Sepia Saturday: YMCA teams

I'm on the road on a caravan holiday this week and don't have access to my old picture files, but I do have access to the photos I scanned for the Genealogical Society of Victoria so I've selected one of theirs.

The photo was taken in the 1920s in Victoria at a YMCA camp. It appears to be the volleyball and baseball teams, in white 'uniforms'. Perhaps the teams are defined by the colour of the tie each man is wearing, or maybe it's a YMCA tie. The photo isn't clear enough for me to decide one way or the other.

The young men look happy to be where they are. (As an aside: I wonder if the side part in hair will ever come back.)

YMCA camp baseball and volleyball teams, Victoria, 1920s

This post has been in response to the Sepia Saturday's theme photo in which the women are wearing loosely tied neckties over white dresses.

Trove Tuesday: A deaf and blind cricketer

Every Chaundy in Australia is related to me. In fact, every Chaundy in the world probably. This family originated in a small village in Oxfordshire, England called Ascott-Under-Wychwood and there don't appear to be any others so it's been relatively easy to document them.

So who was Richard Chaundy the deaf and dumb cricketer? I've no idea where he fits in on my tree. Richard is definitely a family name so that's not a surprise. And the location of Prahran in Melbourne is not a surprise either because various family members lived in that area. According to the article below young Richard was five years old in 1924 and was deaf and dumb. If only the mother's first name had been added in the report (sigh).

Northern Star (Lismore, NSW : 1876 - 1954), Wednesday 2 April 1924, page 6

I'm presuming that this is the same Richard playing cricket in the deaf and dumb competitions in Adelaide in 1936 and in Hobart in 1938. I read in one online report that the first recorded deaf and dumb cricket match was played between Victoria and South Australia in December 1894. 

The West Australian  30 Dec 1936

The Mercury 27 Dec 1938

I'd be delighted to hear from anyone who knew Richard or who knows where he fits into the Chaundy family tree.

Sepia Saturday: Tennis anyone?

The theme for this week's Sepia Saturday had me tossed. Snow! There's not much of that around here in Australia, and never has been, so there aren't any family photos with snow in them. Ditto barrels, lamp posts or even a man wielding a shovel.

So I started thinking about the other meanings of snow, and came up with snowy white. Remember when everyone wore white when they played competition tennis every Saturday? Even the sandshoes were white, painted afresh each week.

Unknown tennis players, Mitiamo, Victoria

Shirley Alford, Mologa, Victoria