#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week 29 - Prompt: 'Music'

Week 29 -  'Music'

Music was a big part of our family background.  My mother and father met at choir practice for Scots Church in Shepparton, Victoria. They must have sung in church choirs for the rest of their lives.  

Dad’s sisters Tibbie and Ray were both organ players at the church in Orrvale.  Ray’s daughter Isobel took on the task later and is still playing for functions around the district. 

Dad would sing a lot of the time when he was working outside or in the car driving.  When we asked Mum to sing something she would always start with: 

             ‘Sing, sing, what shall I sing 

              The cat ran away with my apron string.’

Mum was a good whistler and often you could hear her whistling away around the house, whilst she worked.

When Mum was young she had a pet magpie (Peter, I think was his name) she would sit with him outside and they would whistle away together for ages. 

Also at that time her brother Phil had whittled a flute and played it beautifully.  

My brother Bill and sister Frances both had lovely voices and took lead roles in school musicals. I remember Fran practicing her singing role for one of the ‘three little girls’ in ‘The Mikado’.  Bill was away at Haileybury College in Melbourne.  We went up to listen to the performances such as ‘Aida’, Pirates of Penzance. Others were The Gondoliers and HMS Pinafore.

One of my lovely memories from childhood is extended family around the piano singing all the old Scottish songs.  Many still had strong Scottish accents.  This happened whenever we visited relatives and after dinner, someone would head for the piano and everyone would join in.

#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week 24 Prompt: 'Fathers Day'

Week 24. Prompt: Father’s Day.

As this prompt is relevant time-wise to the other side of the world, I will transgress a little and type out a poem my Daddy composed in 1950 and added to, in 1981.

1950

We have two rascally daughters, their hair’s tomato blonde

and though they are such mischiefs of them I’m very fond

The first her name is Frances - in years she numbers seven

I’m sure her ways will take her to everywhere bar Heaven

And then there’s little Isabel, so sweet, but knows her mind, 

She has a perpetual twinkle of the most mischievious kind.

These two have one big brother and fight with him in turn

While Billie he looks down his nose, some day no doubt he’ll learn.

1981

Some thirty years have now gone by, in fact I should add one

And these young lives have since matured and guess what they have done.

Those girls both through nursing trained and overseas they went

And Frances since moved far away, there many years has spent

Her voice has quite a Yankie flow and Mum has changed to 'Mom'

and two young Nelsons are the fruit of life across the pond.

Now Isabel though not so far, 3500 miles or so

has too a fine young family as well a handsome beau

These fine young ladies all named Flynn and Dad his name is John

who finds he has to permanently work his fingers to the bone

But happiness is theirs and friends as many as of yore

when Poppy formed that witty verse some thirty years before

Our Bill became the wanderer, through the world he went

we’d like to see him settle down and wish he be content

But Bill has caught this modern craze and computers are his bend

and what life further holds for him we’ll find out in the end

no doubt a fine young lady will capture him in time 

and then the two will gain for each a happy life sublime

Should Nanny Noo and Poppy too now leave this earthly shore

feeling at ease and satisfied to look for what’s in store 

and enter in a lighter sphere with all who’ve gone before.

Dad (1904-1982); Mum (1913- 1996); brother Bill (1941-2004) in Victoria in the 1960's.

#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week 18 - 'Close Up'

Week 18: 'Close Up'

When we went on a Family History Trail in Great Britain in 2015, I tried to visit all the places my ancestors came from and where they were baptized, married and buried.

I think the one place I felt the most goosebumps was when I visited my father's hometown and the house he and the family had lived in. I went as close up as I could, climbing the stairs and knocking on the door.  Unfortunately, there was no one at home.  It is a strange feeling to walk in the same place as your father did when he was young and living on the other side of the world.

On the 29 May 1904 my father was born in a small house perched on the side of a rise at the end of the row of houses.  No 40 Dean Park, Peebles, Peeblesshire, Scotland.

A new door at No. 40

The row of houses at Dean Park

No. 40 Dean Park, Peebles

The earliest photo I have of my father.
He is in the centre, with his two sisters Sarah (L) and Isabella/Tibbie ((R)

My father (L), mother (C) and brother (R) in the 1960's.

#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week 13: 'The Old Homestead'

Week 13 Prompt: 'The Old Homestead.'

The Orchard is how we refer to our old place at Grahamvale, Victoria.  I think our family moved out there from town (Shepparton) when I was about two so it would have been around 1948.  Our family of five - Mum - Lilian Agnes (nee Cottam) and Dad - William Louden Pearce.  My older brother - William Joseph and older sister -  Frances Elizabeth and then me - Isabel.

The house was an old weatherboard with a big verandah at the back and the ‘Big Room’ as we called it -  built on as a spare room and playroom.  There was a fireplace in there with openings in the wall to put the wood into the woodboxes from outside.  We kids played Monopoly in there for hours in the school holidays. The big wooden table was so handy - it was also used for table tennis.  When we had visitors it was the meal room and it was decorated especially at Christmas time for the big meals.  
  

Family Christmas in the 'Big Room.'

Fran and I shared a bedroom and Bill had his own.  We had an inside toilet which had an outside door as well to the verandah, so you had to make sure you locked both when in there so nobody burst in on you.

Mum and Dad’s room was verboten to us, but we would sneak in there sometimes.  Their room was along the passage up the front of the house and next to it was the front door (never used) which had stained glass panels that the sun shone through.  In their bedroom was a large chest of drawers which I now have and in the top little drawers Mum would hide gifts.  We were always trying to sneak in and see what was in there.  On top of the chest there was a cute little weather barometer with a little girl and boy that swung in and out of the little house dependant on the temperature.

There was a smaller dining room inside the house,  a very dark room only ever used by the adults - not so much as a dining room but as a card room.  Especially when Grandpa Cottam lived with us.  Grandpa used to sit out on the verandah in his cane chair and we would love to comb his snowy white hair.

Grandpa Cottam (L) in his cane chair with his walking stick, on the verandah 

Outside the house my brother had a hut which was just his - and he had a note on the door “KEEP OUT”  He had a crystal radio set he spent a lot of time with.  We girls always tried to get in - but maybe I never did as I can’t remember it inside.  Then there was the Shed - a big shed for the orchard doings - grader, packing, cases, trucks, tractor, etc.  Under the shed there was plenty of room for playhouses and hiding spots.   

In the early days we had 2 lovely old draught horses for pulling the plough and other jobs.  Fran and I loved the horses - and occasionally were allowed to sit on their backs for a wee ride.   Jean was Dad’s worker and she was a quiet woman and extremely hard worker.  Unusual to have a female, but in reality Jean dressed as a man and spoke like a man.  We were all taken aback when later on she married and had children.

I have many happy memories from the orchard - it was an ideal place for children to grow up.