Claude

Claude was a beautiful, big, sweet-tempered grey tabby cat. Endlessly tolerant of small groping fingers, he was part of the family for most of my childhood. Claude was given to Mum as a wedding present, a practical gift indeed - every farm needs a cat. He was just a kitten then, but by the time I arrived he was full-grown, and sometimes found his way into photos.

Here's a somewhat reluctant Claude  beside me on the verandah. Later he liked to keep an eye on me, here we are in front of the boobialla hedge.

Mum was devoted to him, and he lived on the fat of the land, with plenty of milk and the occasional egg.
When we moved house (which we did, quite a few times) Mum took care to acclimatise him to the new home. He would be kept inside for three days, and Mum always put butter on his paws - apparently guaranteed to convince him that the new place was OK.

In his declining years, Mum used to make egg custard for our toothless friend, but finally the sad day arrived when he had to be put to sleep. We brought him home and buried him in the garden. There were a few damp eyes that day. He was sixteen years old.

It was many years later that the pun in his name finally occurred to me.

My first home

My first home was the farmhouse at Lubeck,where I lived with my parents, and later my sister, Loreto, for the first nine years of my life. 

It was a typical Wimmera farmhouse with timber walls and a steeply pitched iron roof, and verandahs all round. There was a big cypress hedge at the front, concealing the house from the road, and providing shelter from the hot north winds.  At the back was another hedge, of boobialla. 

Here’s a plan –

I remember the detached wash-house, with a wood fired copper, and twin cement washtubs. Here Mum kept all the old Women’s Weekly magazines, which I loved to read (especially the Mandrake comic strip).

The house had a big formal dining room, hardly ever used, and the kitchen – maybe all the rooms - had walls and ceilings of pressed tin, painted dark green on the lower half. Loreto and I shared a bedroom at the front of the house, next to Mum and Dad’s room. There was a sleepout off their room, but I don’t think they ever used it.

On the south verandah was an old tin bath, the kind on feet, which kept us kids cool on hot days.

 There was linoleum on all the floors, softened by a central rug in the sitting and dining rooms, and smaller mats beside the beds. Linoleum was washed and polished on hands and knees, mostly Mum’s, but occasionally mine as I grew older.

We lived mostly in the kitchen, though an open fire made the small sitting room cosy on winter nights. The dining room was rarely used, unless there were visitors. It was home to Mum’s piano, and she played it occasionally, but less and less as time went by.

The kitchen was where everything happened – there was an easy chair by the stove, where Mum sat to feed us as babies, and the radio (battery powered) was here too. Everyone listened to the radio – especially the news, and the local footy results being read out on a Saturday night. 

The toilet was a good way from the house, no septic tank, just a “little house” built over a very deep pit, and supplied with squares of newspaper strung on a nail. And a bottle of Phenyle.

Mum built a lovely garden at Lubeck, aided in that sandy soil by lots of chook manure, Dad was already a keen poultry farmer in those days. A local labourer was employed for weeks to do the heavy work of laying out the garden, barrowing all that manure, raking out the lawn, and building the obligatory ‘rockery’. I remember some of the plants on that rockery, Dutchmans’ Britches, and Pincushion flowers.

There were lots of dahlias in the garden, and probably “gladdies” too, as my Uncle Jack Curley was a keen breeder of these.

And the sweet spring-flowering Buddleia which still grows in our family gardens today, is descended from that first garden, and was probably even then a cutting from a neighbour.

We had no electricity, though some farms had windlights. The storekeeper in Lubeck ran a generator which lit the township, his name was Edwards (known as Dowy, so perhaps he was Welsh) he used to turn the generator off when HE went to bed, never mind anyone else… But we lived about a kilometre out of town, and relied on kerosine lamps and candles for lighting. At first we had a Coolgardie safe on the back verandah to keep food cool, later there was a kerosene fridge. 

Dad played tennis, and sometimes I went with him on Saturday afternoons, everyone ‘took a plate’ for afternoon tea, and of course it was a point of honour to supply something nice. There would be a lace edged and hand-embroidered doiley on each plate – Mum had dozens of them. One of the ladies made the best chocolate hedgehog slice I’ve ever tasted, very dark and rich, with a hint of something – sherry, maybe? I’ve never been able to make one half so good.

In November 2007, Loreto and I visited our old home for the first time in nearly 60 years. It was changed very little, though freshly painted – and the big cypress hedge was gone. We could still discern the remnants of Mum’s garden, and the old ‘sheep tree’ still stands out the back by the wood heap.

It’s still a family home, on a working farm, and Max and Margaret Maher have lived there for forty years or so. In Dad’s day the farm was the standard 640 acre block, Max now runs 5000 acres. The story is the same all over the Wimmera, small farms have been amalgamated into huge acreages, and most of the farmhouses have disappeared.

We were very pleased to find that our old home had survived, and was obviously well loved and cared for.

OUCH!

In the bathroom this morning , I stubbed my big toe, and peeled the entire nail (almost) off. Ooer!

Responding to my cries of anguish, The Resident Grandson arrived with tissues. Surveying the spreading pool of blood, he expressed dismay and concern, but on being assured that it probably wasn't life-threatening, said "I have to go to work now" and fled.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the nail down again, and mopped up, applying a couple of band-aids to hold the whole sorry mess together. I'm not naturally squeamish, thank goodness.
And it was the stuff of farce, really!

My daughter kindly drove me to the doctor's surgery, where it turned out I'd done the right thing. The nail should remain in place to protect the toe until it heals. Disinfected and bandaged (and sore) I returned home.

From this -

to this!

Deciding to take advantage of my disabled state, (did I mention it's SORE?) I've spent the rest of the day sorting out my family history files.





I feel much better now. And the Resident Grandson is cooking tonight!

Another January Wedding

As the man and the girl walk slowly across the village square, the snow squeaks under their feet, and a weak winter sun glints on the long icicles hanging from the eaves of the houses.

St. Antonius Kirche, Bad Grund

It is very quiet, and very cold. There a few people in the square; the miners are hard at work in the comparative warmth of the tunnels, and most others are indoors, in snug stove-heated houses. No such comfort in the church ahead, for it is a weekday, and their business will not take long enough to warrant heating the church.

The silent couple are Dorothea Echert and her father, Andreas. Dorothea is perhaps glad of the thick clothing and cloak dictated by the weather, for they at least cover her shame. Dorothea is eight months pregnant, and a disgrace to her family. The village is Bad Grund, in the Harz Mountains of Hanover, and the date is the 5^th of January, in the year 1745.

Their footsteps echo in the quiet church, as they approach the altar where the pastor awaits them. Beside him are the bridegroom, Johann Christoph Niewandt, and his father Hennig. The two fathers nod to each other - as fellow miners in a small village they know each other well, but their children’s folly has strained the friendship.

View of Bad Grund, Harz

Above their heads, the bells of St. Antonius Kirche are silent too. No bells will ring for Dorothea and Johann, and no wedding party will follow their marriage. 

Such celebrations are for couples who marry with the blessing of their families, in the warmer months, when there is food aplenty, and sunshine, and family and friends can join in the festivities.

During the ceremony, the young couple keep their eyes prudently on the floor. Such a fuss there has been! For Johann, at only 21, is still a Bergesell (apprentice miner) and under the strict rules of the mining guild, he is not supposed to marry until he has completed his apprenticeship.

The pastor having protested that such a scandalous state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue, permission for the marriage has finally been given, but Johann will be fined, and his apprenticeship may be extended.

The newlyweds will make their home with Johann’s family, and Dorothea is not too sure how she will like sharing a kitchen with Johann’s mother, Gesa Maria. Everyone knows there is something strange about her, for she never attends the church, not even for baptisms or weddings. Some say she has offended the pastor, but no one will talk about it. Still, Johann obviously loves his mother, and says she is a wonderful cook. So perhaps it will be all right.

Outside the church, Dorothea's father touches her shoulder awkwardly and leaves them. As the young couple follow Hennig Niewandt down the snowy street, Dorothea steals a look at her new husband and meets a pair of merry dark eyes. Yes, this is still her sweetheart, this cheeky young man who has been teasing her for years, and finally won her heart at the church picnic last spring. It will be all right!

And presumably it was, for Dorothea and Johann went on to have seven children. Their first child, Maria Sophia, arrived just a month after the wedding, on February 10^th.  (One hopes that the grandparents were soon won over by baby smiles and chuckles.)

Dorothea and Johann’s third child, Zacharias Christian Niewandt, was my great-great-great grandfather.

My account of that first wedding is of course fiction, but is based on my visit to the Harz in October 1991, and what I have been able to discover of the customs and beliefs of the time. Plus a personal conviction that human nature and emotions don’t change very much. There are plenty of parallels for Dorothea and Johann in later generations!

Keeping House

 Annie and Fred returned from their honeymoon to their new home at Lubeck, which they called “Kalang” – supposedly an Aboriginal word for beautiful.

They had very little money, and their furniture was either hand-me-downs from Annie’s family, or bought cheaply at clearing sales. The most valuable item was Annie’s piano, brought from the family home at Minyip. Mum told me that at first, they had a kitchen table, but no chairs – they sat on boxes.

One of the first things Mum did was to set up a Housekeeping Book – a small notebook where she kept meticulous accounts of every penny spent on housekeeping. She felt that, as Dad worked hard to support them, he was entitled to know exactly where the money went. 

She kept up this habit for many years – I have three of these little books, dating from 1939 to 1956 – and they make fascinating reading.

The main management of their affairs she left to Dad - she explained that he was rather diffident about financial matters in those days, and she wanted to show her confidence in him. A decision that would later come back to bite her, as we will see!

The first book begins on February 1^st, 1939, and records, in tiny writing, purchases of bread, meat, salad vegies, fruit, - and the Womens’ Weekly, which cost fourpence!

Before long, there was some income, too, from the sale of butter and eggs, occasionally skins – probably rabbit. Rabbits were a great pest, and when shot, the skins were stretched over an oval frame of stout wire, and hung up to dry. Then they were sold to a skin dealer, and presumably ended up as felt hats.

My parents always kept a cow – or two or three - and the milk was separated, the cream either sold to the butter factory in Murtoa or made into butter at home, and sold to the local store. There was a covered stand for cream cans at the front gate of most farms, and a truck would pick them up, returning the empty cans. Most farmer’s wives made some extra income from cream or butter, and the money was usually considered to ‘belong’ to the wife – who had, after all, milked the cows and washed the separator!

The farms was 640 acres in size, most of it used for grazing sheep – Dad never grew wheat there. He earned some extra income working for his cousin, Ernie Niewand, who had land to the south of Lubeck, and Dad helped with moving flocks of sheep, and also in the shearing shed.

 

But the main farming activity was Dad’s passion – poultry. Beginning with a small shed and a few hens, he gradually built up the flock until he was able to send boxes of eggs on the train to Stawell, and eventually established a hatchery for day-old chicks, also sent off by rail. Dad loved his chooks, and would continue poultry farming for most of his life.

He kept ducks, too, there are entries for the sale of ducks and drakes in the housekeeping book. Some of these would have been sold as breeding stock, but most were ‘dressed’ by Mum, destined for a neighbour’s table.

Dressing poultry is an art – dunking the bird in boiling water for just long enough to loosen the feathers, plucking it, singeing it over a flame to remove any ‘whiskers’, drawing out the innards and cleaning it, then trussing it neatly, ready for the oven. The  gizzard and giblets, and possibly the feet, would be saved for soup. As a farmer’s daughter, Mum was adept at all this, but it was far from her favorite task. Though she said turkeys were worse.

Before long there was a vegie garden , supplying the house, and occasionally some surplus to sell. But water was limited, the house was supplied by rainwater tanks, and there were several dams, fed from a water channel snaking across the country from a reservoir in the Grampians. 

There were two rainwater tanks on the south side of the house, and also an underground tank in the garden. Once, during a thunderstorm, the sudden rush of water was too much for an old & rusty tank, which collapsed – my sister and I thought this very exciting, but Mum cried – all that precious water wasted! To this day, I can’t bear to see a dripping tap.

The housekeeping books continue through my childhood, documenting our move to Geelong, and later to Central Victoria. Mostly in Mum’s handwriting, occasionally in Dad’s, they record the minutiae of daily life – torch batteries and toothpaste, singlets and swimsuits; a unique account of my family’s history.

A rose by any other name...

Rosa mutabilis

Many children have an imaginary friend. I had a whole family - the Jones with two G's.
I was apparently quite insistent on this unusual spelling, and Mum and Dad could never work out how it originated (this was well before I could read).

Mum used the Jones family to good advantage, though, long after I'd forgotten them.

Our family name was NIEWAND. The original family name was NIEWANDT, according to the old church registers I have seen. This has undergone several changes in Australia, the main branches of the family now using the forms NIEWAND, NEIWAND, and NEIVANDT.

Family members still living in Germany now use the form NIEWAND. The original pronunciation of Niewandt was neevahnt. Niewands today say neewond.

The name is frequently confused and mis-spelled by those unfamiliar with it; I've seen some hilarious attempts myself.

Mum decided to make life easier all round by adopting a pseudonym, and became, occasionally, Mrs. G.G.Jones. I saw her do it one day in the Myers store in Melbourne. She was leaving a parcel to be collected later, and calmly gave her name as Mrs. G. Jones.

After her death, we found a couple of letters addressed to Mrs. G. G. Jones, replies from MP's she had writtten to.


I became Marcie Carr when I married, and I was quite happy to keep the name after my divorce. I'm proud of my German and Irish forbears, but Carr is so much easier to spell. Mind you, people still ask sometimes "how do you spell that?" Really.

Sunday's child gets all the breaks

It's my birthday! I was born on Sunday, August 25th, 1940.

So I'm indulging myself by recycling a post from an older blog, about Sunday's Child.My apologies to those who have seen it before.

Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for its living;
But the child that is born on the Sabbath day,
Is lucky and happy and good and gay.

I was always told I was born on a Sunday, so enjoyed these lines, and a second version, also favourable to us Sundaykinder, both found in Everyman’s Dictionary of Quotations and Proverbs.

Sunday’s child is full of grace,
Monday’s child is full in the face,
Tuesday’s child is solemn and sad,
Wednesday’s child is merry and glad,
Thursday’s child is inclined to thieving,
Friday’s child is free in giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for its living.

Too bad about the Saturday-born, who get perpetual hard labour in both versions, tho the second should cheer up the Wednesday babes, while casting grave aspersions on the Thursday-born. Yet a third version, from the same source, doesn’t help everyone:

Born on Monday, fair in the face;
Born on Tuesday, full of God’s grace;
Born on Wednesday, sour and sad;
Born on Thursday, merry and glad;
Born on Friday, merrily given;
Born on Saturday, work hard for your living;
Born on Sunday, you will never know want. 

But notice – Sunday’s child wins every time! And quite right too.
I checked the truth of this comforting story on a perpetual calendar, and yes, I was indeed born on a Sunday. While I was at it, I checked the days for some of my nearest and dearest, with interesting results. Try it for yourself, if you’re sure you want to know!

It’s all hokum, of course, but nevertheless fits nicely with my view of myself in the world.


Lucky? You bet - I was born in a land of plenty, to parents who wanted and loved me, and I had their undivided attention for my first four years, until my little sister was born.


Happy? Nearly all the time; having been born an optimist, my cup is usually at least half full, and often approaches the overflow mark.

Good? Weeell, that’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it? Good-mannered, I hope, which amounts to much the same thing, I suppose. But definitely not pious.
Gay? Not in the modern sense of the word, but rarely gloomy.

Milady's dressing table

Today I'm sharing some pieces from my collection of family memorabilia. Among the plethora of embroidery and crochet our foremothers made were Duchesse sets, to decorate and protect the dressing table.

Older dressing tables were often quite elaborate, with three-level tops and large bevelled mirrors. So the Duchesse set would consist of a large central piece and two side pieces, like this one from my mother's trousseau.

On the dressing table you might find a pincushion topped with a china half-doll like these,














or perhaps a bakelite box of dusting powder.

The little top hat beside it covers a bottle of "Mischief" perfume.

The tortoiseshell tray most likely held a man's brushes, with collars studs being kept in the little round box.

The round powder bowl is particularly beautiful, so thin it's almost transparent, with the cutest little green feet underneath.




If you have any pieces like this, take care of them, they are quite fragile.

Sometimes a lady might feel the need for some Sal Volatile, best keep it handy on the dressing table.

Sal volatile, or smelling salts, were widely used in Victorian Britain to revive fainting women, and in some areas constables would carry a container of them for this purpose. The use of smelling salts was widely recommended during WWII, with all workplaces advised to keep ‘sal volatile’ in their First Aid boxes.

They work by releasing ammonia gas, which irritates the mucous membranes of the nose and lungs, triggering an inhalation reflex, thus causing the muscles that control breathing to work faster.

(I don't think Mum ever used it.)


The other two are perfume bottles - "Divinia" by F.Wolff & Sons, Germany; and "Phul-nana", a very popular oriental-style perfume. I remember Mum wearing this when I was small.

Letters of love

My mother didn't keep many letters, so I know that the few I have were precious to her.

Here's a note from her father, Pat Maher, written - in red pencil - from hospital as he was about to have surgery. Annie was his eldest daughter, and the apple of his eye, and his thoughts on the eve of a dangerous operation were all for her welfare.
"Say a little prayer for me, and if things go wrong tomorrow, stick to your job as the home will be gone if I go, and you could do no good by giving up before you are through. God bless you my bonny little girl, from your ever loving Father."
Pat survived the operation, living long enough to know Annie's daughters.

The next letter was written to Annie by her Aunt Belle, a few days after the announcement of her engagement to Fred in 1936. Belle had a somewhat rambling style, and a rather Edwardian turn of phrase, but the love shines in every line -

"My very dear Annie,

I want to say, firstly how much I appreciate the very great confidence you placed in me in your last letter, & to say too that the news of your engagement (official!) gave me – and “us” too, very great pleasure & and I offer you my dear my unstinted congrats. & hope and pray that your new life & Fred’s too may be one of very great happiness.
 Of course our own people mean so well & they are all so anxious for our happiness that one must forgive them their doubts & sometimes disapproval, but while I think it is wise for them to be so, I think for those like ourselves that have given the matter the greatest consideration & stated the case fully & even exaggerated it to the non Catholic one, then after putting them to the test of years of waiting and agreeing to all the regulations – then I think there is nothing to fear."

There's more, too much to reproduce here; the letter concludes -

"Now my dear, you’ll be glad I’m ending, but I wanted to say these few words to you dear from the fullness of my heart & I know you will take them in all sincerity.

It is a bitterly cold day and I am writing by the fire on a little table about the size of a plate so please excuse all the scribble and blots & mis spelt words. Jim & Moya join me in loving congratulations to both you and Fred dear. We wish you every happiness & many many years together. Give my love to your dear Dad & Jack – I hope all at the Avenue are well.

With much love dear & all the encouragement that one who has been through it all can give – I am, dearest one

your loving old Aunt Belle." 

The other letters are just fragments, from letters written by Fred during their engagement. Mum intended to destroy them, but my canny sister managed to save these scraps. I'm not going to quote them, suffice it to say that they cast a new light on my father, a somewhat reserved man, but a most eloquent writer of love-letters.

 

The Paper Chase

I have always been interested in history, and I love a good mystery story. I first became interested in my family history when planning a trip to Europe in 1991. It would be interesting, I thought, to visit the birthplaces of my German and Irish ancestors. I knew little about them, apart from stories told by my parents, and made enquiries from relatives who were known to be interested in these matters.

Lautenthal, Germany

The Irish information was sketchy, but allowed me to locate one family in Co. Clare, Ireland.

The German information was a revelation. It seemed my father had come from a large family, already well-documented by several researchers.

So I visited Ireland and Germany in my travels, took some photos, even did a little research of my own. On my return, I passed on the information I’d found, and got on with my life, thinking that some day I might pick up the trail again.

‘Some day’ arrived in 1999, when I had to give up work due to a severe back complaint. I had time on my hands, and the old interest resurfaced.

My initial aim was merely to produce some decorative Pedigree charts for my grandchildren, but as I delved into forgotten folders and attempted to verify names and dates, I discovered that more research had been done, and there was a wealth of new information.

I quickly became intrigued by still-unanswered questions, and began to follow the trail in earnest – I was well and truly hooked! I even planned to write a full family history, but I got over it in the end, and the now much larger collection of files was packed away.

Recently, my daughters have been suggesting that it’s about time I recorded all the information I have - “while you can still remember it all” was the suggestion.

The decision to create a blog and a website grew out of my attempts to assemble in coherent form all the documents and scraps of information I have collected, and to preserve and pass on my own life story, and the stories of my ancestors, for future generations.

Few of the people in these pages rate a mention in the history books, but all of them left a paper trail of some kind. From the arrival of the First Fleet, officials have been recording the activities and movements of people. In legal documents and parish registers, in careful copperplate and semi-literate scrawls, lives and events were documented.

The task of the family historian is to locate these elusive scraps of history. Works of pen and paper are fragile and vulnerable. Records may be burnt, water stained, buried on dusty shelves in far-off archives, or just lost. Written records rely on the accuracy of the informant, and the ability of the scribe to understand a thick regional accent. Mistakes abound – the historian must be sceptical, inquisitive, deductive, and above all, persistent.

Researchers have numerous sources to draw upon. The Registers of Births, Deaths and Marriages are now available to the public as microfiche indexes, and more recently on CDs. These indexes give the names (often misspelled or incomplete, because they are sourced from hand-written records) the year and place of the event, and a reference number. You can then buy a copy of the original document, which often gives more information. Copies are expensive, and most of us don’t buy too many of them, just enough to follow the trail. Early church records are also a valuable source of information.

Once the basic facts are established, the search widens – ‘putting flesh on the bones’ as it were. The paper chase now ranges through shipping lists, old newspapers, school rolls, army records, land transactions, wills, inquests, convict records, and thankfully, the Internet.

For more recent events, one must rely on contacting descendants and asking them for information, because the marriage and birth records for recent years are only available to the people concerned, to protect their privacy. Death records have similar limitations.

In the course of my research, I have written numerous letters and emails, interviewed relatives, traced and copied photos, checked out family legends, and made hundreds of phone calls. I discovered and met ‘lost’ relatives, and enjoyed long discussions with fellow researchers. As tracing family history has become very popular, many people are researching their own branches of a family, and most are generous in sharing their discoveries.

This will always be a ‘work in progress’ and despite all possible care, there are bound to be errors and omission. I welcome any suggestions for improvement.

Recording one’s family history is a big responsibility - I hope to achieve an objective account, without too much praise or criticism, and doubtless I will fail at times.

Inevitably there are some sensitive issues, and judgments to be made on what to include or omit. When making such editorial decisions, my concern is always to avoid undue embarrassment or offence to living descendants, and where possible those directly concerned have been consulted.

A marriage of two cultures

When my parents, Annie Maher and Fred Niewand, were married in January 1939, two important threads in the fabric of European Australians were woven together. Annie’s forbears were pure Irish, devout Catholics, and in Annie’s day, unaware of their convict ancestry. Fred was descended from German stock, who were miners in their native Harz Mountains of Hannover, and devout Lutherans.

The marriage was not blessed with the approval of either family, for both were "marrying out" and this was frowned on, especially for Annie, as marriage to a non-Catholic was considered a grave risk to the Faith.

Fred was of blameless character, and generally liked, but ... he wasn't a Catholic. In order to be married in Annie's church, it was necessary for him to undergo a course of instruction in the Catholic faith, and he had to solemnly promise that all their children would be brought up as Catholics.

The parish priest in their hometown of Minyip refused to marry them at all, so they were married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Ballarat, (though only in the vestry).

Though no longer a Lutheran himself – he was nominally a Presbyterian - Fred had declined to convert to Catholicism. Mum said the practice of confession to a priest was his stumbling block. He always accompanied us to Midnight Mass at Christmas, and attended our First Communions and Confirmations, but otherwise he stayed home, though he spared no effort to see that Mum was able to attend Mass - the car was always ready for her on Sunday mornings, in good order.

Annie endured a good deal of discouragement from her family before marrying Fred, and must have thought long and hard about it; perhaps that's one reason why they waited so long to marry ( she was 30, he was 33) though there was also the question of money, waiting until Fred could afford a farm of his own. Eventually a farm at Lubeck, about 30 miles to the south of Minyip, was bought from Fred's uncle, Ernie Niewand.

Annie’s only supporter as she prepared to marry Fred was her Aunty Belle, her mother’s sister, who was herself happily married to a Protestant, and wrote several warm and encouraging letters to Annie. Annie’s own mother had died in 1927, and Belle had been a friend and mentor to Annie as she was growing up.

Dad’s family were probably not thrilled either, but seem to have been friendly enough once the deed was done, and Mum’s relatives got over it, too.

It was a very quiet wedding, I don’t think Mum told anyone the date beforehand, although they had been given a “kitchen tea” some weeks earlier. Perhaps their friends were not as prejudiced as their families. The only relatives present were Annie's father, Pat Maher, and her brother Jack.

Unlike her sister Eileen, who had married a few years earlier, Annie didn't wear a white wedding dress. Instead she chose a "costume" of soft mushroom pink crepe.

I still have the gloves she carried that day, and a fragment of the dress. It was made by a dressmaker, and you can still see the faint pencil marks where the beads were sewn on. One tiny bead remains.

Footnote: I've never had any trouble remembering the date of my parents' wedding, because the next day was Black Friday, when Victoria was devastated by catastrophic bushfires.
There had been a long drought, and a series of heatwaves. Creeks and rivers were dried up, and people living in Melbourne were on water restrictions. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it? But remember: this was 1939, the population was much smaller, and firefighters had virtually no equipment)
Fanned by strong winds, the bushfires swept across large areas of Victoria at horrifying speed, causing much destruction.
Almost 2 million hectares were burnt, whole townships destroyed, and 71 people died.
This disaster led to the formation of the CFA in 1944.