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.