It is always a thrill when 'oral history' family stories passed down generations are confirmed during family history research, when they suddenly make more sense. Like my sister, I've found that remembered stories, stories passed on by our mother, are usually 'right' and can often provide wonderful 'leads'. Oral histories suggested that my grandmother, Rose Lee (McCann) had worked 'in the canteens' in England during World War I. My grandfather James Lee's war records show that he had been stationed at Perham Downs on the Salisbury Plains in Sussex during the war - coming across a photo of the Perham Downs canteen gave me goosebumps, as this could have been the canteen in which she worked. Other stories suggested that she may have run a boarding house and even a hotel at some time. Now while I don't have evidence of this, a cousin posted this picture on Facebook some time ago, with the caption 'having breakfast using my grandmother's cutlery'. Rose's cutlery is rather beautiful, isn't it. A copy of 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam' treasured by her mother, my 'Aunty Bunty', was equally treasured by this cousin. Intrigued, I took the photo below. The publication date, 1896 suggests that it could have been given my my grandfather to my grandmother, or perhaps by a family member to them both, as a wedding present in 1904. It made me feel quite strange looking at it, as my parents had a copy of 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam' in our bookshelves when I grew up. None of my friend's families seemed to have a copy in their bookshelves. Did my father's parents give this to my mother and father as a present at their war time wedding in Sydney 1942? If not, did my my father give it to my mother, remembering that his parents had a copy? What of an Irish connection? My mother passed on her understanding that my grandfather's Devitt forebears had left Ireland for Liverpool, moving on from there to Newcastle Upon Tyne in Northern England where they settled. This all appears to have been true, though there was an intervening period in which my Irish born bricklayer/stone mason great great grandfather Edward Patrick Devitt and his wife Anne (possibly Rourke or O'Rourke) lived in Manchester where my great grandfather was born in 1858 (1871 UK Census).
Sometimes oral history is a bit sketchy and there are 'holes' even 'black holes', often resulting from family secrets! My Scottish born father died when I was fifteen, limiting my accress to Lee stories to those told during my childhood. I knew my father was born in Edinburgh, remember him talking about Leith and 'The Firth of Forth', I thought I was a Scot through and through on my father's side. However reading through Scottish census data during the 1800's I realised I was much more Irish than I thought. My great grandfathers, Anthony Lee and Bernard McCann were both born in Ireland, as was Rose Anne McCann (Kelly), my great grandmother. While my other great grandmother, Barbara Lee (Sullivan) had been born in Scotland, her father had been born in Ireland. All my paternal great great grandparents had been born in Ireland, appearing to have migrated to Scotland in the Irish Famine decades or after political unrest or economic decline in Ireland. This has led me to reflect on the depth of the Irish connection, to think about whether it has influenced me, to look for remnants of my Irish history in my life. I've come up with one or two - the first is that above our kitchen table when I was young was an illustrated poem which I loved to look at. The illustration featured a road up to a house on a hill. It has taken me some time to fully remember, but now I realise, and my brother has thought back to confirm, that it was 'The Irish Blessing'..."May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand". I wonder why it was there, who chose it, and why? No one else had an 'Irish Blessing' at their house and my father seemed to be quite fond of it. On St Patrick's Day at 'the Northo' in Benalla just a few weeks ago, my sister and I were singing along with the Scottish fiddle band 'Nessie' playing as part of St Patrick's Day celebrations. We were singing along with 'Cockles and Mussels'... you know, 'In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty'... Suddenly we looked at one another, knowingly, recognizing that when we were little we sat around the kitchen table after meals, singing this song with our father, who had taught it to us. I was telling this to my father's also Scottish born cousin, 90 year old Bill Tully, son of my paternal grandfather's sister Elizabeth, who now lives in a nursing home setting in Vancouver. Bill laughed and said, that is strange, as it is a song which he has chosen to sing recently with his carer. His grandfather, my great grandfather, was born in Ireland, first appearing in the Scottish census in 1871 after the family had migrated from County Roscommon in Ireland. So, sometimes it is the family story, the somewhat 'out of place' treasured family object or paperwork, or the rather odd family tradition, which has a place in the search for meaning during the family history journey. 'Alive, alive oh... Alive, alive oh, singing cockels and mussels... ' Bev Lee April 9 2018 My ‘nanna’, Lily Mabel Florence Hooper, was a ballet dancer with J C Williamson’s Theatre Company from 1904 to 1912, when she married her ‘Stage Door Johnny’, my ‘poppa’, clerk and later commercial traveller John Edward or ‘Jack’ Devitt. Lily was the youngest of nine children, seven girls and two boys. At least five, but definitely four of her sisters – Minnie, Edith, Ruby and Violet - were also ballet dancers. Lily always ‘stood up straight’, and like her sisters, seemed to have a ‘natural turnout’. Even when older, they all seemed to stand in first position! How I would love to be able to time travel back to the 1890’s when Lily was trained, with her sisters, by Madame Rosalie Philippini, the ballet mistress for Williamson and Musgrove; to watch her doing bar work and learning the beautifully executed grand battement demonstrated to me in her kitchen when she was in her late sixties. How wonderful to be able to watch her learn new ballets; find out that she had a place in the corps de ballet (perhaps even a solo!); travel on a company tour in New Zealand; be courted by Jack at the stage door. Tall, statuesque and often serious, Lily had a wide and welcoming smile and was occasionally prone to ‘the giggles’. I have cherished memories of her having ‘the giggles’ with my aunt when something triggered them to double over with infectious laughter and we all found ourselves joining in. Growing up I had a romantic picture of Lily’s time as a dancer. In fact Lily considered being a ballerina a hard life, and did not actively encourage my mother to become a dancer. Lily faced other challenges during her life in addition to those of the times in which she lived. Two years after my mother’s birth in 1913, Lily lost a beloved first son at six weeks old—a cause of deep sadness for her. Jack, like many of his maternal Miller relatives, proved to have an addictive regard for the sport of kings, apparently causing the only arguments between them. Marrying Jack also carried with it difficulties associated with ‘mixed marriages’. Jack’s family were devout Roman Catholics, Lily’s family were barely practicing Protestants. Where Jack seemed to negotiate this with ease, never doubting his choice of bride, becoming a non-practicing Catholic, yet having the confidence to retain contact with his loved parents, I suspect it was more difficult for Lily. Often serious, rarely physically affectionate, Lily showed her love for us all in so many other ways. When we were little she was always on hand if Mum needed some help; she would knit beautiful hand made jumpers for us all and would have us to stay ‘turn about’ as children. Perhaps it was Nanna’s theatre experience that made her so adept at successfully curling even my very fine straight hair using rags – I just loved her doing this when it was ‘my turn to stay’! I took the picture below of Lily with Jack on my Brownie box camera a few years before Jack died in 1967. One of the few memories I have of Lily touching Jack, it seems to epitomize a love and life shared for over fifty years. Lily is touching Jack’s arm as if concerned to help him keep his balance, and had knitted the warm cowl-necked sweater he is wearing, a pattern chosen to keep his neck warm. When Jack died, Lily clearly missed him very deeply. Lily was part of a large, close family rich with family stories passed on through my mother to us. I don’t look at all like her ‘Hooper/Taylor’ side, and in many ways am more like my father’s ‘Lee’ side and Jack’s ‘Devitt’ side. However Lily’s stories; the stories of her brothers and sisters and memories of meeting them and hearing about their lives and children, of meeting their children, of visiting Hooper family sites in Melbourne and Sydney, of learning more about ‘Hooper/Taylor’ side family history, all form part of who I am. These stories, along with the caring and support Lily gave me over so many years have I think given me a measure of self esteem and strength which perhaps my other ‘sides’ didn’t in quite the same way. I was overseas when Lily died, so in some way never really said goodbye to her. I occasionally have distressing nightmares in which she is still alive, is alone and I can’t find her. My nanna, Lily, will always be part of me, and perhaps, if there is another life, I will find her again. Beverley Lee This was originally written for a memoirs based U3A writing group in June 2015
Born on 24 October in Govan, Lanarkshire in Scotland, Rose was the youngest child of Irish born parents - Bernard McCann, a ship's plater/boiler maker (described on Rose's death certificate as 'engineer'), and his wife Rose Anne Kelly. Married in the Catholic Parish of Kilmore, County Armagh, on 13th July 1864, Bernard and Rose Anne appear to have migrated to Scotland shortly between 1864-6, with the first of their children, Margaret, born at Greenock in 1866 followed by John (b 1868); Edward (b 1873) James (b1871-d1871), Mary (b 1877) and Rose (b 1882). At the time of her marriage to James Lee in 1904, Rose was living at 14 Great Junction Street Leith with her now widowed mother Rose Anne and sister Mary. 14 Great Junction Street appears to have been the McCann family home years for many years and features in correspondence to Rose from the War Office during the Great War. In a building comprising relatively large apartments over shops with a shared back garden, we have a picture of Rose's sisters Margaret (Molly) and Mary with their nieces sitting in the garden at 14 Great Junction Street. . Somewhat surprisingly at the time, my mother advised me "not to look too closely" at my father's birth certificate when I was applying for a visa to travel and work in England in 1971. Advice I of course completely disregarded! James Lee (compositor) and Rose McCann (clerkess) had married at the Catholic Chapel in Leith, four months before my father Anthony 'Tony' Lee was born at 8 Admiralty Place on September 23, 1904. A compositor by trade, it is on record that James had an 8 year career with the 3rd and 5th Royal Scots, so Rose would probably have had the typical life of a young army wife living in Leith at that time. Although Tony was to remain an only child for another 20 years, family history records suggest James had a particularly large extended family and that there were many causins for my father Tony to play with. There was even another Anthony Lee, also born in 1904. This Anthony, a mariner who never married, died like my father, in 1963, leading to some confusion on ancestry.com which I'm finding hard to rectify. At the time of the 1911 census, Rose and 7 year old Tony were listed as present at the home of her remarried mother Rose Anne and sister Margaret at their home in Leith, while James is found in the UK census in a printing business in London. A year later, James, Rose and Tony embarked on 'The Otway' to Australia, arriving in Brisbane on 28 October 1912, travelling on to Sydney where Sands Directory entries appeared listing James Lee running a printing business, and where Tony attended the junior school of Sydney Grammar School or 'Shore'. Rose must have begun to settle in and make friends, however the Great War was clearly imminent and then a reality. Rose, like James, must have known many of the Leith based Royal Scots soldiers killed so tragically in the Gretna Train Disaster of April 2015, an event which deeply affected the Leith community deeply. Not long after this event James enlisted in the Australian Armed Forces, leaving Australian shores a Lieutenant owing his earlier military experience with the Royal Scots and skills evident in running his printing business. Rose chose to return to England, travelling to London with Tony from Wellington in New Zealand via Monte Video and Teneriffe on the 'Corinthic'. Initially intending to live with her family at Great Junction Street,in Leith, Rose was able to join James to live at or near the Army Base at Perham Downs. Things we remember hearing? We remember hearing that Rose had 'worked in the canteens' during the war - these would almost certainly have been the canteens at Perham Downs Army Base on the Salisbury Plains when James was stationed there during World War I throughout 1916 and 1917. Rose and Tony appear to have been able to live as a family with James (a Lieutenant) during this period, with Tony attending nearby Andover Grammar School. Rose appears to have operated a boarding house for soldiers in a nearby village while James was posted to France from November 1917 - 18. Rose and Tony were given permission to travel with James in the troop ship on his return to Australia in 1920 and are recorded in the passenger records. . We remember hearing that James and Rose had become quite wealthy during the 1920's, owning what was once described to me as 'an ionic columned house with swimming pool in North Sydney', My mother described Rose as having had a very active social life in Sydney including involvement with 'new theatre'; a range of social sets and political discussion groups; card and bridge clubs, literary sets and as developing advanced skills in public speaking. My brother and sister remember our father's friends saying that 'The Lee's weren't just wealthy, they were very wealthy'. We also remember hearing that the depression resulted in the selling of my grandfather's two printing businesses - one in Sydney and one in Lismore - and the family home, and that thereafter they lived in a rented accommodation, including apartment in an historic home at 8 Osborne Road then divided into flats not too far from the Manly ferry terminal. I suspect Rose kept up her contacts at her card and discussion groups, as a journalist friend of hers, 'Betty', wrote a piece about my parents wedding in the social pages of the Sydney Morning Herald in 1942. My sister remembers our father explaining to her that he chose 'Rosemary' as her second name as it is the combination of his mother Rose and her favorite sister Mary's names. And we often chuckled and felt happy when our father told us that his mother always called him 'Snooks'. Here is a note to him written on the back of a photo while he was away at war... This began as a story about grandparents. Although Rose was alive when my parents married and while my mother worked in Sydney during the war, Rose never knew us, nor her daughter Bunty's children, who were all born after her death in 1945. There is a sad twist here. Grandchildren had been a part of her life until my father's first marriage disintegrated ('we were too young'), followed by an increasingly bitter divorce eventually decreed in 1933, Jacqu Leonard's son once told me there were pictures in a family album of Rose's 'first' grand children Aaron and Lenore, playing with him at a picnic. It's possible that their aunt, Bunty was playing with them as well. Bunty was born 20 years after Tony's birth and was barely three years older than Aaron. Perhaps Rose received occasional news of Aaron and Lenore, who grew up in Lismore, NSW, from family friends--I suspect and do hope so. Rose faced many challenges in her life. Becoming pregnant before marriage and this becoming a 'family secret'; migrating to Australia for a new life eight years later then returning to the UK during the war; managing a boarding house while her loved husband James at war in France throughout 1918; returning to Australia then having another child in her early to mid forties; experiencing the highs and then lows of the economic cycle after James very successful business failed during the great depression; losing a home; watching the failure of her son Tony's first marriage; losing contact with her grandchildren; Tony fighting in the Middle East and New Guinea during World War II; having an apparently volatile relationship with daughter Bunty who had joining the forces as soon as she was eligible; experiencing the pain of an incurable cancer at a time when pain management and treatments were not as effective as they are today; Apparently sometimes prickly and of a 'mercurial' temperament, aspiring to and for a time becoming a newly monied member of the 'upper middle' class in Sydney during the 1920's, ,Rose appears to have been an intelligent, adventurous and interesting person married a kind and wonderful man who reportedly loved her very dearly, and was clearly held in deep affection by my father, 'Snooks'. This post was written in response to the topic 'Grandparents' for my U3A memoir based Writing Workshop group.
The bravery of my grandfather, James Joseph Lee, was officially recognised through a Mention in Despatches for 'valuable services rendered in connection with the war' in France in March 1918 and in northern France near the border with Belgium in August and September 1918. An officer working in Signals training in England from early 1916 to late 1917, James was transferred to active duty in France in November 1917. This year I'm planning to follow James's service record as a centenary of the First World War - I'd better get moving though as it will soon be March. I need to determine whether the Mention in Despatches relates to the same battles as the Belgian Croix de Guerre, or earlier incidents in France, or perhaps recognition for his work in the 'depots'. My brother John thinks that it is almost certainly the former, but I'm uncertain. I need to check out his service record carefully to see where he was in March 1918; to locate Proyart and Hesbecourt; and more!
Later (25/2): It seems that both Proyart and Hesbecourt are in the North of France near the border with Belgium; so the battles referred to fall within the Western Front/ 'France and Flanders' category. I've started to try to track the timeline for James Lee moving into active duty with the 2nd Battalion, and things are starting to make sense. On November 1, 1917, facing a manpower crisis, it was decided to combine five divisions to form one, the Australian Corps. James was recommissioned (word) from his roles at Perham Downs to the 2nd Battalion within this umbrella in mid November 2017. The 2nd Battalion was involved in significant battles in March and again in the 'Hundred Days Offensive' period under the command of Sir John Monash in August/September 1918. It is possible that James' 'Mention in Despatches' on March 13 2018 relates to either his service at Perham Downs or to battles in France March 1918, and is separate from his later recommendation for operations on 28 August and 16 September for the Belgian Croix de Guerre. (Need to tighten this up!) I first 'met' my great grandfather, Anthony Lee, on a census form - the 1871 Scottish census, to be precise. Not only did I meet Anthony, I also met my great great grandparents, Michael Lee and Margaret O'Reilly and great grand uncles James, John and Michael and great grand aunt Maria. They lived at or in the vicinity of 'Lambs Court', where Michael and James appeared to work, Michael as a gardener, James as a servant. Great grandfather Anthony Lee, then aged 12, and his brother John Lee, aged 10, were soap makers (soap making was a large industry in Leith at that time). All 'born in Ireland', the Lee family appear to have moved from Ireland to Leith in the late 1860's. I've found some photographs which may set a context for Anthony's life in Leith at that time. I wrote 'Anthony's Story' in 2013 in an effort to pull together what I had found out about my great grandfather and my impressions of his life for a 'Creative Writing of Family History' class.
Editing old laptop files just now I came across the baptism record of my maternal grandmother, Lily Hooper, at St Peter's Anglican Church, East Melbourne. Lily was baptised on the same day as her brother Charles and sisters Violet and Ruby. We have a rather lovely photo of these children taken in their 'Sunday Best'.... looking at it now, and the ages given above, it was highly likely to have been taken on the day of their baptisms at St Peter's. Lily would have been about six. Charlie (Back); Ruby; Lily; Violet (Note the smocking on the dresses and home made lace collars!) Two things stared out at me from the certificate - the first - my great grandfather, George Charles Beech Hooper, was described as having the profession of 'Collector'. Now this could be anything from a refuse collector to a tax or customs collector.... As he was a clerk for the Melbourne Steamship Company earlier, I'm thinking he may have been a tax, customs collector, or perhaps a collector of bad debts? Perhaps my sister, knows something about this, as she is our 'Hooper' side family historian. The second thing which stared out at me ... 106 Grey Street (spelling Gray St on certificate), East Melbourne, was the address of the family at this time. Mum spoke of Nanna growing up in East Melbourne and I'm sure at times when we were driving in the vicinity spoke of this. I tried to find some photos of housing in Grey Street - it is clearly in the 'Hospitals' zone these days. It is in such a wonderfully central area, near the Fitzroy Gardens, St Pat's Cathedral, Parliament House, and very close to the Epworth Hospital where my niece had her two boys.
The East Melbourne Historical Society's website has photos of houses bordering on Grey Street and of housing which which still remains or was photographed before demolition. The housing appears varied, from two story Victorian villas to one story possibly upmarket cottages - it is hard to say what 106 Grey Street looked like. It is in the area of Laneways - the East Melbourne Historical Society has put together a booklet on the Laneways of East Melbourne which I'd like to check out, both the book and the laneways. Considering the housing, it seems more likely that George Charles Beech Hooper was, at the time, some sort of collector of finances rather than refuse. It's interesting that they don't have early records of dance teachers, or Nanna's dance teacher, though there is an article about the origins of the Australian Ballet School in the area. |
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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