"The Days of our Lives" at 318 Edgecliff Rd Woollahra

318 Edgecliff Rd Woollahra with 320 to the right

I’m completing the lists- cards from Mum and Dad’s engagement, my birth, mum’s graduation. Names from almost 70 years ago. I might be weird and obsessed.  I should be doing house work, gardening, exercising and volunteering. It’s been a long time between holidays but…..family history is addictive.

A few months back a couple of divorce files that I accessed from the State Archives got me thinking about the apartment block I was born in.  My grandmother Julia Kelf, who was estranged from her husband Frank at the time and her children Frank, Airdrie and Marlene had lived in a Woollahra apartment block 2/318 Edgecliff Rd Woollahra  for some years. They were friendly with most of the neighbours who were also long-term residents and also those in adjoining apartment blocks.

Woollahra was part of the Eastern Suburbs in Gadigal land of Eora nation.  It’s a leafy tree lined street of the Eastern suburb. Edgecliff Road was a fairly main road stretching from Woollahra’s Ocean Street through to the suburb of Edgecliff. It also has a rich Jewish heritage and houses several Consulate Generals.  It borders Paddington and Bondi Junction and is near the open parklands of Centennial Park. 

Airdrie horse riding at Centennial Park c 1948

The Kelfs had  moved to Woollahra around 1943 and the family loved everything the area had to offer. Besides shopping favourite activities were horse riding at Central Centennial Park, ice skating and swimming at nearby beaches.

My grandparents became estranged. Frank Kelf Snr turned up weekly to contribute to the housekeeping for his wife and school aged daughter Marlene.  Julia supplemented this with a bit of housekeeping.  At various stages the older children returned to live there,  Frank Junior after returning from the war and Airdrie after nursing training in 1946. Airdrie had planned to travel to England to further her career. However after Julia had become ill, she stayed to nurse her.

Julia Kelf died in January  1954 leaving my mother Marlene to live alone in Flat 2 with occasionally her sister ( a nursing sister) and brother who were some years older. At that stage Marlene had just finished school and was working by day for the Department of Navy and doing a part time Degree in the Arts on a Commonwealth scholarship.

The electoral rolls for Woollahra East in the in the late 1940s and 1950s were relatively short and it was easy to find neighbours who lived at 318 Edgecliff Rd  and those living in a couple of apartment blocks either side of 318. The block was named “Neringah”

Marlene doing her sewing in the loungeroom

 

The names came flooding back to me.  I remembered I had all my parents’ engagement and wedding cards plus the cards given to me upon my birth.  I’ve been keeping them because  the cards were quite different to today’s cards. I wondered if any of the cards were collectible. I digress…

I did a quick sort of all of them and I noted  the names on the cards. Some were relatives and others were neighbours of my father. I tried to list the names against the Electoral rolls.  

I figured the neighbours would be willing to spoil recently bereaved Mum with things for her glory box. My parents lived in the apartment block after they married.   There were plenty of women with occupation “home duties” looking to welcome a little baby a little while later.  I lived there from my birth in  1955 until 1960. These were the days of women who didn’t work. There would be plenty of days when the women would meet on the stairs or in the backyard at the washing line.

Rear 318 as it is today.

 

The Electoral rolls only listed street numbers not apartment numbers. Some more details could be sleuthed from Army records and old envelopes.

We lived in flat number 2 of the six units a two bedroom apartment with no garage. Next door in 3/320 Edgecliff Rd lived Uncle Bryce  and eventually my Auntie Airdrie  when she married him. There were four units in her apartment block. Theirs was a  two bedroom apartment with a parking space. Both had big backyards for drying clothes, enjoying the sun, gardening  and kids playing. 

320 Edgecliff Rd

I know that post war there was a shortage of housing and a comparison of the electrical rolls  show a fairly smallish turnover of people in the two apartment blocks but perhaps some people bunking in or sharing flats.  I know for example my great Aunt Catherine listed it as her address after her separation from her husband. My Uncle Frank and his new wife Betty were registered as living there after their marriage in 1949 before moving in with another relative until their eventual separation and divorce.

My parents moved out in early 1960 after the death of my Neutral Bay  grandmother when they went to live with my paternal grandfather “over the bridge” in North Sydney while they saved and built a house in Carlingford which is the Northern Suburbs of Sydney. A bit of a horrifying move for many of the Eastern Suburbs friends and relatives- firstly moving over the bridge and then to a developing suburb in the Northern Suburbs. Yikes it is like “the sticks”.

Of course, the electoral rolls don’t show children so it’s difficult to see if families had children for me to play with. I do have a photo of Michael Dobes playing in the backyard with my older cousin Jillian.  Attentive stay at home housewives with  time to dote on me and my brother who came along 18 months after me. 

Michael Dobes playing in the backyard with my cousin Jillian Kelf c 1951

In putting this all together it strikes me as being a bit of a Number 96 soapie storyline. You know a type of Days Of Our Lives. There are multiple divorces or separations, widows, marriages, deaths, scorned men, a stateless couple, and a hotch potch of musicians who held soirees.

Of those living in Apartment block 318 a few  names spring into my memory- Josie or Mrs Josephine and Harold Rhule was one. They were an older recently married (1957)  couple. Josie has previously been Josephine Jack who had been living in the apartment block.  Mrs Garton (Ruby) lived there also  for most of the time. She was a  widow and she had daughters Lynette and Gloria and son Robert who had gone to war and returned as had my Uncle Frank. Her kids were similar age to Airdrie and Frank. 

Ruby Garton

I don’t remember Olive and Eric Foster whose names are on many cards or Barbara and Michael Dobes and their family.  The records show that Gertrude Clark, Esther May Wills and the Minahane family (Joan Martha, William Cornelius and Annie Winifred) lived there during my time frame.

In my aunt’s eventual apartment building next door was my Uncle Bryce , firstly married to Vera who he divorced in 1952. Bryce’s wife was a composer and pianist. They held soirees for the neighbours before she skipped off.  He visited Mrs Garton’s place (318) after  dinner quite regularly. She had been friends with his estranged wife. No doubt he ran into Airdrie and Julia Kelf also as he married Airdrie in 1956. Little Julie my cousin came along in 1959.

I remember Elsa Cohen and husband James (Flat 1/320), a childless and previously stateless Jewish couple who made their way from Europe and London escaping the Holocaust. They later divorced.  Out of nowhere in the electoral rolls springs the name Doriel Patton a presumably Jewish woman  widowed in 1951. Such an unusual name – Doriel. What happened to her? 

Airdrie and neighbour Elsa Cohn

All in all an interesting blast from the past. I recently helped my cousin Julie pack up her Mum's apartment for sale. It invoked lots of memories of visits as a kid.  It was a quality area but I must admit feel more at home in the suburbs.

One of our Sunday visits to 320- Me with Paul, Mum, Julie , sister Helen and Airdrie

How old is vintage?

Anyway are those cards worth anything?  

How old is vintage? We are talking over 65 years old and I don’t feel vintage.  My investigation shows they contain no famous signatures.  I kept them when I discovered them amongst my mother‘s things twenty years after her death.   They are quaint and  sort of thing a scrapbooker might covet. Some feature cut outs, glitter or embossing. Some are lined or are decorated with velour, lace or ribbon

Although they have been packed away for 60+ years they are certainly not pristine.  

Pristine and unsigned they would fetch $15-$30 each. A little older, Edwardian or War memorabilia they may be worth something.  I’m still getting over the fact that they’ve been present for 65+ years.

At lunch, on Sunday we discussed the skip bin with the grandchildren. They would have liked them chucked out now but I’ll give them the pleasure of discovery and duty at some time much later in my life or death!