Nothing Stops Lorna from going Overseas

(Kevin get’s Paternal Ancestors)

In 1985 Lorna Brady and her husband Alan went on month’s tour of Europe and Great Britain.  It had been a dream of Lorna’s to travel for many years but a conversation way back in 1949 had cast doubts on the likelihood of Lorna and Alan ever travelling overseas.

In June 1949 Lorna Powell was in the late preparations for her wedding that was to occur on July 2nd.    Her fiancée, Alan Brady, work at the same company (Fauldings) as a storeman.  In fact it was due to his constant visits to the office area, where she worked, to “buy stamps” and repeatedly asking her out on a date that had brought them together.  Now with less than a fortnight before the wedding ceremony all was in place and arranged.

One afternoon after work Alan started a conversation.  He stated that they could not get married.  Lorna was devastated.  Alan said that it was due to the fact that his name really wasn’t Alan Brady.  He said that he had run away from home when young and changed his name.  He was worried that when they would go to visit the minister to sign the papers prior to marrying that all this would come out and they would not be allowed to marry.

Alan told Lorna that he was born illegitimate and that although his parents married later, he had had a very rough childhood and ran away from home when he was 13 and had changed his name so that they, his family, could not find him.

Lorna sat there listening to Alan tell her about his childhood and she made a decision.  She wanted to marry Alan Brady and nothing was going to stop her.  She told Alan that when the minister asks Alan his father’s name, he was only to say the Christian names.

On June 29^th, 3 days before they were to be married Alan and Lorna went to the presbytery of St. Andrew’s Church in Sans Souci to sign the marriage declaration.  The minster asked Alan what his name was, and he replied Alan Brady.  The minister then asked if he had a middle name and Alan replied Louis.  This was true, but Alan had not used it nearly 15 years.  The minister then asked what his father’s names were and Alan replied, Theodore William.  The minister recorded on the declaration, Theodore William Brady.  He then asked Alan what his mother’s name was, and Alan replied Mary Agatha Price.  The minister asked if his parents were alive Alan honestly stated they were deceased.

After Lorna gave her details both her and Alan signed the declaration.  Lorna afterwards told Alan they had not lied, as the minister had not asked what Alan what his father’s surname was.

3 days later they were married.

July 2, 1949

Now that they were married Lorna decided that Alan needed to legally change his name to Alan Brady.  Alan had told her his name was Frank, and he had been known as Frank Vetter, but that he thought his mum’s maiden name was Price. And this would have been the name he had at birth.  Lorna wrote off to the South Australian Births, Deaths & Marriages registry asking for a copy of the birth of Frank Louis Price, son of Mary Agatha Price.  She got a return letter stating there was no such birth recorded.

Lorna now decided that they didn’t need to worry about legally changing Alan’s name, as they now had two pieces of paper stating he was Alan Brady, their marriage certificate and Alan’s discharge papers from the army.  There were more important things like starting a family.

Around 1975 Alan received a letter from the Red Cross stating that someone was trying to contact him.  This person stated they had lost contact with Alan during the war.  It was Alan’s sister Mary.  Alan had last had contact with Mary during the war when his father had died in 1943.

When Mary and her husband visited Alan and Lorna at their home in Greenacre one of the first things they asked her was, what was Alan’s mother’s name?  Mary told them it was Mary May Brice.

The dream of going overseas had been Lorna’s for some time and by the early 1980’s it was now within sight – her children were all married, and she was soon to make the final payment on their home loan.

Lorna now started to put in place the groundwork for her going overseas.  Alan and her needed passports, and to get passports you needed birth certificates.

Hers would be easily obtained but Alan’s would show the different name. Lorna again wrote away to the South Australian Births, Deaths and Marriages for a birth certificate for a Frank Louis Brice.  What came back was a birth certificate for Lewis Frank Brice, born October 22, 1916 in Flinders Street, Kenttown, South Australia.

Lorna now decided that Alan needed to legally change his name.  On July 6, 1982 Lorna and Alan went into Sydney to the Registrar-General’s office.  Alan was to make a Statuary Declaration stating that he had been using the name of Alan Brady since the 1930’s.  He had to say in the declaration that he abandon his birth name and he assumed the name of Alan Louis Brady, and this was to be used for “myself, my wife and issue”.

Alan had to sign the declaration in both names, once as A L Brady and once as L F Brice.  Most likely the only time the two names were ever listed together.

There was one witness to the declaration – Lorna!  In fact the original document, stamped and sealed by the Registrar-General’s Office is completely in Lorna’s handwriting.

With the Statuary Declaration and Alan’s Birth Certificate in her hand Lorna now had all the paper work needed to get Alan a passport.

On April 30^th, 1985 Alan recorded the following:-

We arrived at Heathrow Airport about 7-15 in the morning.  We were advised to wait until most of the passengers got off the plane.  The plane crew managed to get me a wheel chair and in it we reached the custom area nearly ½ mile where we got of the plane.  We sailed through customs and picked up our cases without being looked at and on a special air bus for London in a couple of minutes.  The trip took about ½ hour and we arrived at the Royal Kensington Hotel and settled in.  I was tired with Jet Lag.  But Lorna a genuine Tourist decided to hop on a bus and see London town straight away.

When Lorna, my mum, made a decision to do something, there was really nothing that would stop her from achieving it.  Alan, my dad, on the other hand was more of an “if happens it happens, if it doesn’t it doesn’t” type of guy.  But their love for one another was incredibly strong and got them through many trials during their life together and this one I’ve just describe is a perfect example, it was always the two of them together, no matter what!

Sydney Airport April 29, 1985

A postscript to this story:-  in 1983 on a visit to Sydney I went to the Registrar-General’s Office to look for Certificate of Titles on some of my ancestor's properties.  I walked in to the building and asked the lady at reception where I could look up the indexes.  She pointed me towards a row of filing draws.  Unfortunately she had made a mistake and sent me across to the general indexes.  I looked for "Brady, Kevin" and could not find anything.  I then looked for "Brady, Alan" and I found the reference for Dad’s Statuary Declaration of three years before.  I’ve been on a journey of researching my father’s family ever since and I thank mum daily, for if it wasn’t for her wish to go overseas I would never have known about my father’s name and his ancestors.

Kevin R. Brady

August 23, 2014

Zwillingstöchter

Zwillingstöchter

The twin daughters of Wilhelm and Christiane Peters

In early 1835 Wilhelm Peters and his wife, Christiane moved in to a home on Lange Straße, then known just as number 153 in the town of Tangermünde.  Christiane’s parents, Johann Wilhelm Breÿde and Dorothee Elisabeth Knappe had raised their 4 daughters there.  Three of the daughters, including Christiane, had married and moved out, but one daughter, Carola, was still living there when their mother died on March 29, 1835.

Wilhelm had spent his life as a farm hand, working on the family property, first managed by his father, then by his half-brother.  But with his brother’s death in 1832 he now venture in to trade work in Tangermünde and now living within the town walls the family started to grow.  There were already two small children, Wilhlem, aged 4, and Charlotte 2.

At 7 o’clock on the evening of the 26^th September 1835 Christiane gave birth to twin daughters.  Charlotte Dorothee arriving first, closely followed by Friederike Louise.  In the Peters family, as in many German families, the children are known by the last of the first names, hence they were Dorothee and Louise.

A few days later in the evening of the 1^st of October, the local pastor, Herr Becker, quickly called round to the home and there little Louise was quickly baptized before she past away at 8 o’clock in the evening from Krämpfe.  Infantile convulsions (Krämpfe) was listed often as the death of new born babies and very young children in the 1830s.

Two days later the young father took Louise’s remains to the local cemetery in Hünerdorfe Straße, and she was buried there having only been with her parents for 5 days.

The following day the main pastor, Herr Hemprich, arrived at Lange Straße and quietly baptised Charlotte Dorothee.  There was to be no Christening ceremony at the St. Stephan’s Kirche, just down the road from where the family lived.

Over the next few years the Peters family continued to survive.  Wilhelm continued to work in the town, but was making plans to get back to farming.  Another daughter, Mathilde, arrived in June 1838.

In May 1841, little Dorothea was suffering from consumption (Abzehrung). The word consumption was often used for what we now know as Tuberculosis.  Like her twin sister Louise, Dorothee was suffering from a disease that affected many families not only in Germany but also around the world. 

At 11 o’clock on the night of May 3^rd, 1841 Dorothee past away.  She was 5 years and 8 months old. 

Wilhelm and Christiane and now lost both of their twin daughters (Zwillingstöchter), and 4 days later they took the remains of Dorothee to lie with those of her sister Louise in the local cemetery.

Although these two little girls had very short lives I feel that their story still needs to be shared.   They are my Ur-Ur-Tanten (Great Great Aunts).

70 Lange Straße, Tangermünde – a guesthouse[i] that is next-door, and similar to the house where the Dorothea and Louise spent their short lives.

Wilhelm Peters (1805-1806) married Christiane Breÿde (1796-1868)

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Dorothea (1835-1840)  –   Louise (1835-1835)   –   Mathilde (1838-????)

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Theodore Wilhelm Vetter (1866-1943)

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Alan Louis Brady (1916-1995)

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Kevin Reginald Brady (1961

Kevin R. Brady

August 10, 2014

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[i] Hotel Am Rathaus, Tangermünde

Memories of Saturday trips to Sans Souci

Memories of Saturday trips to Sans Souci

1961 – 1972

I was born in January 1961, the sixth grandchild of Reg and Bessie Powell of “Ralvona”, 530 Rocky Point Road, Sans Souci.

Most of my memories of Sans Souci relate to my grandparents’ backyard and walking down to Doll’s Point and Sans Souci.

We use to travel from Greenacre to Sans Souci every Saturday.  Initially it was up to 4 bus rides.  Greenacre to Punchbowl, Punchbowl to Hurstville, Hurstville to Ramsgate, then Ramsgate to Sans Souci.  I think once I was able to walk from Ramsgate we stopped taking the last bus, and more importantly this meant we could have a neenish tart to eat as we walked along Rocky Point road.

I remember on one bus ride to Ramsgate I had somehow pushed my elbow between the seat and the metal bar on top of the seat. As we went to get off the bus I could not remove my elbow – after a bit of pushing (by mum and the driver) it came free.  I don’t think I got a neenish tart that time.

In later years on the way back to Greenacre one of the bus drivers use to let me open and close the doors at each stop, this required the pulling and pushing of a metal bar that protruded from the side of the bus beside the driver’s seat.

My brother, Stephen, and me in the backyard. 

Behind us you can see the start of the vegie garden.

I can remember always playing the backyard, there was a large wooden chair on the left side of the yard that I don’t ever remember anyone sitting in but there is/was a pic of me and my sister and brother sitting in it.  On the right hand side was the gardens, and I do remember playing in the first area that was surrounded by flowers.  Further behind were the vegetable gardens that supplied the veggies we took home every weekend.   In the main garden area there was a wooden cut out of a little girl holding a watering can along side two rabbits.  My grandfather had made these.  It was also here that I played with the wooden pull along train that he had made, it was painted red, green and yellow (if my memory serves me correctly) and I think was made for my brother but I think my cousin Robert and I played with it just as much as my brother did.

Also in the backyard was my grandfather’s shed.  There was two areas of the shed plus the garage directly attached.  The first was where he made things, toys, furniture for our cubby at home, and even furniture for his home.  I remember all the tins with the lids nailed to the bench and he’d un-screw the tins to show the different size nails and screws within.  He was an incredibly handy man, and made many things for all of us grandkids, and I am very please to think I still have some of those, particularly the stools he made for us so we could clean our teeth at the bathroom sink.  The garage was am area you did not go into but I remember later that this is where my grandfather use to paint, and I can see a bench against the wall where he would keep his paints and the latest painting he was doing.  Very pleased to think I own one of his paintings and it is in my home.

Next to the shed was where the garden tools and lawn mower were kept.  He was an avid gardener, and I remember the little bush at the front of the house as you walked around the side.  He clipped and shaped it to look like a bird.  When you came along Rocky Point Road you had to step down two cement steps to enter the front yard.  There was a marvellous trimmed tree in the front yard before you stepped up on the front porch.   On the porch there was a wooden seat (perhaps made by grandfather) and a side bench under the electricity board.  I believe my grandparents sat out there every afternoon and watch the world go by as the sun set.

When we arrived in the morning we’d walk around the side of the house to the back door.  Have very little memory of ever entering through the front door.  My grandma would be in the kitchen already preparing lunch.  She’d be there standing beside the green and yellow stove that stood on iron legs.   In my eyes it looked like it had never been used, it was so shiny and clean.  We would quickly kiss her then run out the back and down to grandfather’s shed which much more exciting than being indoors.

Off the kitchen was an alcove that had a wooden lounge seat and the morning sun would come through here.  I can remember spending more time in that alcove than anywhere else inside the house – I don’t think we were allowed to play in the other rooms.  The lounge room had a piano, that I never saw any one play, but I do remember being held up to look inside the lid at the top and see the wires move as the piano keys were played.  I think my grandfather held me while either my sister or brother played with the keys.  Also in the lounge room was a coffee table that had a curved piece of wood that supported the table – I can remember driving my matchbox cars up and down and under this curved wood, but making sure that no one saw me do it.

Up the hall was the second bedroom, where my mum and aunty Joan had grown up.  I can remember holes in the wooden walls that I could put my finger through, the mattress on the bed being so old that a pillow had to be in the middle of it so you could sleep level on it, and a picture on the wall above one of the beds of my grandparents’ wedding day.  The dressing table and wardrobe were painted grey I think.

The front room of the house was my grandparents’ bedroom, and my first thought of this room was that it was dark.  The room was dark and the furniture was dark.  There was a big wooden bed, two wardrobes and a very large dressing table that had my grandmother’s cut-glass dressing table set on it along with a ivory (I think) hand mirror.  My thoughts on these are “don’t touch!”  This was a room rarely gone into.  We hardly ever used the front door so there was no reason to head up the hall to where the bedrooms were.

Coming out of the kitchen you descended two steps to the back verandah where my grandfather sat and smoked his pipe.  I can still see him sitting there after lunch, slowly packing his pipe and lighting it.  I do remember him allowing me to open the tobacco tin and rub the tobacco in my hands then push it into the pipe. 

I found this pic and I am pretty sure this is the brand grandfather smoked

 – I can remember those empty tins in his sheds!

With one of these old tobacco tins he had cut a hole in the bottom that he would push his finger through.  Inside the tine was cotton wool that had red paint or something on it splashed on it.  He would bring the tin out to us to show us the severed finger he had found. 

Off the verandah was the laundry, and in the laundry was the bath.  I have no memory of ever having a bath there, but in the laundry there was an old boiler that Grandma used before getting a washing machine – actually am not sure if there was ever a washing machine. Also there was a washing board (maybe two) and I can remember trying to make music from this – I said trying!

Stepping down from the verandah you turned to the back of the laundry and here was the toilet.  I use to think how terrible it was to be so far from the house but my mum told me that when she was a child living there it was down at the back fence and when the dunny-man use to come to empty it (once a week I was told) my grandmother would run out the back as she heard him enter the front gate.  She’d go and hold up the washing line so as he carried the buckets back it did not splash on the clean washing.

The back fence was made of tin and I remember climbing it to watch any cars go along the back lane way.  Near the fence was the old incinerator where grandfather burned the rubbish and also an area where he would put the grass cuttings.  This was surround by a wood and tin structure, the wood painted white and the tin red.  He’d pile the cuttings and the vegetables and create mulch for the garden.  My mum told me that the wood and tin fence was built during the war (1940) as the entrance to an air-raid shelter my grandfather started to build.  He was an air-raid warden during those years, and he was setting an example by building his own.  Mum said that he had actually built it big enough to be used but two things stoped that happening.  My grandma refusing to go in it and it filling with water after the first storm.

I have a memory of watching my father swim in the baths at Dolls Point.  Standing there with someone, I can’t remember who, holding my hand while my father floated on his back in the water below.  We had walked out on the wooden walkway that went along side one part of the pool area that jutted out into Botany Bay.  I am assuming that I would have been 4 or younger as I am certain I wasn’t swimming and I don’t think I learnt until I was 5. 

Walks down to Dolls Point happened all the time, to climb in the Rocket-ship that was there in the playground. To build castles in the sand by the water.  I can remember being down there a lot, and also there during school holidays with my cousins.

The Sans Souci Punt landing at Taren Point on the day of the Captain Cook Bridge Opening in May 1965.  I am fairly positive that’s Uncle Bob’s Holden station wagon still on the punt waiting to get off (not the first holden, the second!).

In 1965 the Captain Cook Bridge opened across the Georges River, from Sans Souci point.  I can remember walking over it on the day it opened. Prior to that we would catch the punt across to Taren Point when my grandfather would drive us to Kurnell to climb the sandhills.  I can remember take cardboard boxes so that we could slide down the sandhills.  I have a memory of my grandma doing this; I assume she would have been in her early 70s.

As I grew older my walks around Sans Souci were by myself – I can remember walking down to Kogarah bay.  There was a small wharf there that had a petrol bowser at the end of it and I use to stand there and as the small boats came up they’d ask me to hand down the hose and turn the bowser on as they filled up the tank.  I have no idea how they paid for the petrol, there was no one else around or any gate or office.   I assumed an honour system.

Near where grandfather and grandma lived were a few shops.  On the corner of Russell Avenue, I remember a barber’s that was adjoined to the Toyer’s house, then Mrs James’ place next to my grandparents, then Mrs Boss’s on the other side.  There were traffic lights on the corner and across the road was a news agents that sold lollies and possibly ice creams, the ice cream that came wrapped in paper and you’d be given two pieces of waver to put each side of it – or perhaps that was from the shop down the bottom of Russell avenue.

A antique store opened just past the newsagents in the last few years and I can remember climbing under my grandparents’ house to get an old wash basin and jug and taking it over the road to get money for it.  I have no idea how much.

In January 1972 my grandparents celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary – the day, the 28^th, was a Friday, I am not sure if we were still on school holidays or whether it was the next day but I only remember my brother Stephen and my cousin Robert being there.  If it was a Friday my sister would have been at work, and I can’t remember if my cousins Rhonda, Glenda and Lyndall were there.  I can remember the neighbours and friends coming in to offer their congratulations.  I am not sure if it was that night or the Saturday night but we had a party at our home in Greenacre for the anniversary, and the whole family was there. 

By now my grandparents had both been unwell and it was decided they needed to be admitted to hospital a number of times.  I believe they had both had heart conditions, though I only remember my grandmother being in hospital at Kogarah.  We went up there from Sans Souci to see her on a Saturday afternoon, my grandfather, my mum, my sister Jenny and myself.  Two things are vivid in my memory; firstly my grandmother lying in the hospital bed and not knowing who I was and the look on my grandfather’s face as we left the hospital.  When my grandma didn’t recognise me my mum had sent me outside.  I was standing outside crying and a lady asked me what was wrong and I told her.  She told me that it was alright that my grandma definitely knew who I was.  When my mum came outside she told me that she was going to stay with grandfather that night and I was to go home with my sister.  The look on my grandfather’s face as he and mum left was a look of despair.  He loved and lived for his wife and the thought of losing her was devastating to him.  Even at the age of 10 or 11 I could see that, and I sensed but probably did not fully understand what he was thinking and feeling.

I am not sure if it was after this time in hospital or after grandfather’s time, that they came to stay at Greenacre for a while, living in our back room.  I think this was the sign that they needed to be looked after and that they could no longer live at Sans Souci.

I think this was taken in 1972 – Grandma and me on the front lawn.

The house was sold on July 25, 1972 (my grandfather’s 78^th birthday) for $14,500, and they moved to a Nursing Home at Hammondville in western Sydney.

The weekly visits to Sans Souci were over.