a quick trip into the past

It might seem from my recent silence that things have been quiet, but in fact the opposite is true. So much has been happening that there's been no time to write.

I've just returned home to WA from a quick trip to Victoria, where I travelled some of the ground my paternal ancestors trod as they moved from town to town in goldfields and farming districts. A number of the family are buried in the peaceful Newstead cemetary.


I was struck by the contrast between the two states. A multitude of Victoria's small goldfields communities still exist, unlike the many remote WA communities which sprang out of nowhere then just as quickly disappeared when the gold was depleted.

My grandfather broke from the family tradition of bricklaying and came West as a young man around 1899 at the height of our gold rush, gaining employment as a telegraphist at Southern Cross, Coolgardie then Leonora post offices.

In 1901 his Victorian sweetheart Lily Arthur left her parent's comfortable home in Carlton and travelled by sea, rail, then Cobb and Co coach to remote Leonora.


There they married in style in a double wedding with friends

then started their wedded life in a small white-washed hessian walled hut with a dirt floor!

I will be visiting the WA goldfields area as part of my residency, an excursion which I eagerly anticipate.