Christmas Conversations

Christmas is a great time to have a conversation with family members about family history. Chatting about family stories with older family members while gathered is an important element to gathering clues to help piece together an ancestor’s life.

My grandfather Frederick James Peeling was born in Shepherds Bush, London on 19 May 1908, to William Peeling and Minnie Legee. He was the second of three sons. When Minnie died in 1915, William married Gertrude Annie Moore and they had one daughter, Phyllis Peeling.

Life became difficult for Fred in the new family unit and by 1924, at age 16, Fred was working in farming, a long way from London, in South Gosforth. The lady he was working for told him about an opportunity of free passage and a job in Australia and he left on the SS Borda on 4 September 1924.

Fred’s brother William had left a year earlier, but his family didn’t know where he was and there were assumptions he had gone to America. I wrote about finding William in Pittsworth in Queensland in a previous blog.

On arrival, they assigned Fred to the Reynolds family farm Dilwyn, named after George and his wife Emily’s English home. It was in Pappinbarra, near Wauchope, on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. The climate and surroundings differed from England, with eucalyptus trees replacing green rolling hills.

George and Emily had four boys, their eldest George had died in France in 1918 while serving his country in World War 1. George snr had the mail contract between Beechwood and Pappinbarra and the farm ran dairy cows. Fred is in photos, working in long pants and long-sleeved shirts, looking happy and tanned.

In 1931, George Reynolds died, and this event brought Fred’s employment to an end. He moved to Sydney, lived in Hurstville, gained employment with NSW railways, and married my grandmother, Phyllis Whirisky, in 1935.

I was told my grandfather came to Australia, and worked on a farm near Wauchope in a small place called Pattinburra with a family named Reynolds. I couldn’t find a place called Pattinburra but found Pappinbarra by scouting places on the map close to Wauchope and I found details of the Reynolds family from there.

The story developed using births, deaths and marriages indexed in Australia and England, newspapers on Trove, Electoral rolls and emigration records on Ancestry, military records on the National Archives of Australia.

My family believed for along time Fred arrived in Australia under the Dreadnought agricultural labourers’ immigration scheme. Records of the boys who arrived under the scheme are available at several libraries and I viewed the microfilm at the State Library of Queensland. The list of immigrants did not include Fred Peeling and I confirmed this on a visit to the Alstonville, which holds the records collected by the Dreadnought Association. If you have a Dreadnought boy in the family I recommend contacting the Alstonville museum to see what they know of your ancestor. They are very helpful.

Have a wonderful Christmas with your family and don’t forget to ask about those family stories.

Ethel Stalker – war time nurse

Today is Remembrance Day. We pause to remember those who served in the military in all conflicts and those that made the ultimate sacrifice. I also like to pay homage to those that have preserved the history of their service such as the National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial.

The National Archives have been working tirelessly to digitise and upload service records from World War II so they are available to everyone free of charge. You can check what has been loaded hour by hour on their ‘recently added‘ page.

I like to check this page regularly and see what is being uploaded and on one occasion was intrigued to read about a nurse named Ethel Lane who served in the army during WWII.

Ethel was born Ethel Marion Stalker on 5 Jul 1918 at Ulverston, Lancashire. Her parents, Ernest and Gertrude Stalker (nee Piggott), moved to Australia when Ethel was two and lived near Port Kembla.

After attending college in Wollongong, Ethel trained as a nurse at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service in 1942 and served at Concord, Dubbo and Tamworth before going to Morotai, an island off Indonesia. There she met Captain Raymond Lane, a doctor treating casualties from the Borneo Campaign and Australian prisoners of war rescued from Japanese captivity.

Raymond and Ethel got married in December 1946 and had their first child the next year. On 1 August 1948, Raymond developed peritonitis and tragically passed away, leaving Ethel and their infant son.

After Raymond’s death, Ethel ran a stationery shop in Five Dock before devoting her time to causes including the RSL, the Nurses Memorial Club and the War Widows Guild. The first elected Australian woman member of the World Veterans Federation, she led delegations overseas. Awarded the MBE in 1978, she became a Member in the Order of Australia in 1990. A professorial chair in nursing with the University of Sydney and Concord Hospital was named in her honour.

Ethel’s obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald on 22 November 2007 tells the story of her war time service as well as her lifetime dedication supporting war widows. She devoted much of the rest of her life, until her death at 89, to fighting for issues affecting war widows, nurses and veterans.

Lest we forget.

Grave tales – East Ballina Cemetery

High on the hill, with a magnificent view of the surf rolling onto Shelly Beach, is the monument to William Webster. The ornate celtic cross that marks the grave is carved in white marble. It stands over three metres tall, far higher than any other monument in the cemetery.

The obituary published in The Richmond River Herald, gives a clue to the immense contribution William made to the community of Ballina and the establishment of the town. It states, ‘one who had seen the rose and progress of the district for the past 54 years, who had consistently thrown in his lot with the workers for the public weal and who had done as much or more then any other man of his time for the advancement of the town where he lived.’

William was born in 1845 at Llangollen station, Casillis, near the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. In 1853 the family moved to the Richmond River area where his father worked as a butcher. William learnt the trade of butchering and worked in the timber industry.

In 1870 William, at age 25, married Ann Taylor. They had nine children. The family moved to Ballina in 1890 where William purchased a butcher store from James Bryant. Ann passed away on 25 Apr 1891. A year later William married Annie Maria Moore, 19 years his junior. Annie was the sister of the publican of the Freemason’s Hotel in Lismore. They had four children.

In 1896 William gained the publican license for the Australian Hotel in Ballina after constructing the building on land he purchased on his arrival in Ballina. The Australian Hotel was recognised as one of the leading hotels on the Richmond River.

A year later he was elected as an alderman to Ballina Shire Council and later became Mayor. He fought to establish a water supply, implemented harbour works, added a creamery, fire brigade, hospital and jockey club.

He died on 22 Jan 1910 at age 65. A large cortege followed his remains to the cemetery for his burial service. He is buried with his second wife Annie and his son William John Webster.

Large celtic cross adorns the gravesite of William Webster surrounded by other graves.

Grave Tales are researched from online records available from NSW Births Deaths and Marriages, Australian Electoral Rolls, NSW Police Gazette, Trove, National Archives of Australia and NSW State Archives. The photo of William Webster was published in From The Webster Weavings, J.C Newman & M. Battis, Published 1997.