Sepia Saturday: Christmas greetings

New Gisborne is in central Victoria, Australia, about 55 kilometres north of Melbourne. It rarely snows in Gisborne and even more rarely does it snow in October. October in Victoria is spring heading for summer. This post card photo proves that it snowed in Gisborne on 10 October in 1910.

Seasons Greetings from New Gisborne. Snow Oct. 10th 1910

Reverse of post card

Miss Annie Sims, Mitiamo Post Office
Dear Annie Thanks very much for card and you[r] good wishes. Very kind of you to think of us, hope you are quite well. Allan & [Will?]  join me in wishing you a bright & happ[y] Xmas & New Year 

Yrs affectionately Edith McGregor

I checked the newspapers of the day to see what was reported. And, yes indeed, there was a very cold snap in Victoria in early October 1910.

The Age, 11 October 1910

Bendigo Independent, 11 October 1910

Annie Sims is my husband's grandmother and she lived in Pine Grove and later Mitiamo. John McGregor and his wife Margaret also lived at Pine Grove and several of their sons bought 'Emmeline Vale' at Kyabram in 1889. 'Emmeline Vale' was the property of the largest farming property in the area in the middle of the 1800s and the McGregor family lived there from 1889. My father-in-law thinks that Annie used to holiday with them when she was a child in the early 1900s. In 1910, when the postcard was written, Annie was only 12 years old. One McGregor brother, William, died at Gallipoli in 1915 and another brother, Harold, died in France in 1918. Coincidentally he had travelled to Europe on the same ship as Annie's future husband, Roy Phelan.

There is no date on the Christmas postcard below but it is from the same family and shows a fountain in a Gisborne intersection. It was made of concrete and built in 1901 to celebrate the Federation of the colonies in Australia. [A replacement fountain was erected in 2000.]

Merry Christmas
Fountain, Gisborne

Reverse of post card

Wishing Annie a Merry Xmas. Sorry I did not see you when in Pine Grove, better luck next time  

Louie McGregor  

'Emmeline Vale' Gisborne

Theme image

Posing

Real photo postcard. Miss Dora Langham.
Company: Rhotophot. Photographer: Thiele. Produced in Berlin.

Dear Violet.
Just a line to say that I was never jealous,
Yours to a cinder
Wally

Miss Violet White of Collingwood, Victoria received a postcard in about 1908 and put it in her album with a number of other cards she received in the next several years. The message on this one is intriguing. Wouldn't you love to know the story?

Miss Dora Langham wasn't an Australian - she was English. She was a stage actress in the early 1900s but I haven't been able to find any biographical details. Violet White had quite a few postcards of actresses in her collection so the subject must have been popular.

I selected this card to match the theme photo for Sepia Saturday this week. Miss Langham has flowers in her hair (like the lady in the theme photo). And the lady in the theme photo seems to be in a theatre dressing room.

You can see more drama and mystery over on the Sepia Saturday page.

And, as a postcript, just for fun. In the theme photo you can see the photographer reflected in the mirror. Here is a photo of me, reflected in a mirror at Luna Park near Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Self portrait, Luna Park, Sydney

Luna Park, Sydney

Sepia Saturday: Time

It's late. Or is it early?

The lady is just arriving home and it appears to be five o'clock in the morning. The milkman has started his rounds.

This postcard is in an album with a number of other printed postcards and real photo postcards that appear to have been received by one lady living in Melbourne, Australia in the early 1900s. This one is dated 3/6/1909.

I wonder if the card was chosen because the sender and the receiver had both been to balls and may have arrived home in the wee hours. The postcard has a caption "Just by way of a change" but the meaning of that defeats me.

Postcard

Postcard reverse

C/0 Mrs H Clarices[?]
Wallace St, Germanton
Dear Violet
Just a line to let you know I have not forgotten you. I will write you a long letter as soon as I can & send you a postal note for things you have gotten for me & for the opera cloak I think it is very cheap I went to a ball last night & had a grand time I was wishing you were here I can waltz all right now we went in evening dress pale pink & everyone said we were dressed the nicest don't [know] who was belle yet but as soon as the paper comes out I will send it to you don't forget to send me the photo of the ball you were at. I was surprised to hear you are such a flirt. I have another boy he as[sic] only one hand he is very nice & got plenty of money, the one that give me the gloves is off I had three after me to take me to the ball so I picked the one armed bloke he is so nice looking. give my love to all at home
Edie xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Edie hasn't named the "one-armed bloke" but apparently the fact that he has money is important. I hope he had the sense to see Edie's real character. And I'd like to know the background to her comment about Violet being a flirt.

This post is in response to the Sepia Saturday theme photo that includes a clock. You can see other responses here.

Sepia Saturday: The best medicine

In September 1918 Roy Phelan was on the front line in France when he was badly injured, hit on the head by shrapnel. Somehow, in the middle of all the noise and mayhem, Roy was stretchered out and taken to a Field Hospital at Abbeville behind the lines, and then across the channel to England. He spent months in hospitals in England recuperating and was still very ill when he returned to Australia but recovered and lived a long and happy life.

His family back in Australia were informed that he was seriously ill and the first few letters they received from Roy after he was injured were written by a nurse. This one was written to Ann Sims who was later to become his wife.

29th Sept 18

Dear Miss Sims

3782 Pte R.J. Phelan, 46th Btn, asked me to write to you to let you know he was admitted to this Hospital, the Third Australian General, on the 18th inst.

He has a nasty wound in his head but has shown a slight improvement the last couple of days. He is quite cheerful again.

He asked me to explain to you that he will be unable to write to you for some little time yet.

He sends you his best love.

With best wishes

I remain

Yours faithfully

P. Murdock

(Aust. Red Cross)

Amazingly, I found a photo of Miss Murdock and the other nurses who served at the 3rd Australian Hospital on the Australian War Memorial's website.

Miss Murdock is second from the right in the back row.

Roy gradually recovered his health and his good humour and wrote home about some of the concert skits and social occasions he had been involved in and made light of his health problems. But some of his treatment must have been truly awful and he would have seen his fellow inmates going through some tough times as well. He sent home these two postcards. Maybe laughter is the best medicine.

Watching someone else being "done"!

Being "done" oneself!

This blog was in response to the Sepia Saturday theme image below, a cutout bookmark advertising medicine. I can't imagine what medicine Roy would have had to take but you can see what others have written on the same theme here.

Sepia Saturday: Grenfell St, Adelaide

A furniture van, a streetscape, a bicycle rider, an obelisk, a central pole - all good possible themes for this week's Sepia Saturday. But unfortunately I couldn't find a photo in my albums that I was happy to go with. So I am posting one from the Genealogical Society of Victoria's Flickr page of photos they hold in their research library. You can see more of their photos at this link.

It's a real photo postcard of the Grenfell St, Adelaide, South Australia, c1948. The postcard company was Valentine's. I chose it because it is a streetscape, it has a cyclist, a furniture van and a central pole.

Grenfell St, Adelaide

Grenfell St, Adelaide today [Google Maps] The tall white building is now dwarfed by its neighbours.

Sepia Saturday: holiday postcards

Cigarette dispensers, cigarette advertising, smoking. Hmmm. Can't follow the theme this week for Sepia Saturday with a photo from my family albums - I can't find a single photo with anyone smoking! But I have got a few postcards sent to a relative early in the 1900s. Smoking? Tick. Sepia? Uh, uh :(

Now you could wander over to the Sepia Saturday page to see what others made of the theme this week.

Sepia Saturday: Flowers and crosses

Two men in suits, yarning in the doorway of a coffee lounge. That's the theme photo for this week's Sepia Saturday. So of course I ignored the men and went with some of the signage on the wall.

On the left side of the photo there is a florists's sign that reads 'Wreaths and Crosses' and I'm following that link in this blog. In World War 1 a relative was sent an album of pressed flowers from the Holy Land and Jerusalem.  There are about 12 pages like those below. The album is about A4 size and has a cover made of olive wood. Some of the pages have crosses, some not. The flowers are in remarkably good condition and retain a lot of colour.

Also during the war a family member, David Ray Leed, was killed in France. This photo was sent to his parents.

David Ray Leed's cross, Rue-Du-Bois Cemetery, Fleurbaix, France

Private David Ray Leed, 23 Battalion,  Killed in Action Pozieres, Somme, France 15 Jul 1916;
Buried Rue-Du-Bois Cemetery, Fleurbaix, France.

About 15 years ago friends of ours visited the cemetery and gave us these photos as well as a pressed red poppy they gathered from a field there. As you can see, the cemetery looks much different now. It's under the care of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Rue-Du-Bois Cemetery, Fleurbaix, France

David Ray Leed's headstone, Rue-Du-Bois Cemetery, Fleurbaix, France

At about the same time, between 1910 and 1920, this postcard was sent to a lady in Melbourne for her birthday. Now why would you put a cannon on a birthday card??? Even if it is covered in flowers.

Sepia Saturday: Kisses from France

Hmmm. What to do. I couldn't find a single old photo in my albums to write about for this week's Sepia Saturday theme of 'kiss'.

So I decided to write about a different sort of kiss.

Grandfather Roy was one of the thousands of Aussie young men who volunteered to serve his country in World War 1 and was sent to France. He wrote to his Annie every week when he could (and married her when he returned). She kept every letter and now I have them. Every letter is signed the same way. "With fondest love from ever your own Roy XXXXXXXXXXXXX"

Postcards were enormously popular during World War 1. We have a few in our treasure box but I found this beautiful card in the State library of Victoria.

Embroidered post card sent from France, 1914-1918.
State Library of Victoria, http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/16590