Nancy Weir and the Family

Nancy Weir was probably the best pianist Australia has produced. She was born in Kew, Melbourne in 1915, and died at New Farm, Brisbane in 2008.  She was an enigma and a film will surely be made of her life.

I worked with Nancy about 1986, when she owned with Rialto Theatre. She was a strong woman with strong intentions, none of which were financial. I invited her home to dinner and I remember her meeting Kathleen and calling her “precocious”.

Imagine my amazement when, in going through my grandmother’s papers, I found a photo of Nancy and press clippings about her career.

The photo was of her as a thirteen year old, when she first played for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra - Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3. On the back of the photo is written: “Picture taken after Nancy’s appearance in the Melbourn Town Hall with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. With love to Mrs Lesburg (sic).”

Clippings were of her move to Brisbane and her aim to pass on a love of music.

Courier Mail May 31, 1966

Courier Mail Around May 28th

The coincidence of my grandmother and me both knowing Nancy Weir amazes me. Nancy also lived with a friend’s sister for a while. She was a great pianist. Perhaps it’s time to re-learn the piano.

Stranger and stranger

My grandmother has an older sister, in addition to the three sisters and one brother we knew about.
She was born on 13th November, 1880, an illegitimate daughter to Mary Rodam and an unknown father. Grandma and mum were so very strict, yet so understanding. Why didn’t they talk about this? I knew nothing at all. It would have helped.

The holidays are over

 

Some mysteries remain. Others unfold.

My father’s maternal grandfather was John Ford. He was born in Cornwall and died in Toowoomba. His date of arrival in Australia remains a mystery.

His wife’s arrival too, remains a mystery. Jane Gould was born in Cork, Ireland.

They met, I know not where, and were married in St Stephen’s Cathedral on the 21st April 1885.

My father was supersticious. He married my mother – Patricia, soon to be, Pat McGovern. His father was Pat McGovern. Both of them were born on the 12th May. Old Pat and Margaret, dad’s parents, were married on 23 April 1924. And mum and dad wanted to get married on 21st or 23rd (not sure which now) April, 1952. Mum’s story was that the planned royal visit made it impossible and they were married on 22nd April instead. However, because of the King’s ill health, the visit was cancelled. Their wedding went ahead on the day after dad’s maternal grandparent’s wedding anniversary and the day before dad’s parent’s wedding anniversary.

By then his mother and grandparents were dead. His father was still alive.

Mum said that my grandfather, Pat, was very supersticious. He’d be driving a car load of men to the races, and turn around when he spied an ill omen. Nothing would disuade him.

Dad’s maternal grandmother was born in Cork in Ireland.

Mum’s maternal greatgrandmother was born in Limerick, Ireland.

So both roads lead to Ireland, with contributions from Cornwall, Scotland and Germany. Grand dad’s mother (dad’s paternal grandmother) was also born in Ireland, in Brawnreigh Tipperary Ireland. Her maiden name was Catherine White.

Mum’s mother’s maiden name was Catherine Margaret “Maggie” Louisa White.

Was this a marriage made in heaven? It must have satisfied my grandfather.

Poetry and Heart

The family bible, so long taking up room on the shelf, has writing in it, and that writing records family history. Why has it taken me so long to read it? I guess now is the time.

In it I found a list of birth and death dates for my grandma’s family, and her mother’s second husband’s family.

My greatgrandmother recorded the dates and signed the piece of paper  ten years before my grandmother was born. Her details have been added with a different handwriting.

The poem recorded, after the list of names and dates of births and deaths, is:

“Stay, stay, at home, my heart, and rest,

Home-keeping hearts are happiest,

For those that wander they know not where

Are full of trouble and full of care.

To stay at home is best. “

13th October 1887. M. White.

The above is taken from a song written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as follows:

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care;
To stay at home is best.

Weary and homesick and distressed,
They wander east, they wander west,
And are baffled and beaten and blown about
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
To stay at home is best.

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
The bird is safest in its nest;
O’er all that flutter their wings and fly
A hawk is hovering in the sky;
To stay at home is best.

Retrieved from “http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Song:_%22Stay,_Stay_at_Home,_my_Heart,_and_Rest.%22“

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) , “Song”, from Kéramos and Other Poems, published 1878

A family with no history

My dad’s mother died when he was five. I grew up visiting his aunts once a year. I didn’t know there was anyone else in the family. Now I am learning about dad’s mum’s family.

His grandmother grew up Jane Gould. She was born in Cork City in Cork, Ireland.

She migrated to Australia (I’ve yet to find details) and married John Ford, a man born in Cornwall.  When they were married, she was working as a domestic servant and John Ford, the bridegroom as a laborer.

They married in St Stephens Cathedral in Brisbane. So now my task is to find out who Jane Gould is, how she came to Queensland and who John Ford is. He’s the great mystery. I’ve yet to find anything about him anywhere.  To find how he came to Queensland would be a bonus.

Off to the library and air conditioning.

A Family Found and Lost

If a week is a short time in politics, it’s also a short time when building a history of my family.

At the end of last week I found my great grandmother, my dad’s mother’s mum. Then I found her father, and then, on other people’s histories, I found his antecedents all the way back to the thirteenth century. It ended with two John’s…a gay couple?

But it wasn’t to last. My great grandmother was born in Cork, in County Cork, Ireland. She wasn’t the Jane born in Brisbane of parents from Hertfordshire. So I’ve had to go through my family history and delete a whole branch.

Gone too is a real family member who I’d been emailing.  The names of “Jane” and “Thomas” repeat in my and her family. Perhaps there is a connection. But I doubt it.

Getting distracted

I began to search only for my mother’s direct female line. That search led me back to Limerick City in Ireland. I invested lots of money to get Limerick certificates of births, deaths and marriages. I found no one who vaguely looks like my great great grandmother. And I paid 25 pound for the privilege.

Did I begin to record what I did know? Add photos and other bits of information? Sort of. The real answer is “no”. Instead I dawdled through the internet, looked up other families who could possibly be connected to mine, and got really excited by my father’s grandfather’s line that wanders back to 1300 in England. This was not what I was expecting. Not even something I can rely on. But then, I hadn’t had any contact with my father’s mother’s family, other than a yearly visit to Aunty Jane and Mary. Now is the time to get to know them.

But that wasn’t my intention. I went to the library and looked for details about arrivals in Australia. Again, nothing yet for my mother’s female line. The glam is fading away and the work is appearing.

Surprisingly I found my grandmother’s brother died after he got married. That came as a surprise. There’s more to learn there too.

It is now time to prepare a plan, and to follow it.

Pondering the reasons for the deaths

I was telling a friend about Julia’s dead babies. She responded brightly “RH Negative!”

Que? “RH Negative. If Julia and her husband were incompatible, the first baby would have lived (my greatgrandmother Mary did) and the subsequent children could have died. Then, if she changed partners (she married George) their children, if they were compatible, would have lived.”

Perhaps Julia Keyes was Rh negative, and John Roddam was Rh positive. (Wow, isn’t this a level of detail I hadn’t expected) and therefore, if her babies were RH positive, she may have created antibodies that crossed the placenta and attacked her baby’s red blood cells. “Untreated babies may be anaemic, at risk of brain damage or even die before birth. Doctors call all of these problems “haemolytic disease of the new born”. (See: http://bridgeclinic.com.au/media/docs/antid.pdf)

I am pondering, not diagnosing. But it is possible. Approximately 15% of the population has RH negative blood.

I remember my mum telling me that I had nothing to fear because I was O+. She must have known about the incompatibility problem. Sure, she could have read about it, but I was left with the impression that it meant something to her that I was O+. It was as if she’d overcome an obstacle and that I was a prize baby.  (Hey. It’s my blog. OK?)

Isn’t life grand, the way it throws up surprises….

Does it really matter?

Can I know my mother / grandmother who I knew and touched and talked with? How is it possible to know their mother and grandmother, who I’ve never met and weren’t told about when I was young?

Or was I? Let me recall the stories or comments.

Mum said that grandma’s mother rejected her when she married my grandfather. My explanation was that my grandma was a Catholic and my grandpa was an Anglican. It was the 1950s and I grew up in that dual world: protestant or catholic, ford or holden, XXXX or Gold Top, my football team or another’s.

But now I see that my grandmother’s grandmother was a Wesleyan – a protestant. Her mother would have known that. So what is the story of her rejection? Was there a rejection?

There was a feud. Mum said I was a generation beyond it and she took me to Melbourne to visit my grandmother’s sister – before she died. I recall walking through a low brick gate, down a concrete path overshadowed by a brick house on one side and a tall wooden fence on the other until we reached the back door.

We were ushered into a kitchen, an old kitchen that was dark and dank.

There was a hush and a woman – was she ill or dying? – attended by other women. I was introduced. They looked at me. But I was given no explanation as to who they were, or what was expected of me. I sat quietly in the corner as formalities were exchanged. Then we left, back into the sunshine.

Mum didn’t explain. My only memory is that Mum had decided that, in my generation, the fighting was over. I wasn’t to carry whatever it was that my mum and her mother had carried.

I expect a prosaic secret of stubbornness rather than of drama and intrigue. There was sadness, a feeling of something lost, something that could never be regained.

Will it pull me into the vortex? Or did mum absolve me of the pain she felt?

Living with death

When my grandmother’s mother was eight, her father, John Golightly Rodam, died in a mining accident.

One Saturday evening, about six or six fifteen, Mary might have waved her father off to work at the mine, little knowing he’d be dead by Sunday afternoon.

When he got to work, the Claim Manager warned John Geissler, the shift “boss”, against working at one particular place, where the air was dangerous and known to be near the old workings.

It seems however that Read and Rodam went to work there.  Read afterwards thought he heard water rushing. Giessler is reported to have said ‘nonsense’ and went up with a candle; a man named Hugh Conn, who was working a fan at some distance from them, states that he all at once heard a noise like ’50 cannons going off”, the force of the explosion came full on his shoulders and threw him on is face.  He knowing the nature of the disaster, kept his face to the water in the drive, and afterwards went up the drive with a light to the three men, as their lights were out and they could not make their way.  On the men being brought up to the mouth of the shaft it was found that Rodam and Reid were very dangerously burnt, and Giessler severely.

They were taken to their several homes and immediately placed under the charge of Dr. Wilson who reported unfavourable on Rodam and Read.  Giessler though severley burnt, did not appear to be dangerously so, the injury being mostly confined to his arms and shoulders.  He states that the shock threw him down. The three unfortunate men were put in vans on Sunday morning to be taken to the Ovens District Hospital, but poor Rodam died at or near Cadley’s brick house on his way up.

Was Mary proud that her father was one of Chiltern’s early settlers? Did she help him when he took a deep interest in the founding of the Chiltern Athenaeum? Mary had already got used to death in the family.

Her brother and a new baby had both died when she was two. Another brother, named for her father, died when she was six.

Her mother and her were then left alone with the memories of the four dead. What would they have thought? How would they have consoled each other? It seems that Julia had no mother or father in Australia, having left Ireland when she was in her teens or early twenties. We know of no siblings in Australia.

Mary’s mother, Julia, Mrs.  Rodam (nee Keyes), later married George Read, the man who survived the mine disaster instead of her husband. Did Mary attend the wedding at the Wesleyan parsonage? What did she think of her new father? Was she pleased when, at 17 and two years later when she was 19,  her mother gave birth to a step brother and step sister?

Mary didn’t marry until 1888 when she was 30, possibly two years after her mother’s death, or four years before it (dates have yet to be verified). Did she stay home to help her with the new babies? According to her step father’s testimony at the inquest into her mother’s death, Julia had “been addicted to the drink for 10 – 12 years prior to her death.” Who raised these children? Catherine was eleven when Mary married Thomas White.

Why did George Read marry Mrs Rodam? Did he love her? Did he court her? They married eight years after John Rodam died.  And she became addicted to the drink, possibly from the date of the marriage. If not then, when and what caused the addiction?

Julia and George were married in a Wesleyan Church. It is possible that “addicted to the drink” has a meaning different to a Wesleyan from Norfolk than it does to an Irish woman who had lost three babies and a husband?

Who can tell what life was like for Julia, and for Mary? They knew grief, tragedy, waste and desperation. They must also have known the joy of new life and hope for a better tomorrow. In the end, Mary married Thomas, another miner, and gave birth to five children, the last of whom was my grandmother.