A Glaswegian great-great-grandmother

I remember when first doing genealogy, I found the amazing life of my great-great-grandmother Janet .

At the age of 8 she sailed across the ocean on the Libertas with her family (my goodness I am crawling out of a massive rabbit hole the size of a Latin saying looking for a picture for this!)

As a young woman she married a mining man in a double wedding with her sister. What a canny Scot was my great-great-great-grandfather, two daughters off his hands for the price of one!

Over the next 15 years, the newlyweds 

• Marry in Newcastle, NSW 
• First boy born in Newcastle, NSW
• Second boy born in Adelaide, SA 
• Third boy born in Sydney NSW 
• Third boy dies in Sydney NSW 
• First girl (Janet) born in Sydney NSW 
• Second girl born in Sydney NSW
• Third girl born in Emmaville NSW 
• Fourth boy born in Tent Hill NSW 
• Move to Queensland 

I have looked at Emmaville and Tent Hill. They are mining towns in the same remote vicinity of North West NSW. I don't imagine that there was a lot of mod cons in the 1880s out there.

And finally I will leave you with this - from 1871 (not my relatives - that i know of, at least:

Image and text from Trove link - 1873

GILL.

A young medical friend asks our ( Glas-

gow Herald's) advice, or, we should

rather say, our sympathetic condolences

in connection with the subjoined letter,

which we do not think it a breach of

confidence to print verbatim et Hteratum,

changing the real names for others : —

tomintoul By

locbgilphead 25 februry 180073.

Dokter M- ? tere friend, — You

wus told me to rote you a word hoo i

wus felt mysel noo an to gie ye al the

news — my breth no that pad put am

stull fery wake an i canna get oot the

wether hear is fery pad nothin put rane

unless win an a grate dale o that same

too — dokter ye wus say i wus to not tak

a tram whatever on no accounts put

tugal mctavish that al lidge wi hears

wif fery skilly an she say a glep o whus

ky afor twl a klock an anitber at nicht

an maybe a Gamier o tody pefore gump

into my ped it wad pitmericht at wans,

tugal hersel wus fery nere deed a wliil

sins an he tak thre or fore gles in the

day forby porters an it wul' no pe long

afor he get petter an ther no man hear

noo thatl cary a bow o' meal wi hum —

there no be mitch news to told, ye e noo

tugals sister get mariet on last sbuestay

tull wan malcolm mcGregor a fery

decent lat an not pat ore atramneighter

hel kept a piblicans hous an twa o%

thre speeks in the perish o Craiguish —

Donald mcfale get drunk at Kilmichael

market fal an brok liims. legs , in two

place itll pe six minth afor he pit -his

feets tull the ground an may be so—

shop mcdougal broon meres fole gump

a dilk an fall and kill an shon hersel

sbist refus twanty pound the day afor— -

the minister o the establisht' chirch got

a wane last week and shes a poy an

doin fery wel an his wif too an is

prowdst man in hole perish — the fushin

fery pad hear the year an meal fery

dere an coles is two pound the ton

no moar at preasent but remains

Your servant

tull command

Duncan —

Dokter I forget tull say that itll pe

all small glessess thats drunk oot o hear

You sent a word son if you wus alloo

mee to tak a tram.

Citrus, Sunday and such stories

 So, one of the list items for the new house is room for citrus.

One of the houses that I looked at yesterday HAD established citrus trees!

There are 2 wishlist items that have yet to be met, one achievable the other to be determined.

Image- fruit in a grapefruit tree, starting to colour against the green of the leaves and the blue of the sky. The thick brown branches are dancing highlights of this shot. Ha! You can't unsee it!

Which is absolutely terrible, Muriel.

Our citrus here is definitely on track. I did a wander around this morning, and visited the lovely Ruby in the middle - to the left - of the back garden.

Image is exactly as described above. Well mowed lawn (thanks V) so clockwise from top neighbours tree, lighter in colour our bamboo and the honey gem acacia, to top right spite lilli pilli (in our yard, involved a favour and two long gone neighbours), on the very edge an iron bark, Hills Hoist, old sandpit come compost pile, a wheelbarrow, buckets, bags of stuff and omg 😱 old icecream containers repurposed as compost tubs. Oops, I am embarassed! To the front a garden bed filled with pots, above it a straw covered bed, the asparagus bed, an orange tree with more than 2 - the hitherto annual record - an an old piece of gym equipment that has been a volleyball net, shade cloth drape and garden ornament for years. And then on the left, Ruby Grapefruit.

Edited to note the Creamy Frangipani - at least 45 years old if not older.

This year is the first year she is fruiting from the Western side. The buyer may have also bought himself a bumper crop, as it is still a way from ripe. I found out the hard way by trying to juice the one that broke into my hand when checking them this morning. One step past facelift!

Image - has this branch got a King Julian vibe or is it just me?

Still, spare a thought for my Dad - he got the truly too early pruned fruit and tried to marmalade it with some lemon juice that he had in the fridge.

Now, one of the amazing team of carers that we have is a girl - woman - I went to school with (she will always be Farrah Fawcett Majors of my primary days) has this formidable no-nonsense nurse mother who was a recipient of a jar. He got it back with a review. There were medicinal suggestions for it.

Dad told me that they were all going over the hill this morning.

"Who" I said thinking that he was talking about the cattle but it was mortality talking. 

I have also been in contact with my mother's sister of late and she told me that she wouldn't be around forever - then she told me of her theory that you inherit your genes from one parent OR the other. And her side was Aunt S, who lived to 100. So maybe less than 17 years.

Image - one gorgeous black cat s-t-r-e-t-ch-ing next to Kryton, our robot vacuum.

We also had book club - I had a sudden realisation Thursday that today was the last Sunday of the month and nothing was going to happen unless I made it and enough enthusiastic folk (just) gathered and hatched a plan.

I made soft spring rolls with miso-glazed tofu on some and avocado on some and they were divine. Everyone had eaten (?) so I have all lunches sorted for work this week.

Image - isn't it terrible, I can't even attribute this properly as it was some facebooky thing. Please come forward if you know where I got it from. Newspaper clipping : curdled milk, of a peculiar kind, made after a Bulgarian recipe and called "yaghurt", is now a Parisian fad and is believed to be a remedy against growing old. A correspondent who has tried it, says he would prefer to die young.

Our fridge seems to be getting fuller everyday. There seems to be a tsunami of jars coming forward crowding the leftovers forward.

Anyone else got that problem?

Valentino and viewings

 Happy Valentine's Day - or rather, happy birthday to Uncle Tom. Aunt Ada was an April Fool and Tom a Valentine. The baby was Grandma.

He was named for Thomas, his paternal uncle, the man who would steal how mother away - or was her running Salvation? We will never know.

Hr had the sort of tight curl "the teacher used to pat it every time he walked past" until one day Tom snapped and, without raising his eyes from his work, took a ruler and rapped the annoying insect hard.

Grandma adored her big brother - her tale was she so loved her big brother that she could not bear they part, and ran away TO school at a very young age to be with him.

Which was just as well, because when their mother left their father put them in an orphanage as he could not work and look after three children.

Perhaps he was too proud to turn to his sisters and share his bewilderment. His own paternal example was a man who abandoned his family. (I have just realised that there is a strong history of abandonment in that branch of the family!)

Therefore Tom, aged about five, became the man of the family - one older bossier sister of about seven and the baby aged three.

They lived in various foster situations - but the rest is a story for another day.

Today I went viewing houses. I was so organised. You see, until this week there had been nary an interesting house to see - maybe one a week and generally not so exciting as to go to the extra effort of checking it out. 

I have been to only a handful over the past few weeks.

Today I had five on the list - two between 9 and 9.30, a 9.30, a 10 and a 12.45.

The first not too far from my work. It's near the top of a hill, which after the nearly two decades of the flatlands, is interesting. 

Rooms led to other rooms and no corner was square. You never knew what surprise you would find beyond the next door. I could have loved it there. 20 year old me would have swooned at the potential. Unfortunately 20 year old me wasn't buying houses (how cheap they would have been then) and I wasn't buying for 20 year old me alone.

As there was another house to view in this timeslot and it was across town, I set my phone to navigate and went to see the other.

It is in this little neighbourhood where there is this secret park that about three of four dead end streets end at it. 

I got there with three minutes to spare but the moment that I walked in I knew that it was not me. The agent opened with the fact that there was already a Southern offer on the table. There was a sunken lounge with a balustrade, a tucked away kitchen it was definitely waiting for a different family.

The next was in a different part of town and it is right at the very extreme end of my budget - but there was plenty of bang for that buck.

All of the boxes plus that little bit more. We want 3 bedrooms and maybe an office - this one has 5, an office AND a big-a$$ed media room. Want a pool - one so inviting I could see myself attracting many friends! Walk in wardrobe! Bathtub in BOTH bathrooms.

Way out of our league! Way way WAY!

Cherry on top is - you know The Griswalds? The Christmas themed neighbourhood they lived in? That is what this neighbourhood is renowned for - although doubtful that anyone could throw such a party, as the roads are closed during the peak pedestrian hours every evening.

The fourth house was in the same neighbourhood but the poor relation end. Yes a pool but the clothesline blocked one garage, a rainwater tank didn't attach to the broken gutters and one bedroom had two doors entering it side by side.

I know, picky picky picky.

I abandoned my quest before the fifth. It was in a further part of town near my worst ever workplace. That workplace has now moved but my Spidey senses said "you're not going to live here" and I listened.

Still, one of the blessings of the offer we have accepted is time. So we will keep using that.

The bleak February of 1954

Firstly a note - the story in the previous post was that - a story written for a prompt.

It did not happen. Well, it did but from my mind to your eyes.

This next story is true. And it has turned quite bleak so trigger warnings about death - in the past but still deaths are integral. But there is also other stuff.

Image - all images are screenshots of a local newspapers classifieds section. Call it "a take on modernistic scrapbooking for lazy people"

But it does get heavy.

I can only imagine what it was like for Dad.

Image - all images are screenshots of a local newspapers classifieds section. Call it "a take on modernistic scrapbooking for lazy people"

 You don't really need me to keep saying the image thing do you?

This morning, my Dad mentioned that it was 72 years to the day that his father died. 

My father has always remembered it to be a Black Friday, and folklore told of how he was advised on a school day - but instead I discovered only today (through independent research) it was a Saturday. In fact it was the Saturday that Queen Elizabeth the Second landed in Canberra.

Image - all images are screenshots of a local newspapers classifieds section. Call it "a take on modernistic scrapbooking for blah blah blah"

His recollection could indeed be true. He had been deposited at boarding school for the first time a week before. Perhaps he was notified when they knew that his father would not make it. Maybe they delayed telling it until after to soften the blow. Maybe they had Saturday prep. Anything is possible. The only one who could possibly answer that question is Dad.

Less than a month later, Dad and his box brownie were in the throng lining the street as Her Royal Majesty and Prince Phillip were driven past in an open car. The mythology of the subsequent photo is another we grew up with. It is no doubt in one of their boxes. Perhaps there are boxes that I have never opened.

Image - all images are screenshots of a local yokel tidbits of life.

In my research tonight, I discovered that the flood that Dad and his family travelled through to bury his father one week later was the same flood that his second cousin, a boy of seven, was one of

 "between 26 to 30 people died as a result of the flooding, severe winds and storm surges."

When I asked the internet about this relative by name (for I am currently "saving money avoiding ancestry" as it's new homes I need to hunt, not dead relatives - see how well that's going!), internet helpfully offered me his namesake on the other side of the world spotting trains on Facebook.

Image - all images are screenshots of a time and place that no longer exists.

Which I think is my sign from the universe that I need to sleep then hunt.

Sorry for the downer.

On the upside, houses have only risen a squidge.

Image

Night all.

Wednesdays Words on a Friday - Garden Centre Gnomes

River prompted me with her Wednesday's Words on a Friday

Apparently (and this is lifted directly from River's blog) this month the words/prompts are supplied by Lissa and can be found at her blog

This week's words/prompts are:

1.heartbreak 2.cheeseburger 3.postcard 4.afterlife 5.beachcomb

Charlotte's colour of the month is Electric Rose



So -

He was chewing heartily when he began to berate me out of the blue - that's right, a total stranger, no pause to swallow, just multi-tasking his way through cheeseburger whilst in the queue at the garden centre.

"Do you know what happens to people like you in the afterlife?  Its not a picnic, you know.  Its not a postcard from Sydney, its not find pearls when you beachcomb - you would find dog turds." He ranted on.

 I had tuned out at people like me.  I was wondering what bucket of human I had been scooped from in his mind to be worthy of this diatribe.  I began to meander through the corridors of people who would make up the halls of the afterlife with me.

And then I wondered about the colours of his damnation.  No doubt rainbow.  Perhaps all greens.  Scarlet, definitely - but what about pinks?  From Fuchsia through Electric Rose - but Blush - would that also be damnable?  And the Sunset Yellow in the tin that I was buying - I would have heartbreak if that was the colour of my slippery slope.

Luckily the line moved forward and he slurped his soft drink and found another target.