Frank
Herbert Smith Rose
My
ggrandmother Kezia…....…b 1869
Victor…………………….…..….b
1871
Lillian
(Lockley)…………...……b 1873
Eva
(Christie)……….…..………b 1875
Emily…………………...……......b 1877 d…….1878
Frank………………….…..….….b
1882
Linda (Hardy)………..….………b 1884
Frank Herbert Smith was the sixth child of Charles and Mary Rose, which also includes Emily Albina, who was born in 1877 and died in 1878 at fourteen months of age. The four-year gap between Emily’s and Frank’s births would perhaps suggest that there may have been another pregnancy during this time, possibly ending in miscarriage or stillbirth. Frank was the second son, a younger brother to (Victor) Albert.
1914
As with his brother Albert, Frank has left no significant paper trail until, at the age of thirty-two, when in 1914 he married sixteen-year-old Janet Catherine Hill. Frank’s age was recorded as twenty-eight on the marriage certificate. Edward Hill, the bride’s father gave his written consent to the marriage of Janet to Frank, as his daughter was under twenty-one. The bride and groom signed a declaration of no impediment of kindred or alliance or other lawful hindrance to the marriage.
They were married at the King Street Church in Hobart by Reverend Isaac Hardcastle Palfreyman, a Primitive and Free Methodist pastor who established this independent church in 1883.
A 1914 census shows Frank living at Narrows (near Dover) in 1914.
Frank and
Catherine had three sons;
Frank Edis Wilmot, born 1915
Charles
Edward Vernon, born 1916
Alfred
Cyril, born 1918
Sadly, less
than a month after Alfred’s birth, Janet died.
1918
Frank lived
close to his parents then, so possibly his mother Mary Rose cared for the three boys after their mother's death. Janet’s mother had
died, so she was not a potential carer.
1920
Frank remarried two years later, on September 11, 1920, at Dover, to Emma Francis Fazackerley. Emma had six children when she and Frank married. The children’s father, William, had been killed tree felling at Hastings in 1916.
Frank and Emma had two daughters:
Dawn
Elizabeth, born 1921
Minnie Beatrice Irene,
born 1923
The 1922
Census records Emma and Frank living at Dover. Frank a labourer, and Emma, home
duties.
In May1922, Emma wrote up a will. She may have known she was unwell, and she had assets significant enough to protect. Emma Frances Rose of Dover left her property, real and personal, to be sold and converted into “my capital”. 15% of this capital was to be left to her eldest daughter Phyllis, who was married to Frank’s youngest brother Edward Rose (Andrew), with the balance divided equally among her remaining five children, (17% each). She left no provision for her daughter Dawn, indicating her assets were her first husband’s. Family memories indicate that her first husband's family insisted Emma write this will.
1923
In the Huon Times on Friday 14thof September 1923, it was reported that Mrs Frank Rose was being treated at the Hobart Consumptive Sanatorium for throat trouble. Sadly, Emma died ten days later the 24th of September.
The small Obituary placed in the Huon Times perhaps indicates that Frank’s three boys were not living with their father and Emma at this time. Her six children plus their two daughters would add up to the ’seven or eight children left motherless’, or perhaps the three stepchildren were not included in the count.
Emma’s
children from her first marriage were then taken in by their paternal
grandparents.
Frank was again a solo father, but now with five young children.
Whatever
their fates, Frank’s five children certainly started their lives in difficult
circumstances, with the sons losing their mother, then the daughters also sadly following the same fate.
1924
In August 1924, the Rose family suffered the tragedy of their matriarch Mary Rose’s death. Frank was at his parent’s home on the night she died and helped to find her body and carry her back to their home. (A little more of Mary's life and her death was blogged on Oct 9, 2018, 'Mary Rose, a Beautiful Lady'.)
Mary was in
her early 70’s when she died, and she had raised and cared for her children and it
would seem, many of her grandchildren. Her death would have been a loss to the
family, and particularly to the welfare of Frank’s five young children.
1927
On Friday 12th August 1927, the Huon Times reported in news from Raminea, that Frank had injured his head and his ribs in a fall while repairing the verandah of his house, and that he is slowly recovering.
On Thursday 25th August 1927, Mrs Frank Rose of Strathblane (Raminea is slightly inland of Strathblane, along the Esperance River Road), placed an ad in the Mercury Personal column.
This is the only evidence found of a third Mrs Frank Rose. The
1928 census records only show two Roses in the area, with neither having a wife. By 1928,
Charles and Mary had both passed, and all the brothers had moved on
from the area, as Frank, a labourer, and Edward Andrew, an engine driver, were
the only two Rose boys left in the immediate Dover area. Whoever Frank’s third
wife was, she was not with him on the 1928 census.
Also in 1927, Frank was charged with stealing a piece of rope, an item worth less than $10 in today’s money. Seemingly trivial crimes like these can make interesting reading. Intricate details of the rope reveal just how important objects like this were to the men of the area. The rope and a net had gone missing from a jetty at The Narrows. Frank claimed the rope belonged to his late father because of certain specifics. Frank also claimed it had been put in the bedroom by one of the children. This little snippet reveals that some of Frank’s children were perhaps living with him at this stage. The boys were then twelve, eleven and eight years of age, and the girls, six and four. Or potentially the Mrs. Frank Rose who was protecting her reputation had children of her own. A verdict of not guilty was returned.
1929
A Police
Gazette records another larceny charge for Frank in February 1929. Details are
scant but he was fined £20 10s or 1 month served in prison. This report records
Frank’s physical description. Frank was 5’2’’ in height, with a fresh
complexion, fair hair, blue eyes and a scar between the left eye and ear.
With employment difficult, and very little government help, petty theft was often the only solution for families to be able to feed their children. With his boys potentially able to do some work, Frank's two daughters were in a much more precarious position.
1930
In 1930, at ages nine and seven, Dawn and Minnie were placed into the Girls Industrial School in
Hobart. The entry record states the girls were born at Dover but lived in
Uxbridge. This would indicate that at the time of their entry into state care,
they were living with their father who worked in this area during the 1930’s.
The Industrial School was for girls who were youth offenders, destitute or neglected. At this stage of its history, the School was located in Pirie Street, New Town.
According to the rules, the Matron had to make sure that the girls were ‘properly washed and dressed’, their beds ‘clean and properly made’, and that everywhere in the School there was ‘neatness, order and obedience’. She had to say prayers and read the Bible to the girls every morning and evening. The girls were expected to be quiet in the dormitories at night. Punishment was by keeping a girl apart from the others. ‘Friends of the girls’ could visit once a month if they had the Committee’s permission. All the girls remained at the School until they were 16, unless the government removed them or they were adopted.
Dawn and Minnie stayed at the School until they were eighteen and gained employment.
1936
The 1936 census states Frank Herbert, a labourer, was living at Uxbridge. In May 1936 Frank married again.
Their marriage certificate states him as living and working at Fitzgerald, also where Eva Isabel Miller lived. Eva was 60, a widow of ten years, born in the Huon and had no children. Frank took four years off his age, stated his former wife was deceased in 1921, and that he had four living children. He stated his father was Charles Edward Rose, but that his mother was Elizabeth Dawn Rose, formerly Smith, getting her middle and maiden name incorrect. Smith was Frank’s grandmother’s maiden name. Uxbridge, Tyena and Fitzgerald were northwest of New Norfolk deeper up the Derwent Valley. It was a location where several of the Rose boys worked and was an important sawmilling area. (More about this area is written in 'Broken Families. Lillian Rose and John Lockley' April 12, 2024)
Census records show Frank and Eva in the same location in 1937.
1939
Frank and Eva had moved back to the Huon, as a notice in the Huon and Derwent Times reveals Frank in December 1939, was supplying the blocks for the Regatta at Shipwrights Point.
1946
Eva died on the 3rd of September 1946 and once again, Frank placed a loving notice in The Mercury newspaper.
Of Frank’s five children,
Frank Edis Wilmot, was born 26th April 1915 at Dover, and was buried on the 28th April 1975, sixty years later as Edis Francis. Little of his life is revealed from online resources. No wife or children are found on genealogy sites. He went by his middle name Edis and it is by this name we find a rather strange story in newspapers in 1938 when he was twenty three. This story played out with 47 entries over three days statewide and nationwide, in papers in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, Broken Hill, Charters Towers, Kalgoorlie and Perth, W.A.
On Wednesday 27th of December Edis set out from Dover to Mead's Creek, three miles away, in a 14-foot dinghy. Forty-two year old Myrtle May O'Rourke was with him (her age was reported as thirty-six). A nasty storm arose and fears for their safety were held.
Over the following days they were believed drowned.
Finally after four days the pair were found on Hope Island, the largest island in Port Esperance.
An even stranger twist at the end of the story was why they were charged with vagrancy and sentenced to three months in jail when they were virtually "shipwrecked" on the small island, and, why did the story attract nationwide reportage.
A little delve into Myrtle O'Rourke's life reveals a woman who was a widow and had three children the same ages as Edis and his brothers. Records show Myrtle was in the Health and Welfare system at least four times. In 1924 as a young mother, Myrtle Grant, she was declared a person of unsound mind, of no fixed abode, a domestic servant, suicidal and suffering from depression by doctors in the Hospital for the Insane, New Norfolk. Files state Myrtle was also known as Myrtle McDonald (her maiden name), and Myrtle Fehlberg. After her prison sentence, if she served it, in 1938 she was again placed in the Health and Welfare system, and in 1941-42, and 1942 again.
What relationship Edis and Myrtle had is completely unknown.
Edis appears in Census records in 1943 and 1949 as living at Mead's Creek, Strathblane and working as a millman. At the time of his death in 1975, he was a pensioner who lived with his brother Charles at 52 Elwick Rd, Glenorchy.
Charles Edward Verdon was born on the 9th August 1916 at Dover. Charles enlisted for service in Melbourne in 1942. His next of kin was Isabel Jessie White, his de facto, of 57 Hawke Street, North Melbourne. Charles served for two years in Victoria, and was discharged in October 1944. His physical description on discharge papers was of black hair, fresh complexion, 5’6” height and with tattoos on both arms. Charles signed his discharge form with an X, a note is hand written “this lad is blind”.
Charles had fallen from an army vehicle, on duty, with no misconduct or carelessness. He fractured his skull and received retinal and vitreous trauma in both eyes. Charles and Isabel moved to Tasmania, as they appear on census records from 1954 to 1972 as living at 52 Elwick Road, Glenorchy.
I have found no records of marriage or children.
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Alfred Cyril, born 20th August 1918 married Gladys Flood. Census records show Alfred and Gladys moving around the state with Alfred working as a bushman, mill hand, labourer and farm hand. Ancestry shows the couple as having five children.
In 1952 a railway trolley and a train collided on the North Eastern
Line at Telita. A 34-year-old Alfred Rose was seriously injured with a compound
fracture, lacerations and head injuries. I can only assume this was our Alfred
as the age is correct and with the itinerant nature of Alfred’s work, is highly
likely. He was taken to Scottsdale Hospital, and then on to the Launceston General
Hospital where his condition was critical. This was still quite early days in
the development of blood transfusions. After WW2, the lifesaving benefits and
lessons learned from wartime, would be applied to civilian wounded. The Red
Cross Blood Transfusion Service continued and adapted its wartime role. Blood
typing and the Rhesus factor were still not fully understood. The Scottsdale
Hospital called on their new young recruit who had volunteered to participate
in the new grouping scheme. The transfusion continued on the journey to
Launceston, with the procedure which probably saved Alfred’s life.
After
working in the far north west, the far north east and the deep south west,
Alfred’s death occurred while he was living at Moogara (near Uxbridge), a town
14 km’s down the zig-zag Moogara Road, west of New Norfolk. Alfred had come to
New Norfolk and was drinking with his mate Basil Daley. The inquest into Alfred’s
death states he had a heart condition, asthma and a history of alcoholism. Sadly,
Alfred drowned in a puddle of water sometime between 6:30 pm on the 25th
July and 7:10 am on the 26th, in 1973. Basil, an elderly deaf man,
gave lengthy contradictory evidence. Alfred was 55 years of age and was cremated
and interred with his father. His son Bernard Rose of Rocky Cape is listed as
next of kin.
Dawn was born 3rd February 1921. As a grown woman Dawn spoke little of her early life, but she did tell her family that on leaving the Girl’s Home she cared for the Bowden family’s three boys. Frank Philip Bowden (1903-1968) was a physicist and physical chemist. He and his wife Margot were Hobart born and educated. After some time at Cambridge, he returned and remained in Melbourne for several years during WW2. During the war, nearly one million American servicemen were in Australia. Many women became “war brides” and married these young men. Dawn married American soldier John Dalton Smith in Melbourne in 1942. John was sent back to the States with Dawn and their child following him four years later. Dawn had a large family in America, but never knew her three half-brothers on the Rose side, or her six half siblings on the Fazackerley, her mother’s side. Dawn died in 2009 in Missouri, USA at the age of seventy-eight.
Minnie was
born 11th August 1923. Her granddaughter recalls her as a very
strong and determined lady, who hated her name and went by the name Rosie.
Rosie knew she had half-siblings. Upon leaving the Girl’s School, Rosie joined
the AirForce in enlisting in Melbourne as Maisie Beatrice Irene Rose. At
the end of the War, women were expected to drop their wartime careers and revert
to domestic expectations. For both men and women, the transition to civilian
life must have been difficult. Rosie married Frank Russell Clement Manser, had a family and lived in the
Hobart area all her life. Reconciliation with her father never ensued. Rosie
died in 1998.
Dawn and Minnie's file:
Dawn and Minnie's (I will call her Minnie as that is how Dawn and the files refer to her at the time), file tells a little of the story of their time in State Care. The first correspondence of November 1930 confirms the girls' memories of their father placing them into care. He is unemployed and agrees to commence payment for the girls upon finding work.
After several other correspondences to and from Frank, it is unclear if Frank could pay the maintenance costs from then on.
Dawn and Minnie stayed in the Girl's School until Dawn was eighteen, when in June 1939, she was working in the service of Mrs. Beck. Dawn was' quite satisfactory' until Mrs. Beck then took on the temporary service of Phyllis Heron. Dawn and Phyllis then behaved so badly that they were both given notice. Dawn stayed on for another six weeks. Minnie was also discharged from the School later that year and was put in the service of Mrs. Mather.
Perhaps the institutionalised life of the School failed to prepare Dawn and Minnie for life outside, as Minnie soon absconded. Minnie was described as a 17 year old, medium build, 5"6', dark hair, dark complexion, rather pretty, own teeth and wearing a brown frock, dark green overcoat, dark green hat, and black shoes. Upon locating her, Minnie was then sent to Magdalene Home, run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Correspondence of January 1941 reveals the Sisters were anxious to get her employment 'while there were so many soldiers about'.
By January the following year Mrs. Beck was approached again to take Minnie into her service. Dawn had also been advocating on her sister's behalf to help assist this process. Dawn was now living in Melbourne with the Bowdens. Dawn then wrote a touching three-page letter trying to get Minnie over to Melbourne to be with her.
Margot Bowden also writes, indicating her willingness to employ Minnie. She states that Dawn is keen to take up munitions work, and that they have found her thoroughly nice. She writes that Dawn accompanies the family to Tasmania when they holiday with Margot's parents, and that the children are very fond of her. On the 9th of March, Dawn received the telegram indicating Minnie's travel plans. The Sisters would be seeing her onto the train in Hobart. From there she would get to Launceston and the boat from Launceston to Melbourne where Margot and Dawn would be meeting her.
Frank Rose’s
story is sadly one that has followed the same trajectory as his sisters Lillian
and Linda, and his brothers, Andrew and Wilfred, about whom I am yet to blog.
Whatever their parenting faults, it’s a story set in rural Tasmania, when between the two World Wars, men and women raised their families in the dreadfully difficult circumstances of the Great Depression. The Rose family was one of intergenerational disadvantage, beginning with an orphaned Charles Rose, son of convict Eliza Rose, in the Female Factory.
Charles and Mary Rose raised their family with Charles working as a farmer, a splitter, a carpenter, a bushman and a labourer. The timber industry hit its highs and lows, but it was the Depression years that impacted extremely badly on Tasmania, a state already poorer than the mainland. It was in the 1930's that the split timber trade finally expired when the schooners Alma Doepel and Kermandie ceased carrying fence pailings that were split in the Tyenna valley, where Frank lived and worked at that time, to Melbourne and Adelaide. These and other vessels were laid up in Hobart during the Depression years, leaving sailors, traders and workers destitute. Life was precarious, and with the loss of a father and or mother, meant children were incredibly vulnerable, and this played out in the lives of Dawn and Rosie, their siblings and many of their cousins.
1967
Frank died at age eighty-five on the 21st of June, 1967 and is interred at Cornelian Bay Cemetery. His address was stated as 52 Elwick Road, Glenorchy.
All information sourced from Trove, Libraries Tas, Ancestry Census and Police Gazette records, and family members.
Social Services file from Tas Archives
https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/D/Depression
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