that was saved was Ve’s trousseau and they jut got out in their night clothes.

The house was burned right to the ground.  That was a big place.  Ve always swore that she burned it down because it was Mum’s home, you know.  It had eight bedrooms, a big dining room and verandahs all the way round it.  Then there was a landing – it wouldn’t be as wide as this verandah (about 10’) and a small house at the back which had five rooms, and it all went.

The “Aunt Ethel” was actually Elsie’s stepmother – this happened after her mother’s

death and her father’s re-marriage.  The baby, John, was her half-brother.  Recent research has turned up a newspaper article confirming the facts of the story, if not the emotions:

She remembered her grandfather, John Eastment, probably the only one of the nine children to know him.  When her mother died (she was 15) she went to live for some time with an aunt in Lismore. John was also living with the aunt, his daughter Florence.  From her story of his learning to drive in his 80s, and his kindness to a granddaughter, a picture of a kindly old man appears:

 

(Valmai then commented that there was an article in the Warwick “Argus” in about 1912 about Mr and Mrs J Eastment visiting their son in Warwick, coming up by car

on account of Mrs Eastment’s health).

I don’t know about that, but when I came down here in 1923 he had a sulky and a little pony which he used to call “Topsy” and he used to sit up in that sulky and drive like mad everywhere.  He bought a car after that, so he couldn’t have driven in 1913 because he was learning to drive in 1923.  Once he drove into the garage and he was saying, “Whoa, whoa” to the car, but it ran through the end of the garage.  Sooner than having the back of the garage built up again, he had doors put in the back, so if he went “whoa, whoa”, he’d go through the door.

(I then commented that he must have been a bit adventurous learning to drive at his age, he must have been 85 – he was 88 when he died in 1926).

I don’t think they were very fussy about licences in those days and there wasn’t much traffic.

Grandfather Eastment was a gentle old man, nothing like Dad, and as I’ve told you, when I was scrubbing the floors at Aunt Flo’s boarding house, he would pinch me on the bottom, not hard, and he’d say “Sizzle-a-bob, here you are girl, here’s two bob, don’t you tell your Auntie Flo I gave you two bob”.  Of course as soon as grandfather’s back was turned I’d go out to Auntie Flo and say “look at what grandfather gave me”.  He was a dear old man, I loved grandfather.

Another relative she remember well was Auntie Jim Smith, who was married to her mother’s brother.  Auntie Jim (real name Anna Maria) appears as an eccentric, perhaps slightly unhinged, personality.  Perhaps raising a large family does that to you!

I remember once hearing about Uncle Jim Smith (Mum’s brother) and his wife, who was Anna Maria Allen (we always called her Auntie Jim).  They were having Christmas dinner, and they were having an argument, (they were always arguing, always). 

Anna Maria Smith

Anyway they were having a great argument this day and he got the better of her, apparently, so she just picked up the leg of ham and shot it at him, and he ducked and it went through the window at the back.  The house was high up, and by the time she got down the stairs the dogs had the ham.  She was a funny woman, there is no doubt about that. 

She always wore this old felt hat at the dairy, and she came in one day and it was full of holes, so she lined all the kids up, the whole 13 of them, and went right down the line – “Did you cut up my hat?”, “No”, “did you cut up my hat?”, “no”.  Della was on the end so she thought Oh well, I’d better own up to cutting the hat up because she was quite

Jim Smith

capable of giving the whole 13 of them a hiding, so Della said, “Well, I cut the hat up, mother” and Della got a hiding.  So when Uncle Jim came in, Auntie Jim said “look what Della did to my hat – she cut up my hat!”, and he said, “Della didn’t cut it up, I wanted some washers, so I cut it up”.  So Della got another hiding for telling lies. 

She always used to call him “Jim Smith”.  “Look here, Jim Smith” she’d say to him, that was the way she used to address him.  Audrey was supposed to be practicing on the piano once, and the piano wasn’t going so Auntie Jim slipped in to see what was happening, and there was Audrey reading a book.  Auntie Jim tore out again and got a bucket of milk and brought it in and tipped it over Audrey, piano and everything.

She also had some stories, but fewer memories, about both her grandmothers – Salome Eastment (nee Whitney) and Elizabeth Smith (nee Tottle).

 

Salome Eastment

The only thing I can remember about Salome Eastment was a little old lady with a long black dress and a black bonnet.  That’s all I can remember.  I was only about 5 or 6 at that time.  When I was up in Mackay last, I was telling them about us doing the family tree, and asked Eric if he knew anything about Grandma Salome.  He said, “no, the only thing I know about her is she was a cranky old bugger”.  She used to always give him the rounds of the kitchen.  Lil (Os’ wife) told me one time she was a real tough old baby, a real pioneer.  She had to be, as grandfather was a bit footloose, and it was quite a time before he finally settled down at Wyrallah.  

 

Grandmother Smith was a great one for poultry – she always had prize poultry – she

Elizabeth Smith

had this beautiful rooster and he’d eaten pumpkin seeds.  When a rooster eats pumpkin it goes down in the tail and his tail drags on the ground, and after a while he’d die.  This rooster just disappeared, and grandmother thought “oh well, he’s gone, my prize rooster”, but about a week later there was the rooster racing round as large as life and crowing and going on, so she wanted to know what was happening.  One of her sons had taken the rooster in the shed and operated on it and took all the pumpkin seeds out and sewed it up again.  The rooster went on to have quite a few more children. 

So many stories that will never be found from researching the records – how I wish we’d sat more of the older generation down and recorded their stories.  I wish I’d done it with my mother and father, too.

Another thing I wish is that I still had that tape, not just the transcript.  I’d love to be able to hear both their voices again.

Immigration 2

When my ancestors migrated, from 1848 to 1858, then in 1921, the decision wasn’t undertaken lightly.  19^th century migration from Europe to Australia was a long and difficult journey involving three months on a small ship that may well not be considered seaworthy today.  Conditions were harsh, and many passengers, especially babies and children, died. If a contagious illness was on board, it spread unchecked in the crowded and unsanitary conditions

For many, their passage was paid by the government and immigration was permanent.  Even in 1921, my grandparents were on their ship for six weeks to get here, with no expectations of ever returning.

In many ways, migration today is different – the modern migrant arrives by aeroplane and, unless a refugee, knows that he or she can return home for a visit or permanently if they choose.  The process can be reversed more easily and, with improvements in technology (the internet, skype, telephones, etc) contact with family and friends left behind is much more easily maintained.

This doesn’t mean that it’s an easy process.  The decision to uproot your life and your family and travel to an unknown country on the other side of the world, with the aim of making a new life there, is not an easy one to make.  There are huge adjustments to be made by every member of the family as aspects of the new culture confuse and unsettle the new arrival.  Even if the language is the same as at home, there are likely to be regional accents and vocabulary differences that make comprehension not always clear cut.  Simple things become more challenging – “I don’t recognise anything in the shop”; “my child is sick.  How do I find a doctor?”; “Now what do I do with the piece of paper the doctor gave me to get medicine for my child?” are just a few of the dilemmas that confront the new migrant.  If the culture is fairly similar (for example, a migrant from England to Australia or, indeed, Australia to England) these differences are fairly easily overcome.  For those who come from very different cultures and who are also learning to live their lives in a different language, these challenges can be overwhelming.  It is very common for new migrants to have a very rough adjustment period, where they wonder “What have I done to my life and my family?”.  Children, who rarely have any say in the process, can also be seriously affected by the changes, and this often shows at school, in problematic behaviour, refusal to learn English and refusal to engage with their peers or teachers.

If these issues are expected in modern migration, how much more must they have affected those who came 150-200 years ago?  They knew they wouldn’t go back ever (and none of mine did) and that their lives were forever committed to the new country.

Immigration

There were many compelling reasons why families in the 9^th and early 20^th centuries chose to emigrate to Australia.  Of course, in the early days of Australia, many immigrants didn’t come voluntarily, but were transported as convicts.  Very few of the convicts were able to bring their families with them.  Few returned to Britain, but some were able, once they had served their time, to bring their family out to join them.  For most, however, the separation was permanent and they often established a second family here.

That’s not my family.  We have found three likely reasons for immigration among my ancestors.

1. Rural Depression/Industrialisation

With the rise of industrialization, many traditionally rural people moved to the cities for the work in factories that was readily available there.  Simultaneously, the industrialization of agriculture meant that far fewer agricultural labourers were needed in the traditional farmlands.  A farm that had previously fully employed twenty men was able to employ fewer and fewer.  This increasing unemployment led some to look outside the cities and to parts of the world where they could still be farmers – the USA, Canada, New Zealand and, of course, Australia.  Many of our 19^th century English ancestors came from rural areas that were experiencing this sort of change in population and employment.  While we don’t know for sure, it seems likely that they chose Australia as a way to continue their traditional farming lifestyle and to perhaps own their own land.  Of the five families I am descended from who arrived this way, four ended up owning their own land and living very successful lives as farmers in the colonies.  The fifth chose a different path, and opened a brick manufactory, which continued in operation (although not in family hands to the end) until the late 1970s.  They were successful.

2. German religious problems

Germans/Prussians began to settle in Australia in large numbers in 1838, with the arrival of immigrants from Prussia to Queensland. German immigrants were prominent in settling South Australia and Queensland. Between 1850 until World War I, German settlers and their descendants comprised the largest non-British or Irish group of Europeans in Australia.

By 1835 many dissenting Old Lutheran groups were looking to emigration as a means to finding religious freedom. Some groups emigrated to Australia and the United States in the years leading up to 1840. The former emigration led to the eventual creation of the Lutheran Church of Australia (which was formed in 1966). My German great grandfather was a lay preacher in the Lutheran church, so it is possible that his parents made their decision to emigrate for religious reasons.

3. Health

In a time before the discovery of antibiotics, tuberculosis was endemic in the population of Great Britain.  An often recommended treatment was a long trip (or move) to a hot, dry climate in an attempt to cure the disease.  After World War I, when many soldiers were suffering from the permanent effects of mustard gas poisoning, similar recommendations were made.  My grandfather was one such solder who was advised to leave the cold, damp climate of Aberdeen and go somewhere warm.  They put in immigration papers for the USA, South Africa and Australia and determined to go to wherever they were approved for first.  In September 1921 they arrived in Sydney – the Australian government having apparently processed their papers the quickest.  For a time, his health did improve and he returned to work and continued to raise his family.  However, his trade as an ironmoulder was badly affected by the Great Depression and he didn’t work again after 1929.  By the time World War II began and work was abundant again, his health had declined and he died in 1944 of “tuberculosis” – undoubtedly the effect of the mustard gas poisoning nearly thirty years before.

Andrew Leslie Michel

Andrew Leslie Michel (always known as Les) was born on 21 January 1900 in the small town of Lowood in southeastern Queensland (not far from Ipswich).  He was the younger of twins, the 9^th and 10^th children of Ewald Michel and his wife Gertrude Isabella, nee Ihle.

This part of Queensland had been settled by German immigrants in the second half of the 19^th century and German names and families were very common, well into the 20^th century.

Ewald was born in Germany in the village of Huckeswagen, near Cologne, and came to Australia at the age of three, along with is parents and some siblings.  His mother died in Brisbane shortly after they arrived and his father, Johannes, with his four children, took up farming land at Fernvale, near Lowood.

Gertrude was born in Picton in the southern highlands of New South Wales.  Her father was German and her mother English.  They moved to Fernvale when she was a small child.  Her father died when she was six and she was raised after that by her paternal uncle and his wife.  Her mother’s story (Amelia Barrett) has already been told in this blog.

At the time Les was born, his father owned a small general store in Michel Street, Lowood (the street was named after him).  Les’s oldest sisters were already married by 1900 and Les and Eddie (his twin) were uncles before they were born.  Les went to Lowood Stage School and acquitted himself well enough to be employed by the Commonwealth Bank, eventually rising to the level of accountant.  He kept this employment at least into the late 1930s, although during the worst of the Great Depression, he was working part time at the bank.

He was just too young to serve in World War I.  We don’t know if the family suffered any discrimination or hardship at that time because of their German heritage – perhaps not, in that very German corner of Queensland.

By 1923, Ewald’s business had gone bankrupt.  He was known as a kind and generous man who gave credit freely in his store.  Many unpaid debts led to the end of his business and Ewald and Gertrude were living in Northgate, a suburb of Brisbane and Ewald’s health was failing.

On 14 August 1924, Les married Irene Eastment, from Warwick.  Her father strongly disapproved of the marriage, because of Les’s German parentage.  Irene always insisted that the surname be pronounced in the French way, as mishel, although the rest of the family pronounced it as Mikkel or even Michael.  This pronunciation difference between the branches of the family still persists, nearly a century later.

The young couple moved to Sydney, probably for Les’s job, and lived mostly in the inner western suburbs, eventually settling in their own home at 13 Agnes Street, Strathfield.  They had four children:

Irene Merle (always known as Merle) born 24 August 1925

Shirley Mavie born 10 January 1927

Valmai June, born 17 June 1929; and

David Francis, born 6 August 1931.

Shirley died on & February 1928 at the age of thirteen months, from gastroenteritis. Merle was also gravely ill at that time but, being slightly older and stronger, survived.

Les and Irene’s marriage deteriorated and in 1939 Les left the family in Sydney and eventually enlisted in the Australia Army.  He rarely saw his children (then aged 14, 10 and 8) again, and then only after they were adults.  It is believed that Irene actively prevented him from seeing them immediately after he left, and then the war intervened.

In 1961 Les went to Perth as Manager of the Papuan Empire Games team, and saw his daughter Merle for the first time for many years.  He told her that he never knew why his marriage broke up, and that when he met her Irene was the prettiest girl in Warwick.

On his way home Les also called on Valmai and her husband Colin Strathearn in Sydney.  As Irene was present this meeting was rather difficult, but both Valmai and Colin felt they could have gotten on well with him.  Indeed, Merle and her husband in Perth felt the same way.

Not long before she died, Irene told Valmai that, if she had her life to live again, she would have done everything possible to prevent the breakup of her marriage.  Apparently the main reason for this breakup was the fact that Irene felt that Les had been “spoiled rotten” by his mother, and this was later confirmed by Michel relations who remembered that Gertrude had lavished all her love and attention on Les, while his twin brother, Edgar, had been more or less brought up by one of his older sisters.  Despite this fact, Irene stated that she was very fond of Gertrude, and that she was a fine woman.

In December, 1978, Valmai, who had traced some of her father’s cousins, and had been in correspondence with some of them, went with her husband and daughter to Brisbane, and met with all of them who could arrange to be there.  They had all been very fond of Les, and were always glad to see him.  They were all very pleasant, friendly people, and made Valmai and her family most welcome.

During the War, Les had become fond of New Guinea and its people and, after his discharge from the Army, was employed by Adelaide Steamships Limited as an accountant in its Port Moresby office.  He re-married in the early 1950s to Anne.  There were no children from this marriage.

In Port Moresby, Les worked with the children of the town, particularly in the area of sport and, in 1963 was awarded the MBE for his efforts.

Ex “South Pacific Post”, Port Moresby, June 11, 1963

M.B.E. for MICHEL:  Canberra, Monday:  Five men with Territory links have been honoured by the Queen in the Birthday Honours List.  Among them is the father of Territory sport, Leslie Andrew Michel (sic), who has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

The citation reads, “Since 1952 he has been prominent in many sporting activities in Port Moresby, particularly for the native population.  In recognition of his fine contribution in the sporting interests of Port Moresby.”

Mr Michel has been an accountant and secretary employed by Steamships Trading Company since 1952.  He was the driving force behind efforts to send a Territory team to last year’s Commonwealth Games at Perth and is now a senior official of the organization sending Papuan, New Guinean and Australian athletes to Suva.

Mr. Michel is a respected authority on cricket and Rugby League and is well-known to eminent sporting officials throughout Australia.

For several years most of his leisure hours have been spent in the administration of sport.  He has worked selflessly for the full integration of sport in all fields and encouraged the expansion of all sports among Papuans.  The honour bestowed on him will be welcomed by people of all races.”

“Rotary Newsletter”, Port Moresby, June 11, 1963:

“Congratulations ’96   LES MICHEL  ROTARY ‘SPORT   TERRITORY   HONOURED

Some of us heard the news when the Australian Saturday morning papers arrived in Port Moresby.  Others heard the news, as it was learnt from the Australian papers, and word passed here and there, and especially at the Sogeri Show.  Yet others heard the news for the first time on Sunday night, during the A.B.C. Territory news-session.

Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, honoured Rotarian Les Michel, by making him a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

It was typical of Les Michel, the real man, that he replied to a congratulatory telephone call on Sunday night:  “Of course I’m honoured and happy at receiving the award.  But … ”  “But what?”  “Well, I’ve been mixed up in sport a lot, and I feel that the honour is also a tribute to sport.”  Who will argue?  But the award is a tribute to Les Michel, the man.  Les Michel, the citizen.  Les Michel, the sportsman.  To his years of unselfish work.  The public knows a lot about what Les Michel has done.  He is chairman of the Empire Games Association.  Chairman of the Fund Raising Committee of the Territory’s South Pacific Games Association.

But few people – perhaps only his wife, Rotarianne Anne Michel  – could have an idea of all the work he does behind the scenes.  The raffle tickets he’s sold.  The football programmes he’s written –  and sold, too.  His love of sport is wide –   football, basketball, and, yes, believe it or not … cricket!

Les Michel is one person, at least, who has a true concept of the value of sport in a multi-racial society such as Papua and New Guinea.

If there is one place where a person can achieve results, according to merit, it’s on the field of sport.  White man, black man, yellow, red, or any other colour, atheist, Christian, communist, Hindu, or any other faith, or lack of faith, all men and women, fellow humans, can reach a common meeting place in sport.  People of different cultures, education, ideas, have the same motivation in a 100-yard spring, in a soccer, basketball, cricket, or tennis match.

Somewhere, in the long ago, the voice of England echoed through schoolrooms throughout the world in the words:  “Play up, play up, and play the game!”

You play the game, according to the rules, and you win or lose, according to the rules, and character and understanding and comradeship and the Australian word, “mateship” (which is not out of date as the alleged sophisticates claim) have a chance to develop.

These are some of the thoughts that occur when one thinks about Les Michel.  He is, in some ways, a complex man – and yet a simple man.  He has a gift for winning friends, who will do a great deal for him.  He is an earthy man.  He is a human being.  He has a rough, male sense of humour.  He is not a rich man, as far as this world’s material goods are concerned, but he is rich in the possessions that count.  He is, perhaps, too generous in the expenditure of his time and energies for any cause he thinks worthwhile.

He has the qualities that make a Rotarian.  Our Rotary Club, Rotary throughout the Territory, Rotary everywhere to some extent at least, shares the honour the Queen has bestowed upon Les Michel.”

Les retired in 1965 and returned to Sydney, living in Ashfield with his wife.  He died on 16 March 1968 when his heart failed following an operation to remove a brain tumour.  He was cremated at Rookwood Crematorium and his ashes were interred there.

As the only one of his children in Sydney at the time of his death in 1968 of heart failure following an operation for a brain tumour, Valmai attended his funeral at Ashfield with her husband, rather unwillingly.  During the service the minister spoke especially about the work Les Michel had done with young people, and her thought at that point was   “he did nothing for his own children.”

Ten years later, at the reunion in Brisbane mentioned, she met Les’ twin brother’s daughter –  Beth –  almost exactly the same age as herself, of whom she had never heard until that day.  Beth remembered her Uncle Les well, as apparently he visited his brother’s family quite often, and she also remembered the gifts he brought and the relationships he had with the children.  The thought then arose in Valmai’s mind:  “Did he neglect his own children by his own choice?”

 

Colin Strathearn

In October 1935, my Dad was involved in an accident. It was interesting enough that it was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald and I have had a copy of that article for years.

However, when the “Trove” Australian Archives website (https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper) went online with scanned newspapers from all over the country, I learnt from a simple search of our surname, that that report had been picked up by newspapers all over the country and Dad’s misadventure was in newspapers from Perth and Kalgoorlie to Hobart and Launceston and all points in between. The story in each paper was basically the same, although his age changed from 10 to 18 in some versions (he was ten).

Unfortunately, according to my father, the newspaper report wasn’t right. His description of what happened is as follows:

“I was playing with some friends at the top of a cutting near Marrickville Station. We were watching the trains and mucking about. I lost my balance and slid down the embankment, which was mostly loose dirt and rock. My left leg went out in front of me and my right leg doubled up under and behind me. There was a goods train and my left leg went under the wheels, but I was able to stop the rest of me. The train cut off my leg below the knee, the surgeries afterwards took the rest. After the accident, my younger brother went racing home, yelling “Colin’s dead! Colin’s dead!”. It was Mum’s birthday, too. I remember my Auntie Meg, who was a Mormon, bringing some sort of priest to the hospital to be me the last rites. I was in hospital for nearly a year, then went to stay at a farm at Revesby to build up my strength. I lost nearly two years of school.”

Dad left school at 15 after completing the Intermediate Certificate at Dulwich Hill Boys High School. Despite his disability (after surgery, the amputation was well above the knee), he was always in work, and played many sports, some to a high standard – he won a number of local tennis tournaments (the last only a year before he died) and played golf with a single figure handicap. He also played cricket, and swam and surfed, all years before sports for the disabled were a thing.
In 1947 he made the news again, this time for his sporting prowess.

This article appeared in the Warwick Daily News (Queensland) on  February 1947.  I don’t know if it also appeared in Sydney or other papers.  I do know that Dad didn’t mention it to me, although obviously he knew he had been interviewed.
At the time of his injury prosthetic limbs, especially those incorporating a knee joint, were cumbersome, expensive and didn’t work that well. For a quick growing adolescent from a poor family, artificial legs were out of the question. He learnt to walk and to play sport using crutches. By the time he was an adult, the technology had improved considerably thanks to World War II, and he was able to try an artificial leg. After ten years on crutches, and having become very agile with them, he never mastered the prosthesis and continued to use crutches for the rest of his life.

Colin McKenzie Christie Strathearn

Colin McKenzie Christie Strathearn was born in the Aberdeen Military Barracks on 17 October 1887. He was the fourth son of John Strathearn, a career soldier with the Gordon Highlanders and his wife Ellen (sometimes Helen), herself the daughter of a soldiering family. Colin grew up living in military accommodation but chose not to follow in his father’s footsteps. Instead, he apprenticed as an Ironmoulder in industrial Glasgow.

In 1913, Colin married Jessie Wilson Hadden, an Aberdeen girl, and their first son, Colin, was born a few months afterwards. That son died at three months old and a second son, John (known as Jack) arrived in July 1914.

Colin in uniform during World War I

With the start of World War I in August 1914, Colin’s decision not to join the Army was cancelled and he enlisted as a Sapper with the Royal Engineers. He served with credit for much of the war, in the trenches, and was twice mentioned in despatches. While he escaped major physical wounds, he did get a dose of mustard gas, which led to his discharge from the Army, and compromised his health for the rest of his life.

During the War, a second son, James, had been born and in early 1921 a daughter, Margaret (Meg) arrived.

Colin’s discharge papers from the British Army in 1918

In the years immediately after the end of the war, it became apparent that Colin’s damaged lungs would not long survive the damp Aberdeen climate, so they began to investigate immigration, looking mainly to Australia and South Africa. Approval for Australia came through first, so in June 1921, with three young children (aged 7, 5 and 5 months), Colin and Jessie embarked on the ship “Themistocles” for Sydney. They arrived in August 1921. Jessie’s older sister, Meg Cooper, already lived in Sydney with her family and we believe the Strathearns originally stayed with the Cooper family. The family lived in inner Sydney, in suburbs such as Marrickville (very Scottish in character in the 1920s), Undercliffe and Maroubra. Three more children were born in Sydney in the 1920s – Vera in 1923, Colin in 1925 and Donald in 1927. Colin (snr) was able to work in the better climate of Sydney and his health in the 1920s was quite good. However, the Great Depression, starting in 1929, affected the iron and steel industry badly and led to him being laid off and the end of his working life in his early 40s.

Colin and Jessie in Sydney in the late 1930s.

Through the 1930s the family lived in poverty and every penny was carefully managed. The older sons went to work (both as printer’s apprentices and later as printers themselves) and married during the 1930s. Colin and Jessie’s first grandchildren (and the only ones they saw) were born during this time.

In 1939, war broke out again and Colin’s two oldest sons joined the Australian Army, both seeing active service in New Guinea. At home, industry was in full swing, but Colin’s health was not good enough for him to work again. He received a British Army pension which largely supported the family.

Colin and Jessie’s grave at Rookwood Necropolis, Sydney

Colin died at Prince Henry Hospital, Sydney, on 1 June 1944. His death certificate shows the cause of death as tuberculosis, but there is no doubt his death was a result of the mustard gas poisoning in World War I.
Colin and Jessie (who died 26 February 1945) are buried at Rookwood Necropolis in Sydney. In the 1980s, their six children got together to erect a headstone over their grave, which had been impossible financially at the time of their deaths.

When you ancestor is a little bit shocking

No matter how much we wish it wasn’t so, the fact is that many of our ancestors did not live exemplary lives. They may have been criminals or immoral, or just plain unlucky.

Mine, I think, was just plain unlucky.

Amelia Barrett was born on 1 March 1844 in the village of North Leigh, Oxfordshire, in England. She was the first child of James Barrett, a farm labourer and his wife, Caroline Randall, also the daughter of an agricultural labourer. Amelia’s birth was quickly followed by those of Isabella in 1847, William Nathaniel in 1847 and Maria in 1851. Each child was born in a different place, indicating the family was quite mobile for that time. In 1851, at the time of the British Census, the family were living at 51 Mill Lane, Folkestone in Kent, England. In 1853, the family came to Australia on board the ship “Trafalgar”. James had paid £10 for their passage, which was a considerable sum and indicates that the family was not destitute by any means. On arrival, the family went to Picton in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales to work for the Antill family on the property “Jarvisfield’ where they stayed for some years.

While the family lived in Picton, several more children were born, and by 1859, the family consisted of James and Caroline, Amelia, Isabella, William, Maria, Matilda and Joseph. Another brother, Henry, had been born and died in Picton in 1854. On 26 December, 1859 at St Marks Anglican Church, Picton, Amelia, aged 15, married a young German immigrant, Jacob Andrew Ihle (known as Andrew) who was also working on the Jarvisfield Estate. Andrew was 22 at the time of their marriage. Andrew and Amelia had two daughters while living in Picton (Louisa and Gertrude) and two sons (William Andrew and Charles, who died in infancy) before moving to south east Queensland to join Andrew’s brother, John Charles Ihle, at the new town of Fernvale. The Barrett family remained in Picton, and we do not believe Amelia ever saw her family again.

On 7 October 1868, Andrew died of a heart condition, leaving Amelia a widow of 24 years old with three young children and no family support of her own. Of course, there was no government pension paid to her. In only six months, on 12 April 1869, she married again, to another member of the German community, George Christian Muller. They had one child together, a daughter, Caroline Amelia.

By 1873 Amelia’s daughters Louisa and Gertrude were living permanently with their uncle, John Charles Ihle. We don’t know if George Muller died, if Amelia left him or he forced her out, but by 1879 she was living with Johann Haid (apparently not married to him) and bore him at least three children, of whom one is known to have survived. Amelia died at the age of 37 giving birth to her eleventh child on 1 October 1881 at Stanthorpe in Queensland and is buried in an unmarked grave in Stanthorpe cemetery.

Her career raises eyebrows today – in the 1870s she was a scandal and a disgrace. Certainly her grandchildren, many of whom I met in the 1960s and 1970s, did not know of her life history.

We now return to the Barrett family, who we left in Picton. At some timeafter 1868, James took the opportunity to move his family to Cootamundra in southern New South Wales, and opened a brickmaking factory there. That brickworks was still operational at least into the 1970s. The other Barrett children (including late additions Charles, Eliza, Annie Caroline and Fanny) all led exemplary lives and the family is extremely well regarded.

In the 1980swe were able to contact some of the Barrett descendants with interesting results.

Our first contact was with a grandson of Amelia’s brother William, who remembered his grandfather’s family stories. He had been told that Amelia was a prostitute, a disgrace to the family and had been disowned by the family. Certainly there is no acknowledgement of Amelia’s existence on the death certificates or obituaries of either of her parents, who both outlived her by many years.

Contact was later made with a descendant of Amelia’s youngest sister Fanny. The age gap between these two sisters was such that they never met, and Fanny was actually younger than Amelia’s three oldest children.

Fanny’s granddaughter had been told (as apparently had Fanny) that Amelia had actually died in the early years in Australia. They didn’t know that she had married or had children and descendants.

Amelia’s branch has now been firmly grafted back on to the family tree.

There are so many things we don’t know that could have affected her life.

Did her family agree with her marrying a German? Did the rift in the Barrett family happen at that time? Could Amelia have chosen to return to her family after her first husband died? What happened with her second marriage? Widowed again, left or thrown out? Did she have a say in the placement of her daughters with their uncle, or were they taken from her? Did she go willingly with the man who fathered her later children? Or was she out of options at that time?

So. Was Amelia a “bad woman” as her family believed or was she the unlucky victim of her times and circumstances?

More questions than answers on this one.

John Strathearn – Soldier of the Queen

John Strathearn was born in 1850 in Paisley, Scotland. He was the oldest son of James Jamieson Strathearn and Mary Ritchie.

No record has been found of John’s birth or baptism, but we know he had the following siblings, born after the introduction of registration in Scotland in 1856:

• William (born 1857)
• Margaret (born 1858)
• Mary (b0rn 1861)
• James (born 1863)
• Janet (born 1866)
• William (born 1869)

For at least two generations prior to John’s birth, the Strathearn family had been working in the shawl weaving industry, which was the main industry in Paisley in the 19^th century.

However, John broke the mould, leaving home at 16 years old to join the Army. According to his obituary, he first joined the 79^th Cameronian Highlanders in 1867 and served in India for four years.  On his return to England he was at one time part of the Guard of Honour for Her Majesty Queen Victoria at her residence, Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight.   In 1881 he transferred to the Gordon Highlands and served the remainder of his career with that regiment, reaching the rank of Regimental Sergeant-Major.

In 1876, while stationed at Edinburgh Castle, he married Ellen Johnston, the daughter of James Johnston and Jessie McKenzie. Nothing is known of James’ family, but Jessie’s family seems to have several generations of service in the British Army behind them. John and Ellen lived in military barracks and most of their children were born in the barracks of the Gordon Highlanders of Aberdeen. Their family consisted of:

• James Jamieson (born 1877)
• Helen Crichton (born 1878, died 1883)
• An unnamed son (born and died in 1880)
• Jessie McKenzie (born 1881, died 1883)
• John Ritchie (born 1883)
• William (born 1885)
• Colin McKenzie Christie (born 1887)
• Gordon Cameron (born 1889)
• Ellen (born 1891)

John ended his career as a Regimental Sergeant Major in the Gordon Highlanders.  In 1886, he was awarded the Good Conduct Medal.  He retired on 31 July 1892 after 25 years and one month’s service. He and Ellen stayed in Aberdeen and John became a church warden of Greyfriars Church in the City of Aberdeen.  He occupied that position for 26 years, retiring in 1919, when forced by ill-health.  The 16th Century church was rebuilt during his time in that position, with the new building opening in 1903.

Ellen died in1907, and we believe John lived with his daughter and son-in-law, Ellen and Alex Morrison in Aberdeen.

With the outbreak of World War I, John, then aged 64, volunteered for service but was rejected. However, four of his sons saw active service. All survived, and two were mentioned in dispatches.

In 1926, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal and an annuity of £10.  The following newspaper article was printed on that occasion.  Unfortunately, I do not know which paper the article was taken from.

Copy of article printed in Aberdeen newspaper c. 1926

R.S.M. STRATHEARN
HONOUR FOR A CITY ARMY VETERAN

In recognition of his services with the colours, Regimental Sergt. Major John Strathearn, late of the Gordon Highlanders, who resides with his daughter, Mrs. Morrison, 134 King Street, Aberdeen, has been awarded the Meritorious Service Medal and an annuity of (ten pounds).  R.S.M. Strathearn has received the decoration privately, as, owing to infirmity, he is unable to bear the strain of a formal presentation.

R.S.M. Strathearn attested for the 79th Cameron Highlanders at Castlehill, Aberdeen, as far back as July 2nd, 1867, when he was 16 years of age.  After undergoing his recruit training at Castlehill and Fort George, he was drafted out to the unit in India in November of the same year.  An alert old man, he has still vivid recollections of the journey, which was made by sailing vessel round the cape.  He was the youngest soldier in the contingent.  Nearly four years later (in 1871) he returned with the battalion to its home station in the Isle of Wight, where he was promoted to the rank of corporal in 1873.

While Queen Victoria was in residence at Osborne in that year he acted as corporal of the guard of honour during Her Majesty’s sojourn there.  A similar distinction fell to him on the occasion when the regiment received its designation as the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders.  He recalls the ceremony with singular clearness, even to the words used by Her Majesty.  On presenting the regiment with new colours and receiving the colours that had been carried through many an arduous campaign, Queen Victoria said:  “I will take these old colours for safe keeping to my dear old Highland home”:.  He was also corporal of the guard of honour to the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh at windsor on their arrival after their marriage.

Transferred to Gordons:  In 1874 he was promoted sergeant, and about five years later he received the rank of colour-sergeant.  He was transferred to the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders in 1881, and was made a Regimental Sergeant Major in 1886, in which year he was also awarded the Good Conduct Medal.  Later he was transferred to the 3rd Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders (Militia), from which he was discharged on pension on July 31, 1892, after 25 years and 1 month’s service.

On leaving the Army he was appointed Church Officer of Greyfriar’s Parish Church, Aberdeen, which position he occupied for 26 years, retiring in 1919.  He is not in his 76th year.  Two of his sons have also served in the Army.  The eldest saw service with the 1st Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the Boer War, and was invalided home with enteric fever.  On the outbreak of the late War he rejoined his old regiment and served in France and in the near East, being wounded in Macedonia.  We went back to France with the Labour Battalion, and was again wounded on the day before the Armistice.  Another son, Colin, was mentioned in dispatches.  R.S.M. Strathearn offered his services on the outbreak of war, but as he was then 65 years of age he was not accepted.

John died on 4 September 1927 at the home of his daugher and son-in-law, 134 King Street, Aberdeen.  The following obituary was published.

Copy of article printed in Scottish newspaper (Aberdeen) September 1927

EX-R.S.M. JOHN STRATHEARN
ABERDEEN

The death occurred on Sunday at the residence of his son-in-law, 134 King Street, Aberdeen, of ex-Regimental Sergeant-Major John Strathearn, who was for 26 1/2 years Church Officer of Greyfriars Parish Church.  He was 78 years of age, and had been an invalid for eight years.

A native of Paisley, Mr Strathearn joined the 79th Queen’;s Own Cameron Highlanders at the age of 18, and was immediately drafted to India.  He returned after four years’f oreign service.  In 1873 he was transferred to the Royal Aberdeenshire Highlanders (later the 3rd Gordon Highlanders) being promoted colour-sergeant the following year and warrant officer in 1886.  He was discharged in 1892 after 25 years’s service, in possession of the medal for long service and good conduct.  Two years ago he received the Meritorious Service Medal.

Until his ill-health eight years ago Mr Strathearn was Church Officer of Greyfriars Parish Church, where he was appointed in 1893.

Mr Strathearn was pre-deceased by his wife 20 years ago, and is survived by a family of four sons and one daughter.

Immigration

There were many reasons why families in the 19^th century chose to emigrate to Australia. Of course, in the early days of Australian settlement, many immigrants didn’t come voluntarily, but were transported as convicts. Very few of the convicts were able to bring their families with them, and few returned to Britain. Some were able, once they had served their time, to bring their family out to Australia. For most, however, the separation was permanent and they often established a new family here.

However, that’s not my family. We have found three likely reasons for immigration in my family:

1. Industrialisation of agriculture in England, rural depression and urbanisation. Agricultural labourers weren’t needed on the farms in the south of England (where my English ancestors lived) in the numbers they had been in previous centuries. Many moved to live in the large industrial cities, and others chose to emigrate – to Canada, New Zealand, the United States or Australia. The Government paid the travelling expenses of the emigrant family to Australia, in exchange for two years’ work in the colony on arrival, making this a popular choice. The two years’ work could be either for the Government in the colony directly, or for an already established immigrant.

2. Religion. In Germany, from the 1830s, Lutherans were a group that was being persecuted in their homeland for their religion. Many chose to leave Germany and came to Australia – settling in South Australia and Queensland in large numbers. While we don’t know for sure, we assume this is the reason our German Lutheran ancestors came to Queensland.

3. Health. After World War I, many soldiers returning to the United Kingdom were in precarious health. Many had been affected, to a greater or lesser degree, by the use of mustard gas in the trenches, which permanently affected their health for the rest of their lives. Men were advised, for the sake of their health, to move to countries with kinder climates. My Scottish grandfather, his wife and three children arrived in Sydney in 1921 as a direct result of this advice.

When my ancestors immigrated, from 1848 to 1858, then in 1921, the decision was not undertaken lightly. 19^th century immigration to Australia was a long and difficult journey, involve three months on a small ship that probably wouldn’t be considered seaworthy today. Conditions were harsh and many immigrants, especially babies and children, died. For most, their passage was paid by the Government, and immigration was permanent. Even in 1921, my grandparents travelled six weeks to get here, with no expectation of ever returning.

Immigration today is different – the modern immigrant arrives by plane and, unless a refugee, knows that he or she can return home relatively easily for a visit, or permanently if they choose. The process is reversible and, with improvements in technology, the internet, Skype, etc, contact with family and friends left behind is much easier to maintain..