#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week 30, ‘Colourful’ - Historical Fiction

Week 30 Prompt: 'Colourful’

I have used historical facts and events as they occurred and painted a colourful fictional story.  

‘Green Thumbs’ 

“Sam, where is your mother?”  I asked

“Outside in the garden, where she always is, Nana,” Sam replied … “she loves it and reckons she finds peace and quiet there”

“True Sam, but there is another reason.  It’s in her blood.”

“What do you mean by that Nana?”

“First, bring me the photo of the little old timber house with the rose and lavender garden please, Sam.  

Now that was where your - (counting on my fingers) great, great, great, great grandparents Thomas and Eleanor Wells, lived 165 years ago.” 

I proceeded to tell Sam and his mother Fern about our gardening family history whilst Fern slipped off her gumboots and washed dirt from her hands and knees.

…

Thomas Wells had been taught gardening by his father in Tunbridge Wells an early tourist location in England.  Beautiful gardens attracted visitors and the wealthier owners employed gardeners like Thomas.   

Then one day Thomas shocked the family with an announcement. 

“We’re going to Australia for a better life and better weather than here.”

They sailed on the ship ‘Ann Milne’ with their four surviving children and arrived January of 1853 at Belfast (now called Port Fairy). 

Although moving across the globe was challenging for a young family, Thomas settled in quickly being easy to please so long as he had some earth to work with.  Finding the soil here much sandier than the sandstone/clay loam in Tunbridge Wells, he added organic matter to help it bind.  

Luckily it was a cooler Australian summer which helped the family to acclimatize. 

Belfast grew rapidly, and Thomas became a paid gardener once again.  Meanwhile, he developed his own flower beds and propagation areas with cuttings, bulbs, and seeds he had brought from England.  Roses had always been a favourite of Eleanor so they planted many in the front beds.  He set gooseberry cuttings in handmade boxes in the backyard.   When his flowers bloomed and plants were large enough, he sold them from their front gate.  Apparently, he could get anything to grow.

However, it was much harder for his wife Eleanor who struggled.  

‘I miss visiting the children’s graves back home’, she fretted as she rubbed her pregnant belly.

***

Three months later she gave birth to Edward, who sadly died at nine months and Eleanor’s grief intensified. Over the next eight years they had four healthy children, but with Thomas away from home so much, their relationship disintegrated and the family struggled. 

*** 

“Could you help me run a tea-garden?” Eleanor asked her oldest daughter (also named Eleanor).  Young Eleanor was thrilled as she had followed her father around learning as much as possible. Her favourite was the lavender which grew so well here, and you would always see her with a stem or two tucked into her long brown hair. 

*** 

In 1871, when young Eleanor married Arthur Palmer, a farmer, they moved to Jindivick on Arthur’s farm next to his brother. This area was the last in Victoria to be settled, delayed by the dense Great Gippsland Forest, but now areas were being cleared for the much-needed railway line.  Eleanor cultivated flower beds near the house, adding the easily obtainable horse manure to boost the dark grey-brown fine sandy virgin soil.  She planted flowers and cuttings given by her mother and neighbouring sister-in-law and lined the pathway with her favourite lavender shrubs. 

‘Will my garden survive in this bush?’ Eleanor worried.  Unfortunately, rabbits and wallabies enjoyed almost everything Eleanor grew. 

“Arthur, three times I’ve re-planted - please build me a fence to keep the foragers out,” Eleanor begged. 

Arthur complied, and the garden was finally safe. 

***

Eleanor and Arthur had six children, the fifth being my grandmother who was named Violet. She was born in 1879 and when miners were digging for the first silver in Broken Hill, little Eleanor was digging for worms in Jindivick.

“Mumma, come see the pretty coloured birds,” Violet called.

“Like rainbows” her mother replied.

“They are my garden friends, but not the brushtail possums  - they hiss and grunt in the roof at night.”

“Oh don’t mind them, Violet, they are just talking to each other”

Violet loved picking a flower for her mother to put in a glass on the wooden kitchen table.

 Unfortunately, Eleanor’s husband Arthur was like Eleanor’s own father in that he often disappeared, the family not knowing where he was. 

***

When Violet was twenty-seven she too married a farmer - Joseph Cottam.  Violet was a natural gardener, growing flowers, vegetables, and fruit.  She designed a rose arbour where she also grew her scarlet runner beans.  She provided most of their veggies, bottled fruit and made jam for the family.

   

***

My mother, Lily, was the fourth of Violet and Joseph’s six children and I can remember her saying,

“When I was a young girl I loved escaping to the garden, working to the seasons - hoeing, planting, weeding, and pruning, but picking was the best.  Peter my pet magpie and I whistled away together whilst I worked and he caught worms. 

In the Great Depression, a low time for many, we often had swagmen work the veggie patch and help on the farm in exchange for a feed, bath, and bed.”

My mother gardened until she was eighty years old before she moved into a unit, and even then, she would say,

“Come, see my beautiful African Violets they haven’t stopped flowering."

***

Looking at my daughter and her son Sam, I continued,

“My mum gardened with love just as her mother Violet did and the families before.  

So you see Sam - it’s in our blood, running right through from your ancestors.”

Sources:  

My photos - taken in 2014 of the cottage where the Wells family lived in Port Fairy.