I recently completed my first assignment for the History Unit I am studying, Place, Image Object. This assignment was to represent the importance of place and place based research in to history, particularly family history. The two parts are an Annotated Map and a Reflective Statement detailing the challenges and observations of the process.
In my last post I mentioned Oscar, Nellie's husband and my ggrandfather. My map tells some of his story. Oscar worked in the Golden Gate mine, Mathinna in the late 1800's.
Reflective Statement:
The story of my great-grandfather, Oscar Marshall, has always been told and even laughed about in our family. I chose to tell this story simply because it is such an intriguing one.
I own my grandmother’s atlas, which I used as the base map. These maps marked with her own hand, show her planned voyage from her home town of Wynyard, Tasmania across the Pacific Ocean to Vancouver.
My intention was to tell the story, but I soon realized that this choice was backed up by virtually no objective evidence. The only provenance I had was her hat box with the date and details of her sea voyage written inside and my own memories of Eileen’s close relationship with her sister Kitty who lived in Vancouver.
I went through my personal documents and found Eileen’s marriage certificate. Her father was listed as deceased on this document. At this stage I had no idea when Oscar might have passed away by this date. Researching through various online sources, I found evidence of some of Oscar’s life and eventually his death. It was a challenge to research the information when so many of the facts I had were subjective and were one woman’s way of hiding her past and protecting her children from the truth of their father’s perceived sins.
Discovering previously unknown details of Oscar’s life has been most rewarding. I realise how little I knew and how much more I now have ahead of me to research this family story.
Below are some of the images and documents used to tell a little more of my grandmother's and her father's story. I'm always fascinated how we look back on our families stories through our modern day lenses and cultural ideals and biases. Understanding someone's actions in the past is far more difficult than understanding motives and actions of people in our lifetime, even that is often almost impossible without empathy and understanding. The admonition to walk a mile in someone else's shoes means that before judging, you must understand his experiences, challenges and thought processes. What made Oscar leave is mere conjecture. Was he an uncaring waster? Did he leave to go to the Boer War? Whatever the reason, my first piece of objective evidence, having found no evidence to back up the Boer war claim, was his marriage in 1907 to Margaret Romney in England and the birth of a son in 1907 also.
Mathinna in 1908
from freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.co
Margaret and Oscar immigrate to Canada aboard the Pretoria.
Census records show them living in British Columbia in 1911 and 1922. Their first child is not on these records, he may have died. By 1922 they have two children Gordon and Kitty (Catherine). Oscar works at a quarry.
In 1923 his eldest daughter, my grandmother, marries Bern Hamilton. Oscar is listed as deceased on their certificate. Eileen has children, works hard and lives her life thinking her father was dead.
Now, in steps Mabel Miller. This is only subjective family anecdote, but it seems quite likely. Mabel Miller was the first woman to be elected to the Hobart City Council and one of the first two women to be elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly. Mabel was visiting Vancouver where she met Kitty, daughter of Oscar. On hearing of Mabel's origins, Kitty told her that her father was from Tasmania and she'd love to find out anything about him. Apparently mabel returned and published an article in the Mercury newspaper. I guess this is how word spread to Eileen in Wynyard. I'm yet to start reading the Mercury from 1960 backwards to try and find this article (in my spare time).
Mabel Miller photo from Wikipedia
By this time Eileen was well into her sixties. How she reacted to finding out her father had been alive all these years and that she had a half brother and sister on the other side of the world, I don't know, but in 1960 she left Wynyard to meet them.
circa 1955
She traveled aboard the SS Arcadia on the destination voyage.
pictures from pandosnco.co.uk
I believe Kitty and Eileen hit it off very well, but the brothers on both sides wanted nothing to do with the scandal of it all. She corresponded lifelong with Kitty, exchanged gifts and photos. I still own a little Christmas decoration Kitty sent over for me. Eileen lived a full and long life.
Her 100th birthday celebrations.
Sadly when she died at age 101, all contact was lost with all sides of her family. She, like many women of that era, was a great communicator and letter writer, a skill which has diminished amoung my own and subsequent generations. Maybe with the aid of facebook and other online reconnect sites I may find my Canadian relatives in the future.
I found Oscar's death notice online. He lived to age 67, dying in 1942. Maybe someone over there has a photo of him, I'd love to see the face of the man who led such an intriguing life.
