Sepia Saturday: Ready for school

Suitcases or travel is the theme this week over at Sepia Saturday. Well, I can't find a family photo featuring a suit case but I have found a couple with another type of case. It's a school case. I used to have one of these in the 1950s but these photos are from a generation earlier.

Lena Alford ready for school c1930.

Lena (left) and Mary Alford ready for high school.

Sepia Saturday: How does a country kid get to school?

This is the theme photo for this week's Sepia Saturday. Lots of choices - bicycles, boys wearing caps, bare feet, advertising signs. I think my photo from a family album fits the bill nicely.

It's maybe 1930, you live in or near a small country town in Victoria, you need to get to school every day. So, does mum get the 4-wheel drive out of the garage? Do you join a 'walking bus' group? Do you use public transport? None of the above. You walk, or ride your bike or saddle up your pony. The children look pretty happy. And look at that show-off in the very front!

School kids and their means of  transport, 1943. Bayunga, Victoria.

That's young master Johnston in front with his big bike, with a bag wrapped around the crossbar for him to sit on because he couldn't reach the seat. After school the teacher, Lena Alford, would sit him on the bike and give him a push to start him off and there would be someone waiting at home to help him stop and get off!

Trove Tuesday: In which I use Lists

Thank goodness for lists. The older I get the more I rely on my lists of things to do, things to buy. And as a field naturalist I'm always compiling lists of birds or plants or fungi or insects I've seen for my small contribution to citizen science.

But one of the best use for lists is the section of Trove at the National Library of Australia. I can explore other peoples lists of interesting newspaper items they've found pertaining to particular families, towns or subjects. It can save you a lot of time and effort because someone else has already done the search.

For instance, I'm interested in the family of Joseph and Ann Stone of Hobart and Bagdad in Tasmania because they're direct ancestors of my husband. They were among the first teachers in Hobart. 'Kizzie56' has created a list of 23 items that pertain to the family so I'll be able to check out each of those myself. Thanks Kizzie. This is one of the items on her list.

Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas. : 1821-1825), Saturday 21 September 1822

And I can also make my own lists. I've created a few for families I'm researching and add items to them each time I log on. Mostly I save the items as a file to my hard drive as well but it's very useful having the list on the Trove website because I can check what I've done in the past so easily. I can also email the link to other family members.

If you do a general search on the Trove website the results appear in all of the categories on the tabs (books, newspapers, music, archived websites, pictures and photos, diaries, people and organisations ... and lists) and the list category usually appears at the very bottom of the page and can be easily overlooked. I'm suggesting that you try searching the lists only and see what happens. Or better still, create your own lists.

Thomas STONE, son of Thomas STONE and Lucy CAINS was born on 28 Jan 1796 in Horfield, Bristol, GLS, England. He died on 27 Nov 1862 in Green Ponds, Tasmania, Australia. He married Ann WITHERS, daughter of John WITHERS and Susannah COOK on 13 Jul 1817 in St John, Bedminster, Somerset, England. She was born on 30 Aug 1798 in Bristol, England. She died on 24 Apr 1856 in Bagdad, Tasmania, Australia.