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.