I wish I had known my half-brother, born Aaron James Lee to my father, Anthony Lee and his first wife Eleanore Green, in Lismore, NSW, on the 16th December, 1926. Tony and Eleanore 'Nell' separated in 1931. Nell remarried solicitor Albert James Miller in 1933. Aaron and my half-sister Lenore, were caught up in the bitter aftermath of this divorce. My understanding is that Albert would not allow the children to see Tony, to which it appears Tony reacted by not agreeing to Albert’s request to adopt the children. The childrens' names were changed by deed poll, and Aaron James Lee became Aaron James, or ‘Ron’ Miller. My father, who died in 1963, did not speak to us about Aaron and Lenore until we were teenagers, but never stopped caring about them. My mother described how upset he was in 1947 when he became aware that Ron, still in the armed forces, was to be in Melbourne on a visiting war ship and wrote to Albert and Nell asking for permission to see him. It was denied. This photograph was taken of Ron at about the time he would have visited Melbourne. Sadly, I never met Ron, who died of cancer aged 53 in 1979, many years before I met his wife and two daughters, Elle and Kathy, in 2013.
There is so much I would like to have been able to ask and share with Ron. However, I’ll focus on two things Ron and I had in common—the main focus, that we both studied Economics at university, with a minor ‘lead in’ focus, that we were both troubled, if slightly differently, by the McMahon government in the early 1970’s. I remember being in my third year of teaching economics at Yarram High School and planning a move back to Melbourne when the 1972 ‘It’s Time’ election was held. Billy McMahon’s period as Prime Minister had troubled me. Like many others, I felt ‘it was time’ for a change. According to Ron's wife Noreen, working as an economist in the Departments of Treasury and Finance during the McMahon government had proven troubling for Ron. Like me, Ron had studied economics. However, Ron had practised as an economist, with a career in economics/finance related departments at senior administrative levels for a series of federal governments. He had worked for a number of Australia's Prime Ministers (possibly seven), but his bete-noir was to be Billy McMahon, whose erratic and bullying behaviour contributed to his leaving the Federal public service after what had been a distinguished career. I wish I’d been able to visit Ron in Canberra and discuss his working life. I particularly wish I’d known him when I was studying Economics at High School and University. Twenty years older than me, with a rich experience in economic policy, what a wonderful mentor he might have been. Just knowing that I had a brother working in Canberra in the area of finance and economics could have been motivating. Perhaps he would have given me constructive feedback on my essays. That would have been wonderful! The first person in my known family to have gone to university, I always felt so alone in my pursuit of an economics degree. After leaving Canberra towards the end of McMahon’s period, Ron returned to Brisbane to teach Economics at a prestigious Catholic college. How wonderful for his students to have been taught by an economics teacher with such a rich working life in finance and economics in Canberra! I sometimes imagine a slim possibility that I may have met Ron once at a national economics teachers’ conference, as we both taught high school economics during the mid to late 1970’s. It’s a possibility which I hang on to, despite the fact that certainly by 1979 he was severely ill with cancer. There is so much I would like to have known about Ron’s life, so much I would like to have asked and shared with him. Vale, Ron. Bev Lee (Originally written for my U3A 'Memoirs' class in July 2021) Post script - June 2023: A friend of mine has a friend I suspected could, as a young economist, have worked with Ron in the late 60's early 70's. When asked, he did remember 'Mr Miller'! There were two beloved 'Lil's' in my maternal grandfather John Edward Devitt's life, his wife, my ballerina grandmother 'Lil Hooper', and his older sister, 'Lil Devitt'. Born in Adelaide in 1881, Lily Elizabeth Devitt was the eldest living daughter of my great grandparents, stonemason John Edward Devitt Senior and Elizabeth Miller. The family moved to Melbourne after a depression in South Australia the mid 1880's. There were two younger sisters, Victoria, 'good with her hands' who became a milliner, and Adelaide. Adelaide became a bookkeeper in Flinders Lane but was 'good at art' and would have liked to go to art school. Patching together pieces of her life, I think primary school teacher Aunt Lil may have been regarded as the 'blue stocking' of the family. Aunt Lil reading in a hammock outside family home, 18 Balston Street, Balaclava Aunt Lil taught at Caulfield Central School in Balaclava Road near Caulfield Park for many years, including when my mother was a student there. Mum wrote in notes on her life, "Dad’s sister, Aunt Lil, taught sixth grade at Caulfield Central School, but I was in Mr Gollop’s sixth.... On Monday morning we’d have assembly – I can still hear Aunt Lil singing ‘the Grand Old Duke of York’. I don’t know why, perhaps it was to march into class". I thought of Aunt Lil a lot in 1969 when I completed a teaching round at Caulfield North Central School in the old two-story building in which she would have taught during the 1920’s, possibly in decades before and after, sat in the staff room, organized her lessons, prepared the chalk board for each day's lessons, and more. I've long intended to visit the Public Records Office of Victoria to retrieve records of her teaching career from the Education Department archives. I'd like to know more about her teacher training, other schools at which she taught. I wonder at her teaching at a State School, as her family were staunchly Catholic. Perhaps at that time being a nun was required, lay teachers were not accepted in Catholic schools? I have memories of meeting Aunt Lil when she was in a nursing home, remember her having a loving smile and a capacity to engage me as a young child. Perhaps this resulted from decades teaching children, as she never had children of her own. I remember her husband, Irishman 'Jack O'Donehue', standing at her side, watching carefully over her. In her eighties, her body was riddled with arthritis, fingers permanently curled. For most of her life, Aunt Lil would have been considered a 'spinster school teacher', but in 1931 when she was 50, she married widower Jack. Mum told me they had known one another in young adulthood before he married someone else. They seemed to have a happy married life together for over 30 years and clearly cared about one another. I always had a strong sense that my grandfather unconditionally loved and respected Aunt Lil. His renouncing Catholicism by marrying my Protestant grandmother didn't seen to have been a problem for Aunt Lil, who loved and was loved by my grandmother and her children. My mother writes in her notes that 'My sister Joyce was born at Wilgah Street– another home birth. I remember being taken for a walk by Dad’s sister, Aunt Lil, and when we arrived back I had a little sister.' This photo may well have been taken on that day... Aunt Lil’s support would have been important when her older brother Vincent’s wife was hospitalized following a with mental health breakdown in 1914 when their children were only 4, 3 and 1 year old. Aunt Gladys was a patient at the Kew Psychiatric Hospital from 1914 to 1969; Uncle Vin had moved to Perth in 1929 with the children and died in 1942. I wonder if Aunt Lil maintained some contact with, perhaps was the power of attorney for Gladys at some stage?
In conclusion, in connecting my story to this month’s International Women's Day theme, I would like to celebrate the role my great aunt, Lily Elizabeth Devitt, played in the education of children in the Victorian suburb of Caulfield and surrounds, laying a foundation in the minds and behaviour of so many young people over first four decades of the 1900's. I'd like to also celebrate her role in our family, as a loving sister to my grandfather, a warm and accepting sister to my grandmother, and a clearly loving aunt to my mother and great aunt to me. Beverley Lee March 2023 Time Travellling! Questions I’d like to ask Aunt Lil – Where and how did she train to be a teacher? Was she a suffragette? What was her opinion of conscription during World War I? What position did members of the Catholic Devitt family take? Why didn’t she teach in a Catholic school? Did she in fact, have contact with Gladys at the Kew Psychiatric Hospital? How did she find her during her visits, when and if they were possible? Was she ‘power of attorney’? And more…. |
The Journey ...An 'occasional blog' recording elements of my renewed family history journey. This is the second wave in my 'family history' journey. The first lasted from 2010 to 2014. with intermittent bursts since then. It's time to revisit, to share more stories, to edit, to tackle uncertainties... Categories
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