(trigger warnings: chauvinism, alcohol, dementia, death, birth and interminable warbling about old stuff)
One of the blessings of loving someone who gets clouded and confused is that occasionally you stumble upon a treasure trove while you are helping.
On the weekend, while zhoojjing a room for a much anticipated cousin's visit, underneath a pile of towels in a cupboard I found a wad of pages in my mother's hand - her transcript from over 40 years ago of Lily May's recollections of her father's second wife's extended family.
Great-great-aunt Lily was then 91 and a very unreliable witness.
She had the father's name (J. A.) and a brother's name (C. A.) confused.
She told tales of a family tyrant (J. A.) who been expelled from school for throwing a book at his female teacher. His father then took his sons across the world to find their own way. She said that the father (J. A.) - or brother - had relied on self-education for himself and failed to educate any of his sons bar the youngest.
How there had been talk that that youngest son had swindled his uneducated brother - or brothers - of the family fortune.
Lily said that the marriage of my great-grandmother to my great-grandfather - Lily's father - was arranged over brandy after dinner.
J. A. - my mother's father's mother's father (great great grandfather) offered up his daughter - a good housekeeper but 24 years old and had no prospects - to Lily's father - a widowed engineer and businessman who had grown children and needed a hostess for his dinners.
I get the feeling that Lily wasn't a fan of her stepmother or indeed the family that she came from.
Lily said that throughout the marriage, Phoebe Emma - or Phoebe Ann - or rather Mamma from the tales told me as a child by my Grandma M and Mum - had 10 children.
I can only find records of four.
The oldest son went to Perth and would contact his mother once a year on his birthday. Mamma lived for that day.
The beloved daughter (who gave me half of my Jeanie)
The youngest - her son (my grandfather).
And one who was never talked about because he died before his first week was through. I have yet to invest enough money in this meandering quest to find out why.
But doing the math, were there six others within the 18 years of their marriage?
There is a photo of Mamma that I am yet to digitise. She looks stern and by all accounts was.
But I have also read an account of her hostessing an event that makes me realise that she was a force.
Lily also went through a quick appraisal of her own siblings lots in life.
Several married well. They all scattered. One was invited back to take his father's role at a sugar mill.
One was very taken by music and married a piano teacher who had 32 students before they wed. They didn't have children.
One married a ne'er-do-well (Lily's words, not mine) with a fantastic name (my words not hers) and they moved to Sydney and had one child.
It's funny - Lily didn't say how her own life fared.
"Who was that?" my mother asked as I read it to her.
3 comments:
It's frustrating when you have no way of determining fact from fiction! The last of my aunts, when she was in her late 90s, told me a tale from when she was at Julliard that sounded as if she'd witnessed the Hindenburg disaster! I've not been able to confirm it from any of the younger generation, but the dates and places were right and maybe she'd just repressed the memory up until that time. It would have been a horrific thing to see.
Oh how terrible Kelly!
There is one tale from the forbears that I cannot verify as ours, as it is also a tale in my god-mother's family - not sure who stole it from whom!!
Ah Jeanie. Dementia is hard. It was difficult to deal with back in Lily's day, and just as hard to deal with now. Hugs.
Post a Comment