Annotated Map: Finding Oscar Marshall

Finding Oscar Marshall



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

Knowing her as well as I did, I can just picture her in the tourist lounge enjoying herself with fellow passengers. She was the kind of woman who would talk to anybody and become great friends quickly. But it must have been an awfully big adventure for her at age 66 to leave Tasmania and travel over the globe.
 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.

A Heritage of Women: Nellie Taylor

Nellie Taylor: Memories of Mathinna

I've been sticky beaking in the family gene pool for as long as I can remember. When I was younger it felt like it. I was made to feel like a bit of a pest and information from my grandmothers in particular was very hard to procure.
 I started a manilla folder on each branch of the family to try to collaborate my findings.
Over the years these folders have grown. Except for Nellie's.

My dad had very strong memories of his grandmother. She was referred to as Little Nanna.

There she is, same height as her grandaughter who looks about ten or eleven years old, my dad on the far right.

The story went that she left Leominster, Herefordshire for Tasmania at age eighteen as a governess for the Bethune family. This could explain why she can't be found on any immigration records.
My dad always doubted this story and thought there was more to it than that.

 In this pre-turn-of-the-century photo she sits with her friend Amy Wyllie. Looking very much like sisters, they are dressed the same, Amy stands with an affectionate and protective arm behind Nellie.


But the story of her life for our family starts in the gold mining town of Mathinna. In the late 1800's this was a booming, very large town. She married Oscar Marshall on July 2nd 1893. On their marriage certificate she was a domestic, he was a miner.

Mathinna Post Office circa 1907: from Tasmanian Philatelic Society web site

A group of miners 1902: Examiner web site

 Oscar worked in the Golden Gate mine, and by 1902 they had four children. By 1904 Oscar had left his wife and four small children. That's another story. But here is where Nellie began her big cover up stories. Presumably the town's folk knew he'd cleared out, but her children were told their father went to the Boer War and was killed. The War part might have been true, but I can find no military records of  old Oscar to back it up.

Life in Mathinna was by all accounts difficult. Homes had no power or water. Barrels of water were delivered to houses for five shillings a barrel, few homes had tanks. But Mathinna in its boom times is remembered with much affection as a close knit, social and active community. Nellie took in laundry and raised her children as a single mother.

In 1911 she married again. She married widower Frank Moses even though she herself was not widowed. Records show their son Jack was born in 1911 (more scandal to be covered up). Frank died at Mathinna in 1925. Nellie spent the next twenty years moving between family members. If she had her own home, I have no idea. She would have probably been with her daughter in Geelong when her twin grandbabies were born and perhaps she witnessed the subsequent death of their mother. She spent time in Wynyard with her remaining daughter, my grandmother and her grandchildren. She probably spent time with her youngest son Jack too. She would have witnessed two of her sons go off to war. She was in Queensland with her son Gray when she died in 1946. She died unaware that her other son Alec who had been in Changi had survived his imprisonment.

I wonder if she ever thought about Oscar. Turns out he died in 1942 on the other side of the world. Turns out that their three remaining children eventually found out their father had been alive all this time. As for my grandmother, the skeletons falling out of the family closet did nothing to diminish the respect and love she had for her mother and her wonderful childhood memories she treasured all her life. Memories of Mathinna.

A Heritage of Women

A Heritage of Women

This post is about two women.

Mary Jane Battye

 and Mary Hainsworth.

Mother and daughter.

Mary Jane was a Yorkshire girl. I know nothing about her, but its on my bucket list next time I go to Yorkshire to research her.
Mary Jane married a Bradford man, Thomas Hainsworth. If I search the "H's" in any local history book, there's usually several mentions of him and all his achievements, but I've never known anything about his wife. Women are harder to research then men.  In Appendix V of "With the Pioneers" , I'm told the ship "Merrington" arrived in Tasmania in October 1854.
On board was Thomas Hainsworth and wife.

In 1860 she had her first child, Thomas Milton Rand Hainsworth, a fine name. Every two years another child arrived, the fourth one, the first girl was Mary.

Thomas was a highly intelligent, high achieving gentleman. Presumably Mary Jane reared the children quietly allowing him to do his noteworthy works.

Thomas and Mary Hainsworth

with their three daughters,

Selena, Martha and Mary (middle)

 and youngest son, James.

Mary Jane died in 1898 at age 65 and is buried, unmarked, in Section A, Row 18 at the Latrobe Cemetery.

Mary, I know a little more about. My dad knew this lady and remembered her well. She was his Grandmother and was called Big Nanna, as even more so in older age, she was a sizable woman.

Mary 4th from right, back row, her sister to her left'

in a ladies choir.

As a young lady Mary married the son of another local prominent pioneer, Thomas Hamilton.

By 1898 my great grandmother Mary Hamilton and her husband were raising their five young children and carving out a life and a farm for themselves at Nook, a quiet little community populated by the who’s who of Kentish pioneers. Her father in law had donated the land for a church to be built. Her children would have attended the local school. Her in laws were Scottish Presbyterians, but they must have made good use of that church which, after a show of hands, the locals all decided to make Methodist. As was common then Sandy and Christina Hamilton, her parents in law, had eleven children. As was less common, all but one survived into adulthood. Between 1888 and 1898 they lost six of their adult children. One of these was Thomas, Mary’s husband. On the 22nd of September  1898' Thomas died. A week and a half later just before her third birthday, their daughter Maggie also died, three days later four-year-old Mary died. It was typhoid.  I just cannot imagine, looking back into the past through my modern day lens, how a woman could survive this kind of catastrophic life event. I can write down all the dates and work out all the ages and access all the records, but I can’t research how she got herself up every morning and raised her three remaining boys, how she grieved and whether she ever cried or blamed God or pushed it all down neatly into its place and carried on. I suspect they did death much better in the old days. It must have been a unwelcome but well known, quiet, frequent visitor to the homes of early Tasmanians.  They must have either dealt with it a lot better than we do, or maybe because death was as normal to them as life, they did not even have had the need to ‘deal with it’ in the same way we seem have to. Perhaps the 'acceptance' stage of grief came a little quicker than it does for us.

Mary moved into the township of Latrobe with her three young sons to a small cottage in Cotton Street. Her sons grew to adulthood she was actively involved in their business interests, and she helped establish and run Hamilton & Co Pty Ltd, a chain of grocery stores in Wynyard, Myalla, Boat Harbour and Rocky Cape. She then went on to help establish Star Theatre Pty Ltd with her eldest son and his two brothers.

As a single mother she obviously inherited the ambition and drive of her father.

She died in Wynyard aged 71 in 1943, the last surviving member of her family.

 the Hamilton family farmhouse at Nook.

looking toward the Nook church

Luckily, my interest in family history began at a young age, as did my desire to scrounge for old things. Whenever anything was ready to be thrown out, I'd put my hand up, to be met with the rolling eyes and groans of my family. Hence I own Mary Hamilton's farmhouse kitchen table, her lovely blackwood carved sideboard, her white china vegetable dishes and her 1893 photo album which contains a collection of mostly unidentified photographic portraits.  

Hotels of Devonport

Having moved to an older part of the city of Devonport, my interest is piqued as to the history of many of the lovely old buildings that surround our house.

The pub down a block from us (nice walking distance for a counter meal) I wouldn't have described as one of these. The Elimatta , or The Elly as it is always affectionately named, follows the architectural genre of "Mish Mash Butt Ugly, Nobody's Put Any Thought Into AS They Changed It Over The Years". I will have to check with my architecture student friend as to the validity of the naming if this style.

                                                                   source:  The Advocate newspaper


I was delighted to see some old pics of it on the Devonport Historic Site on Facebook.

 What a gorgeous old place it once was.

All towns that sprang up in Tassie's early settling days had a multitude of hotels and guest houses and it was from either of these that our pubs of today have evolved.

Devonport had it's fair share in the early days, The Alexander (still here) The Formby, (still here), The Mersey, The Victoria, The British, The Tamahere to name a few.

The beautiful building that was the Elly has had many additions and alterations in it's life.

Looking slightly more recognizable now, this pic I would date at circa 1960 from the cars,

The grand old girl obviously now stripped of her verandahs, is slowly being swallowed up by modern additions.

Whenever I walk past The Elly, I wonder about the old parts. Are they still there, what remains of it?

As someone with a desire to connect and fossick among remnants of a past era, I always look for it.

I recently went around the back to the bottle shop. There beneath the wheelie bins, fire escapes and add on additions, behind a door is an old staircase and a glimpse of the old brickwork and windows.

It made me kind of happy to know there is still something of the past there. 

I reminds me of our own lives as we get on a bit more in years. We try and modernize ourselves, keep up with a changing world, hide some of our memories and experiences with facades, block off doors we no longer want to go through. From the outside we can really change our opinions and what we want to present to the outside world. We might not want to seem old fuddy duddys , and we might want to hide bits of ourselves that are maybe boring and passe.

But get in behind those bits we've covered up and that same person is still there. Deep inside that lovely old staircase still winds up to all those old rooms, those memories and that person you were when you were just a kid. I'd like to think so anyway.

                                         ****************************

Sadly some have all gone completely. I think the most mourned hotel of Devonport would be The Grand Hotel.

Demolished in 1968 to make way for a Brutalist banking institute (yes, that IS a real architectural genre). It must have made an impression on me as I can actually remember this building. I was 7 then. I remember standing on the corner of Rooke and Best Streets staring at this building thinking how lovely and grand it really was.

 Palace Hotel corner Rooke and Steele Street ( maybe not quite a palace)

 Royal Hotel corner Best and Fenton Street

 Metropole Hotel on Formby Road between King and Steele being demolished
.

" A home away from home is a term

that says concisely what The Metropole actually is. At this up-to-date board-

ing establishment guests not only can obtain the comforts and privacy of

their own homes, but they have facilities for reading, writing, the use of

commercial and smoking rooms such as few houses contain."

-as reported in the local newspaper 1922

AND I read it had hot and cold water systems installed throughout the building. Gee I'd really like to stay here!

And some are still quite recognizable , The Formby, only recently reinvented with a name change a slight facelift.

And the good old Alex. She hasn't changed a bit!

The Alex in the background and the earlier Formby in the forground.

                                                                                     from Shifting Sands by Faye Gardam

unless noted these pics are all from Devonport and Surrounds- A Pictorial History, Facebook group.

Granny's House

Yesterday I found a great vintage children's book in an antique shop.
Tiny Tots Annual from 1960, full of lovely illustrations and only $5.

  


 But the little one titled "Granny's House" caught my eye.

So cute, but the modern Granny isn't quite like the 1960 Granny. For a start, in an effort to break the stereotype old grandma, modern grannies need a cooler title, like Mimsy, Nooni, Jamma or Glammy. The glamorous Grandma is a thing.

 Lots of grannys now are fairly young, as back in the 70's we all tended to get married pretty young. Lots of grannys are still working and desperately trying to amass some super as they tended to take time out from careers to be stay at home mums in the 80's.




Lots of grannys are winning oscars, travelling and buying new furniture for the first time in their lives.



Lots of grannys are old hippies so their grandchildren think they are fantastic and weird.





But not many modern grannys bake apple pies
any more. And lots of grannys, if they do have grey hair, put a splash of hot pink or purple through the front.


Striving to be a good mix of old granny and modern granny is hopefully achievable.

That poem is never going to apply to me, so I've rewritten it.

I love to go to Glammy's house, 

Where all is chaos and not too clean

And Downton Abbey and Midsommer Murders,

In rows are to be seen.

In Glammy's house I don't have to be good,

Cos her houseworks fairly bad

I can run and shout and eat her chocolate,

As long as I don't tell mum and dad.

But Glammy's face is sweet and kind,

I never know what colour her hair will be.

I know about her Tim Tam stash,

When I go there to tea.

Memories. The Star Theatre

I love the facebook pages that feature local historic content. Old photos are shared and people start recalling their memories. The recent posts of the Devonport Star Theatre and recollections have prompted me to put "pen to paper" and record my childhood memories.

The Star was built in 1937, way before my time. It's a stunning example of Art Deco architecture that's sadly been subject to a little bit of commercial misuse and abuse over the years.

My family connection goes back to the start. The Star Theatre Company was floated in 1933 by Rob Hamilton and he and his two brothers, one of whom was my grandfather, worked in the industry as it was pioneered by Rob and grew across the state of Tasmania.

                              Construction in 1937. The beam to support the balcony is backed in.
                               Photo from the Devonport Regional Gallery, Robinson Collection.

My dad began his working career at age fifteen in the Wynyard Theatre and then the Burnie Star Theatre. He moved around the state in the industry until the last decade of the Star's life when he managed the Devonport Star. This was the 60's.

I was born 1961. By the time my earliest memories kick in, the Star had faded just a little.
Even as a child I knew she harked back to a time of glamour and a lifestyle that was gone.

Having a dad who managed a picture theatre was a wonderful perk for a kid. It meant we got to go as often as we wanted, for free, and see a film as many times as we wanted.
We'd turn up with him an hour or so before screening time and as he prepared everything in 'the box' , that's what he called the projection room, my brother, sister and I would spend the time exploring every nook and cranny of the old building. Back then it had a balcony (we Always sat up there) and an upstairs lounge. No one ever used the lounge much anymore, but the huge round mirrors, club lounges, urns of plastic flowers and ashtrays told us that there was once a time when men and women dressed up and socialized in that lounge for a night out. My dad told me that in it's heyday it cost 1/1 pence for a downstairs ticket, 2/4 pence far an upstairs (including entertainment tax) and many people held a permanent Saturday night booking.

I'm not sure of the date this was taken, but this photo is exactly how I remember the lounge. We'd often sit here and wait until the place was opened and patrons would start filing in. Pre filming time he'd put on piped music which filled the cinema as people sat and waited. These were lp records. My favourite was The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, I loved it when he played that soundtrack. Soon the usherettes in their smart grey uniforms would turn up for work and they'd personally guide every patron to a seat using their big silver torches if the lights were already dimmed.

 After the film he'd also have to stay for another hour or more to clean up and prepare for the next session. We'd go up to the box and help him by rewinding the huge spools of film by hand, pack them into their metal boxes and lug them downstairs if the screening time was finished. There was more time for exploring the empty theatre. Up another stair case was an old office, never used, but full of old movie posters. Wow, what I'd give to have those now!
Right in the middle of the downstairs lobby was the old ticket sales booth. That was never used either, but we'd open the old split door and sneak in and play in there.

My dad would usually watch the film first, come home and report to us as to whether or not we'd like it. Compared to most kids, I guess we got to see plenty of movies. The stand outs of my memories are Pollyanna, Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, The Great Race, Jason and the Argonauts, Born Free, Mary Poppins, the list goes on. As the decade progressed Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, the Herbie films, Elvis films and comedies such as What's Up Doc entertained us. My sister and I weren't happy when a western was on. My tastes matured into historic dramas such as Mary Queen of Scots and Nicholas and Alexandra and I distinctly remember having a massive movie start crush on Robert Redford.
We all had to stand up at the beginning of screening to a huge projected image of the Queen accompanied by the National Anthem. This was followed by newsreels and shorts (informative little films on various topics, none of which I remember) and the onset of the consumption of all the lollies we'd bought earlier at either the adjoining theatre shop or the milk bar over the road. If we were lucky, one of the shorts would be a cartoon which pleased the kids greatly.In 1970 the Australian Classification Board was formed and movies started to have ratings. I remember when A Clockwork Orange was released in 1971 being extremely put out that my dad would not let me see it. It had this new thing called an "R" rating. I put the poster up in my room, listened to the soundtrack and lamented the unfairness.

By the early 70's, Star Theatres were taken over by Cinema One and my dad left the old family business. The balcony was pulled down and the interior pretty well gutted. The gorgeous art deco plaster worked walls were covered by hundreds of metres of burnt orange and brown curtaining and the ceiling plaster painted black. Orange and brown carpets and plenty of mod amber glass chandeliers were installed. The end of the era had come.
I really feel very lucky to have these wonderful memories that certainly cultivated a love of movies and I suspect a love of Art Deco interiors too!