Feminist ? Maybe but definitely a woman before her time….

Marlene Jewel Kerr’s Bachelor of Arts degree was conferred in May 1958. Remarkable because in those days it was  unusual for woman to undertake degrees unless they were rich. It was even more remarkable because she had paid her own way to do nighttime studies after the death of her mother in her final year of school and because for the last two years of study she had a husband and two small children.

We made it more difficult for her to attend lectures and she pleaded with the lecturers to allow her to complete some subjects from home. Marlene had always been surrounded by strong, motivated women: her Aunts Lena, Maude, Kitty, Grace, Edie, sister Airdrie and single mother Julia. Some of that example, faith and encouragement paid off.

 

Despite the handicap of kids and a husband she did it!

She taught briefly after graduating at Dover Heights Girls High School until her mother-in-law died prematurely leaving her without a babysitter – career on hold.

Marlene was born on 23/2/1935 to Frank and Julia Kelf who had both arrived in Australia in early 1910s. She started school at Woollahra Primary School and continued there in an opportunity class throughout primary.

From there was she was able to go to Sydney Girls High School. She was talented and loved to draw and paint like her father. There was quite a break between and her older siblings so to amuse herself she painted in water colour the sketches in her reading books. She liked to play hockey and enjoyed ice-skating with her friends. Like all teenagers she loved listening nightly to her favourite singing stars on the radio. For her it was the handsome dark haired Mario Lanza and Al Jolson “toot toot tooting” on the radio.

She gained good passes in the Leaving Certificate which allowed her to begin a university degree. As her mother was dead and her father was not wealthy she started work not as a typist but as  a clerk in the Commonwealth Public Service studying her university course at night. This is where she met her husband to be around 1954. She married Alf in 1955 and after the birth of me and my brother she continued to study until she graduated.

Mum was an avid reader and was inspired to volunteer at my brother’s Marist Bros in the library. After being goaded by me (age 13) for wasting her degree or perhaps it's because she needed to keep her brain busy she sought out a way to do librarianship by distance study and exams.

Determined to gain her qualification and with now three children she read through the required reading list, studied and sat exams. Finally in the mid 60s all her work paid off. Coincidentally a squash buddy of my Dad’s happened to find out about her studies and offered her a job at a Catholic Demonstration school in Dundas where he was the Principal. Again she was a woman before her time when she became “a working mother”  Mum coped with everything that came along- expansion of the school to high school then Senior School and transitioning to co-educational.

As the school grew and expanded she oversaw the various renovations and rebuilding of the library resources and facilities. Marlene and was responsible for the design of the Brother David Cunningham Resource Centre which at the time was argued to be the best in the Diocese of Parramatta. She took on leadership roles in the Catholic Librarians Group. She embraced new technology and was the resident Audio Visual expert at the school. A lover of local history she began to archive the school’s Marist History. Marlene was Careers Advisor, sports record keeper and introduced the new OASIS System of library administration at a time when PCs were only being introduced and in early days. Thousands of staff and students benefited from her professional and caring manner and her organisational skills and reliability was much appreciated.

Marlene at a work function

On a personal level she threw herself into the community. In 1961 she had moved to Carlingford with the family and became involved with the three schools we kids went to, our new parish of St Gerard’s and neighbourhood social activities.

That led to being an integral part of the Carlingford Camping group at Empire Bay. Many times she was sporting a paintbrush as part of working bees at the historic house. Many weekends and holidays were spent with family and friends. She had inherited the artistic gene and showed her creativity in her sewing, craft, calligraphy and cooking. I might add that she had a devious sense of humour and a video camera to back it up!

The love of history and the Video camera also came into play when my husband introduced her to a genealogy program in the 1980s together with a blank family tree. Archiving and technology were combined and she organized and recorded the family photos, videoed relatives and recorded their stories. What a treasure.

Unfortunately her preparation for retirement to travel the world and paint were cut short when she died of cancer aged 57 in 1992.

She only had enough time to influence and role model to three of the nine grandchildren. Nevertheless her three children Robyn and Paul and Helen had learnt enough to influence the rest of the grandchildren.  She would be really chuffed to see her granddaughters working in non-traditional careers and the feminist side of her would love their choices. She’d also love that they and the great grandchildren adopt the newest in technology for working smart and the creativity it inspires.

Granddaughter Erin overcame the odds to learn to drive forklifts at work

Happy 2018 International Women's Day Mum xxx

Do you have a favourite photo?

This photo now lives in the "family history bedroom". I stare at it every day.

Actually it captivates me.  It is quite possible that I knew it as a young child as it was more than likely hanging in my grandmother’s old flat  where I spent my early years.  It's large, stained and watermarked. When it was found it had probably spent 40 years lying flat in the top of a wardrobe hiding amongst the Kerr photos.

It's obviously been displayed in large frame at some stage. Perhaps it belonged to the bride? It took me a while to even know which side of the family came from until my eagle eyed husband spotted it in a video montage my mother had put together in the 1980s. So it went from the Kerr pile to the Gadsby pile of photos.  A little later cousin Wendy identified everyone correctly having known each of the characters.  It was taken at the wedding of my Great Aunt Selina (Lena) Gadsby 1890-1954 and Alexander Thurlow 1888-1962 in Balmain in 1918.

For the first time I was seeing my Grandmother Julia 1903-1954 and my great grandmother Selina Gadsby nee Smith 1869-1935. Young Selena aged 28 married Alec aged 30.

l-r Maude Gadsby, Robert and Alec Thurlow, Lene Gadsby, Selina Gadsby, John Robert and Julia Gadsby

The story is that Alec was a fellow travelling to Australia with his brothers; he met Lena who was travelling from London to Sydney on the “Zealandia” with her 4 sisters, baby brother and mother in 1912.  They were to meet up in Sydney  with her brothers and father Thomas as they were travelling by different transport. Lena had left behind her fiancé, Ben a butcher in London but had many weeks to while away the time on the journey.   Lena struck up a friendship. Alec and his brothers were lifelong friends with the Gadsbys when they landed in Sydney.  

Mother Selina though was not happy about the friendship and dispatched letters to Ben back in London to make haste to Australia.  Details about Ben are a little sketchy but he did come to Sydney at some time later in the next  few years. In a strange turn of events Selena Sr ran off with Ben when he arrived in Sydney and literally set up shop with him a small goods store in North Sydney.  Another little Gadsby child had been born – Edith in 1914.

With Selina taken off with Ben it was left to her daughter Lena to care for the baby and other siblings  before she eventually married Alec in 1818. Dad, Thomas Gadsby with his eldest’s help had been holding the household together, working as a bricklayer to keep the wolves from the door.

It is an incomplete family photo as several of the family is missing. To me Selena, my great grandmother looks like she doesn't belong. Is it the dress?  At first I had assumed she was a maid. She’s standing at the rear behind the bride and the groom who is seated.  They don’t look entirely happy to be lining up together for the shot. Julia a shy 15 year old, my grandmother is standing to the right. In three years time she will be a bride herself.  Her older sister, Maude Rose, 18 is seated on the left. Alec had his brother Robert Thurlow (standing) as his groomsman- you can see the resemblance?

Seated in the front is Selina’s brother John Robert (Uncle Jack).  At only 20 he looks frail. When Cousin Wendy describes him she says he's just back from the war- gassed in France- but his war records show no sign of gassing. Rather he seems to have suffered from shellshock and in this shot he looks a little haunted.

Missing from the photo is Thomas Gadsby, Lena’s father. Sadly a rare chance of a photo missed- we have none of him. Within a few years all of the older children will have married but sadly this is the only wedding photo.

Also missing are brother Harold and Thomas who have been away at war.  The littlest children are not included in the shot-Kitty, Grace, William and Edith. They were probably too young to attend the wedding.

Since I started doing family history the photo with its stained backing stands on an easel over looking (supervising?) my research desk. It accompanies me on my family history journey.  Naturally it was the theme photo of our 100 year Gadsby family reunion. Other family photos of the small children didn’t come to light until years later so this is truly treasured.

It's a moment in time captured for what it’s worth – a partial gathering of the clan whether they liked it or not. I'm so glad to have it and for a while it was the only childhood photo of my grandmother.

Taken a year so so later some of the missing siblings got in the shot

l-r rear to front Harold, Frank Kelf, Kitty, Maude, Julia and Grace Gadsby c 1920

Alec and Lena were well off, owned their own business and own home. They ran a toilet towel business-Hygienic Towel Supply which later became the Snow White Towel Company. Occasionally the nieces were employed. Alec and Lena had no children but often gave their spare rooms to those in the family in need of a place to stay.

I never knew Lena or Julia. They died in 1954 the year before I was born.  This shot of them laughing and playing with my cousins looks like a much happier shot. Perhaps it's a few little squirming cuties that is missing from the wedding shot above. 

Julia, Jillian, Lena and little Airdrie c1952

Making a start on the family tree - start with what you know

Every Christmas we were reunited with some relatives of my mother’s. There were older uncles and aunties, cousins and much discussion about second cousins once removed. That was us the young ones. I had no idea how we all fitted together. My Mum and her cousins are always referred to as “cousin” as in cousin  Marlene(my mother), cousin Wendy, cousin Bet etc. What confused me was when my dad was called Uncle Alf and cousin Bet’s husband was called Uncle Ray.

One day when I was about 12, I asked my mum how it all fitted together and who were these Aunties, cousins etc. She drew me a little tree which I kept for future reference. 

In 1988 my husband did Mum a Family Tree print out on our first computer. That dot matrix family tree was the start of Mum’s genealogy interest and subsequently a good start for me. We have a video of that printout been passed around at a party gathering information from all the grown up cousins. That printout survived which is a good thing as Mum died four years later. 

When my husband and I eventually decided to record our trees seriously my husband found a similar printout he had supplied to his mother in 1988 with copious hand written details.  

Before he died Dad had asked me to finish his family tree – are they ever finished? I was putting it off. For his part he had done some haphazard research and not a lot was recorded. After a discussion with my Dad shortly before he died he had shown me two James Kerr families and stated how he liked the look of one rather more fortunate family than another. He thought he’d take that one! Actually, can you see why I was a bit skeptical about the process? 

Six years ago we fronted up to the Kiama Family History Centre and asked how you “started”.  “Start with what you know dear” the volunteer replied.

Armed with the tree from my mother and my great grandparent’s names the volunteer quickly found them in the newly released 1911 English census which showed Mum’s information when I was 12 was remarkably correct. We were hooked. Hook, line and started…. never to finish.

With time on our hands we’ve built the tree, taken and explored DNA tests, We’ve visited places and cemeteries, poured over newspapers, postulated and researched.  Our database on Family tree maker expands daily and it’s a powerful tool for reporting and recording. But to put all this to good use I’ve loved writing up my people, exploring their lives and times and recording it to share with others.

It's a great hobby one I suspect I had a talent for from the age of 12 when I asked my mother about the family.  Technology tempted us with the earliest genealogy programs and the early printouts of two-three generations were a novelty.

Genealogy became really popular in the Bicentennial Year in Australia as people searched for a First or Second Fleet convicts- our Australian Royalty. It seemed there should be a start and finish. There never is. When someone says  an old Aunty “did” our family history in the 1980s- they are dreaming .It’s 40 years out of date and a lot has changed. Besides the new records available online there’s new generations with  births, deaths and marriages that happen in every family. It’s only a start –it’s never finished.

Starting your family history research:

1. Gather relevant information from living relatives sooner rather than later.
2. Bring out the family photo albums at your next function. Record what is said.
3. Find any records from personal files that might be available such as birth, marriage, death certificates, news clippings, family papers etc
4. Start looking for online information from BDM data bases, Trove digital newspaper resources, National Archives of Australia and historical resources about your district.
5. Make time to email or contact relatives who might have more information.
6. Download some family tree templates and start recording your findings.

#52ancestors  Some of my blogs this year will be following the 52 Ancestors hints.