The Story of John Power of  Wyndham and Anne Power of  Kiah, NSW 
and their family

The other stories supplied by Bryan Power [bryanp2-at-bigpond.com]

   John Power Snr | Thomas Power  | Mary Ann Power | Jane Power | Honorah Power | Elizabeth Power | John Power Jnr | Edward Power | James Power | Henry Power | George Power | Ellen and Charles Power | Bridget Power |  Patrick Power |  

Introduction

This story is the third in a series to record the lives of the children of John and Mary Power (nee Donovan). John and Mary’s story is on this website www.monaropioneers.com  

The other twelve stories in stage two are also on that website and they tell of the lives of John’s brothers and sisters: William, Thomas, Mary Ann, Jane, Honorah, Elizabeth, Edward, James, Henry, George, Ellen, Bridget, Charles and Patrick.

As well, the story of Anne’s parents, Michael and Jane Power (nee Crotty) and of her brothers and sisters: John, Thomas, Kate, Jane and Michael is on this website.

Bryan Power
P.O. Box 610 Gisborne 3437  (03)5427 2895 bryanp2@bigpond.com

Dedication

This story is dedicated to the memory of Mary Anne Strangwidge, the second daughter of John and Anne Power. I first met Mary Anne at her home at Hurlstone Park in Sydney on 29 Dec 1966. Mary Ann was aged 92 but her memory of the family was wonderful as you will realise as you read her recollections in this story. Over the following three years before Mary Anne’s death on 1^st November 1969 we exchanged 18 letters and I had the opportunity to interview her twice. She was a very impressive lady with great dignity and presence and my commitment to complete these stories of the families of the Power descendants was inspired by the strong impression she made on me.

Mary Anne Strangwidge (nee Power) on her 90^th birthday in 1964 at her home in Hurlstone Park, Sydney.

John Power was born in the winter of 1844 on the high, cold Monaro tableland of south-eastern New South Wales. For his parents, John and Mary Power, he became the sixth young hungry mouth to feed; his oldest brother, Thomas, had just reached his sixth birthday a couple of weeks before John’s arrival.

John was born a redhead, a trait that still appears among Power descendants, and in later life he came to be known as Red Johnny Power to distinguish him from his dark-haired brother-in-law who was called Black Johnny Power.

John was probably born in the rough hut that was home to the family on the 16,000 acre cattle run known as Creewah located north of Cathcart. His mother was possibly attended by a neighbour’s wife but this is far from certain: the nearest homestead would have been at least five miles away and the sending for and fetching of assistance in winter would have been no easy task over the notoriously boggy Monaro tracks.

Nevertheless, no matter what the difficulty of the circumstances, John was safely delivered to grow in time to be a strong man while his mother survived to give birth to and raise another eight children.

John’s Parents

John was given the same name as his father and as his mother’s father, John Donovan. His parents, John Power and Mary Donovan, had married at St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Parramatta in August 1837 and their family grew rapidly with a child born in almost every year. The first three children were baptised at Parramatta but the fourth, Jane, was baptised at a cattle run named Yarra not far from Creewah.

Young John himself was baptised  thirteen months after his birth, on 11 September 1845 by the Irish priest, Fr Michael Kavanagh, on his annual horseback journey through his huge parish. John’s two week old younger brother, Edward, was baptised on that day also. Fr Kavanagh recorded the name of the cattle station as “Creerevogh”, no doubt his best rendering of the Irish brogue pronunciation of what is now spelt as “Creewah”.

Confusion still exists about the actual date of John’s birth. Fr Kavanagh recorded it as having occurred on 2 August 1844 whereas the entry in the family Bible is for 4 October 1844. John’s daughter, Mary Anne (Mrs Strangwidge), whose knowledge of the family was considerable and accurate, believes it was 5 August 1844. Of course, Fr Kavanagh’s record would have been based on the information given to him by John’s parents and it is quite likely that, isolated as they were from the outside world, their reckoning of dates may not have been precise. Certainly, however, they would have distinguished between August and October so I believe that the birth date would have been in early August.

Little is known of the early lives of John and his brothers and sisters. The fact is that all fourteen* of them survived what must have been a bleak existence in the harsh weather conditions of the Monaro. Feeding and clothing this large family would have been an extremely difficult task for their poor parents - but survive they did in an era when childhood diseases commonly sent a significant percentage of youngsters to early graves.

No schools were available on the Monaro in those early days of settlement and as both parents were illiterate the children grew up not being able to read or write. However, some of them learned these skills in later life and Lilian Tatham and Doris Gocher, grandchildren of  Red Johnny Power, both recalled seeing their grandfather reading.

By 1857, when John had reached the age of thirteen, the family had left the cold, high tableland to farm first at Lochiel and then within a few years at the new township of Wyndham, inland from Pambula.

* The first-born of the 15 children, William, had died as an infant in Pennant Hills.

Wyndham was to become the final place of settlement for John’s parents who both died and were buried on their farm there on the south bank of Mataganah Creek. John was 18 when his mother died and 28 at the time of his father’s death in 1872.  

John Marries Anne Power

Between those sad events John had met and married Anne Power, the eldest daughter of Michael and Jane Power of Kiah, a tiny settlement south of Eden. John was 19 at the time of the marriage which was celebrated at Eden on 25 April 1864. Anne was aged 17.

The marriage certificate shows that John was working as a stockman at Towamba and that Anne was living at Boyd Town. It also records both of their surnames as Powers, a common confusion experienced by those of us with the Power name, even to today.

John and Anne lived at Towamba for a few years and their first two children were born there. From about 1869 they moved down the river to Kiah where John became a farmer. Eventually they lived in Anne’s old family home on the north bank of the Kiah River (also known as the Towamba River).

(Anne’s father, Michael Power, had sold or leased the farm to Patrick Pendergast and John bought it took the property back into the Power name from him).  

By the mid 1880s the family had moved to Eden so that the children could attend school.

John Power	Anne Power

The Children of John and Anne Power

Name                           Date of Birth             Birthplace           Father’s     
                                                                                                       Occuptn.    

1. John Thomas        3 June 1865           Towamba                         

2. Jane                    5 May 1867            Towamba                         

3. Michael William    29 April 1870           Kiah River                        

4. George Edward    12 April 1872           Kiah River                     

5. Mary Anne           4 October 1874       Kiah River              Farmer               

6. Charles Patrick    19 January 1877       Kiah River             Farmer             

7. Rebecca May        2 February 1880      Kiah                             

8. Herbert James    21 Nov 1882            Kiah River                     

9. Ada Theresa         22 April 1885           Eden                            

For the birth entries of Charles, Herbert and Ada their father’s name is recorded as John Henry Power. The Henry was probably a name taken at confirmation.

The surname of Michael, George and Mary Anne was registered as Powers.

The only one of all these children that I ever knew was Mary Anne  (Mrs Strangwidge) who was aged 92 when I first met at her home at 12 Hampden Street, Hurlstone Park on 29 December 1966.

Although very old, Mary Anne was a most impressive woman with a great presence. And what a marvelous story teller! I was enthralled with her from our first meeting and the passion that I have sustained over 40 years for recording the history of our families can be traced to the powerful effect she made on me at that first meeting.                   

We only met again twice before her death three years later. On those occasions I was able to make some recordings of her reminiscences but unfortunately most of the tapes have been lost. However, I still have some taped material and the 18 letters that she wrote to me over those years. From these resources I shall record her stories of growing up in Kiah and Eden.

On the Farm at Kiah

Mary Anne remembered her early years at Kiah with great happiness. Although her description of the farm house presents us with a picture of a rather primitive home she assured me that it was “very comfortable”. The walls were made of slabs and the roof of stringybark. It had “good flooring

boards and a good fire place”. The chimney was made of stone and the windows were glazed. The house was lined with hessian and “proper wall paper”.

The following are either extracts from her letters or edited versions of interviews that I recorded with Mary Anne.

 “We had abundance of everything. You see, we were right on the banks of the river. We only had to go and set a net and get what fish you wanted. Father had pigs - we used to make bacon. We had poultry of all kinds - turkeys, hens, geese and ducks -  and the dashed ducks, instead of laying like the geese did round in tussocks, they used to just swim about in the water and lay the eggs. Well, we used to have to get on slabs and (with) a good stick too to drive in and go around, stoop down and keep gathering the eggs out of the water.”

                                                ****

“Turkeys, geese, ducks and fowls - any amount. Of course, any amount of fish. We grew our own honey and our own fruit and so we had an abundance of everything. The only things we needed (to buy) were flour, sugar, tea, matches and kerosene. I suppose there was such a thing as carbonate of soda then - we’d have to have a bit of that, you know. But, oh dear, we had vegetables of every kind. On the farm we made our own soap and candles. Oh yes, you had to make your own bread. There were no bakers running around.”

                                                ****

“There was a lot of butter sent to Eden for sale because we milked, oh, usually, 25 cows. The milk was separated by just being set in dippers. You’d have to have the dairy built so that there was plenty of shade over it to keep it cool, you know. And it was all lined with hessian and on the very hot days, well, you’d take in buckets of water and just sluice it up to keep the hessian cold. Never had anything to go bad. I think the country air is so much cleaner and clearer than the city and that’s why nothing goes bad. Just the same, you see, meat - my father killed a carcase after the sun went down and it was hung up in the slaughter house. Next morning it was brought in before it was daylight and it was all cut up and placed in these big net bags that were fastened down the top with a hook that came down then it was tied in at the bottom - wouldn’t let any flies in.”

                                                *****                                                 

“On washing days the boys had to take all the washing up to this waterhole in Keon’s paddock. Mother had the boiler up there, you see, and washed and boiled all the clothes up there and bring it back home. We would iron them with flat irons at a good big fire. The work was hard then. Women always had a good, big, starched apron - snow white apron - and a big bib on, you know. They were all worn. There was a lot of ironing I tell you!”

                                                *****

“”Now before any of our boys were old enough to help on the farms some of our neighbours used to come down and give father a hand, you know, stay for a couple of days, give him a hand to put the crop in and in return he’d go and do all their ploughing, you see.

 My chores on the farm were sowing potatoes and sowing corn. I could do that when I was only seven years old.”

                                                *****

“We didn’t wear shoes on the farm. Oh, feet were so hard you could run over the stubbles where the barley and stuff was cut off in our paddocks. Yes, we’d get a pair of shoes and by the time we’d wear them once or twice - and another time we’d want to wear them again and they wouldn’t fit us. We’d always wear shoes to go to town. We’d wear them to go to Eden.”

                                                *****

“Not one of us cared very much for staying away from home. They left me in Eden once; Mrs Dear wanted me to stay and mother left me there. I did nothing but fret for the whole week. I couldn’t play with the other children, I couldn’t do anything - only fretting to go back home. Yes, so Jack (the eldest brother) happened to come in for the weekend. Mrs Dear said to him, ‘John, take this child home. I’m afraid she’ll die. She’s done nothing, only fret.’ 

So I whispered to Jack, ‘Take me home.’ I went home.”

                                                *****

The fathers always cut the boys hair - there was no barber. Father would pull out decayed teeth. The men and the boys all wore the big night shirts to bed. Our blankets were woollen, the best of wool. Oh yes, wool was cheap in those days.

                                                *****

Father was a very early riser (on the farm) and, of course, we were all up with him. When we came to Eden we didn’t get up so early but it was early enough. Father bought a butchering business there so we could stay there and go to school and mother, of course, had to help in the butcher’s shop and get us all going. So we had to buck in and help with the housework and everything.

 *****

“On the farm at Kiah we used to get the proper wallpaper, mother did. And often the snakes used to come in, get up, you know, from inside and they’d get up between the lining - and the blessed things - you, of course, could see them wriggling. And one night one of the Penders* was there staying with mother for the night and she got a big carving fork and stabbed it - stabbed right through the hessian and paper and all. It wriggled more then!” (* Pender was a commonly used abbreviation for a member of the Pendergast family.)

                                                *****

“There was no school at Kiah. There was a school at Corcorans Flat but as the children on the farms grew up the school was closed. Corcorans Flat was a farm owned by a man named Corcoran. He married and had one child, Michael. I don’t know what happened to Mr Corcoran, he may have been killed. I knew Michael well when he was a grown man well after the death of his father. The mother married a man named Slattery who had a farm at Towamba and they sold the farm (Corcorans Flat) to Patrick Whelan, who married into the Ryan family. They reared a big family on that property. It was only three and a half miles further up the river from grandmother’s place and Uncle Tom owned (grandmother’s place) after her death. It was just called The Flat.”

                                                *****                                        

 “I was about 6 years when Uncle Tom (Power) married Mary Pender. I remember them being married. Aunt Mary asked mother to let me stay with her for a while as she felt it lonely while uncle worked on the farm all day. I lived with them for two years. We then moved to Eden for our schooling. Father bought a butchering business and let the farm.”

When Mary Anne finally attended school in Eden at the age of 9 (in 1884) she found that her aunt and uncle had prepared her well.

“I was in level three but you see Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary - Uncle Tom especially - got me a slate and he always used to teach me, you see, and they taught me letters and then to write down the tables. Oh, I was well advanced, you see, in that way when I went to school. I went straight through from one class to another. Learning was no trouble.”

                                                *****

Although the Eden School was only classified as a fourth class school Mr Wellings and Mr Noble taught five of them, including Mary Anne, fifth class work at Mr Wellings table. The fifth class pupils assisted with the teaching of children in the lower classes. The girls wore pinafores and elastic-sided boots to school. The school day commenced at half past nine; there was a half hour break from eleven o’clock and then lunch time from half past twelve to half past one. The school day ended at four o’clock.

                                                *****

Mary Anne remembered school as a happy place: “Oh, wonderful, yes, and the only time I got a strap on the hand was when a new sum was on the board and Mr Wellings put the answer on the board. Everyone who had it right had to stand up. I stood up and, of course, I never ever saw the girl next to me (Evelyn Silk) and let her copy it off my slate and we both stood up.

He said, ‘Evelyn Silk, come out here.’ He said, ‘It’s at the board. Do that sum.’

She buried the chalk in her hand.

He said, ‘Do the sum.’

She said, ‘I can’t.’ So it was a disaster, you see.

 ‘Mary Anne Power! Come out here!’ I went up and he said, ‘hold out your hand while I hit you.’ ”

                                                          *****

When I asked Mary Anne about her favourite subjects she answered, “Well I think arithmetic or reading and writing. But I didn’t have much of a memory for geography. We used the slate for doing sums and everything like that at the desk. But, of course, we always had our exercise books for homework.”

                                                          *****

When a whale came into the bay shouts of “Rusho” would be heard around the town summoning whalers to rush to the boats. The cries had a similarly dramatic effect at the school. “It was really funny because there was no school once there was ‘Rusho’. The kids used to take charge: they used to go and the pupil-teacher used to go after them ringing his bell but they didn’t take any notice of it. He had to go with them to see that they didn’t come to any harm and until they’d seen the last of the whale and then be satisfied. They’d go back to school then to be dismissed.

Oh, it was really cruel. We’d be up on top of the cliffs and the poor whale would be going down, right down underneath us. You’d look over the cliffs and there she’d be. You’d see a killer (whale) get up and try to make the whale open its mouth to get the tongue - that’s the sweetest part, you know. They’d throw themselves right across the spout hole so she couldn’t breathe. It’s really a cruel thing.

The killers used to look after the Davidsons. They were their dogs. I think they must have come there when first the Davidsons started. See, the old man started first, the old Alexander Davidson, then it went on to John Davidson, his eldest son, then it went on to George Davidson, the eldest son again, and, of course, George finished it up. I don’t know of the killers working for anyone else.

Sometimes they’d have quite a good week, you know. In fact they might, at times, catch three in a week.” 

                                                          *****

Mary Anne left school at the age of 15 and helped at home until she was married. There were no jobs for young women in Eden in those days.

The Children of John and Anne Power

I have listed the names and dates and places of birth of John and Anne’s nine children on page 2. I shall now tell of the lives of these children based on information given to me by Mary Anne Strangwidge, by her daughters, Doris Gocher and Lilian Tatham, and by her niece, Edna Lopez.

1. John Thomas (“Jack”) Power was born at Towamba on 3 June 1865. Jack grew to be a bright, energetic boy and Mary Anne lamented that he had no opportunity to further his education. “Now John - that was my brother - was an excellent scholar and Mr Wellings wanted my father to send him to Sydney. Oh, one man’s earnings and a big family - (he) couldn’t afford to send a boy to Sydney and pay for schooling and everything like that. Well, he went away when he was only 16 or so on the Monaro and this mining project was on there and he went to work there with the engineers and it was such a shame you know.”

Living right on the river Jack learnt to swim at an early age, taught by his mother’s sister, Aunt Jane Stokes, who was an excellent swimmer. “She taught our Jack to swim and then, my word, he taught the other boys to swim because he’d throw them into the hole and they had to swim out again. That’s a fact! It’s a wonder he didn’t drown some of them.”

 Jack himself was lucky to survive a brush with death as a teenager. Mary Anne told me this story: “I think he must have been about 15 or 16 at the time. He and George (his brother) went down the paddock to take the horse to father. He was going to town. And coming back George ran one side of this great big thatch and Jack ran the other and of course Jack walked on this big black snake. Well it grabbed him by the instep, you see, and hung on. It hung on to him for quite a way. He kept trying to kick it off, you see, and at last he did kick it off and got to the house and father cut the piece out and did the best he could for it but then he went straight to Boyd Town for Mr Flavell - that was a retired English gentleman who bought Boyd Town, you see, and lived there and he and father were very great friends.

So he came post haste and brought ammonia - pure ammonia - you see. And he stayed all night himself and he kept giving him so many drops of pure ammonia and he wouldn’t leave it to anyone else to do. He stayed all night himself and, of course, some of the neighbours had come over, Mrs Davidson for one and old Grandma Davidson, she was there. And they had to keep him awake, Mr Flavell said. Not on any account must he be left to go to sleep. So they’d pick him up and walk him outside, you know, for a while and bring him back in and no sooner lie him down than he’d go straight off to sleep again. Grandma Davidson was pinching him and clapping at him to keep him awake all night. Mr Flavell stayed, oh, until after lunch the next day and he said, ‘I think we can let him go to sleep now.’ So they let him go to sleep and he slept for 36 hours. He was all right.”

Jack recovered from this ordeal to grow into a big, dark man like his uncle, Black Johnny Power.

At the age of 26 he married a school teacher, May Lee, at St Peter’s, Pambula on 29 March 1892. Michael Joseph Brun and Margaret Jess were the witnesses. At the time John was working as a husbandman at Towamba. May was from Darlington in Sydney.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

May was a beautiful woman and a fine pianist and played at the dances and balls in Eden.

They had five children:

          1. Kathleen Power born in 1893 in Sydney (birth registered at Newtown). She married Arthur N Tatham in Sydney in 1911(marriage reg at Waterloo) and they had two boys, Walter George and Max.

          2. Dora T Power born in Sydney in 1895 (birth reg at Leichhardt).

          3. Lois Power born 5 October 1896 at Wyndham (birth reg at Bombala). I think that she married Cecil R Settree in Sydney in 1914 ( marriage reg at Glebe).

          4. Reine J (“Renee”) Power born in Sydney in 1899 (birth reg at Newtown).

          5. Francis G L Power born in Eden in 1905.

The marriage became an unhappy one and Jack and May separated. Jack went to work in the mines in Broken Hill. He died in that town. May died in Sydney.

2. Jane (“Jinny”) Power was born at Towamba on 5 May 1867. She grew up to be a tall, slim woman. A couple of weeks after her 21st birthday she married James Gorman at St Mary’s, Eden on 21 May 1888. John Gorman and Mary Anne Power were the witnesses.

Jim Gorman was a saddler and highly regarded as a very kind person.

They lived at Candelo for a time and then moved to Bemboka where they settled permanently. They are both buried there.

They had five children:

          1. Florence Ann Gorman was born in Eden on 12 November 1889. She married Dessifer (Des) Dunning in 1915. They had eight children: Nina, Athol (“Lat”), Jack, Norma (Mrs Gottas), Marie (Mrs Lee), Jim, Patricia (Mrs Goward) and Florence.

Florence Ann died in childbirth in 1930 at the age of 41 when the twins, Patricia and  Florence, were born. Des lived until 1957.

          2. Bertha Gorman was born in 1891 and married Jack Alcock. They had two children, Harry and Elton (“Jack”).

          3. Harold (“Sonny”) Gorman was born in 1893. He married Maggie Coman. They had no children.

          4. Kathleen Gorman was born in 1894 and died young.

          5. Clarice Gorman was born in 1897 and married Ernest Keys. Their only child was Norman.

3. Michael William (“Mick”) Power was born at Kiah River on 29 April 1869. Mick was tall and slim with gingery hair and people distinguished between him and his cousin of the same name in the same way as they distinguished between their fathers, that is, Red Johnny’s son was called “Red Mick” and Black Johnny’s son was called “Black Mick”.

Mick married Adeline M (“Addie”) Peisley at Eden in 1892. Addie was short and dumpy and dark-haired. She was Asian in appearance and had a bright, happy  personality. They had no children.

Mick had a farm at Greigs Flat but joined his father, brothers, uncles and cousins in working at the Faulkner Mine at Yowaka near Pambula.. This proved to be a tragedy for the families as eight of them eventually suffered with what was called in those days the ‘miners’ disease’ or the ‘miners’ complaint’ and all of them died prematurely because of it.

Mary Anne told me the following about the Faulkner Mine: “Billy Faulkner took up this part and he took up right on top of gold. Oh, it was beautiful. Well, he didn’t know what to do. He had no money to keep himself in food or anything so he gave Mr Lindwall half his share if Mr Lindwall would keep them in food and let Bill (Lindwall) go to work with him on the mine. So they did that and they were working and getting it out but still it wasn’t getting out quick enough. Well old Solomon and his brother came there and offered 3000 pounds, so that was 1500 pounds for Mr Lindwall and the same for poor old Billy Faulkner. I don’t know how long it lasted him because I don’t think he would do much work while ever it lasted. Well, Solomons put everything in properly and every one of the men that worked there all died of the same poison. It was a wet mine. The water’d be dripping down on their backs and then they were standing in water while they did their eight hour shift - for a shilling an hour.

The mine was so rich that they brought out gold dust in the cuffs of their trousers. Our Mick used to work there and he was that frightened he used to turn down where he had folded them up because of the water - he’d turn them right down and wash all the bottom of them in the creek before he’d go home because he was that frightened because there was a man there they all looked on as a kind of detective, but he wasn’t at all. He was a very big man - Swedish - and he was married to one of the Solomons’ relatives. The men thought he’d charge them with stealing the gold.

Nearly all of the Powers were working there: Uncle Johnny, that’s mother’s brother, he worked there, his son Michael worked there and my brothers Michael and Charlie. Father did a turn there and his brother, Uncle Jim.

Old Solomon was just about at the end of his tether as far as finance went when the mines started. He ended up a very wealthy man but he was just a bit too old to enjoy it.

The Lindwall girls for years looked after Mrs Solomon and Miss Bessie and Miss Debbie. Miss Debbie was Henry Solomon’s daughter and Miss Bessie was old Sol’s daughter. The Lindwall girls went into service there and it was just like their own home. Oh, the Solomons just thought the world of them, thought there were no girls like them. They trusted them in every way.”

Mick travelled to Sydney to be treated for his illness and stayed with his sister, Mary Anne, at Marrackville. Mary Anne nursed her brother and arranged for him to be seen by a leading specialist, Sir Herbert Maitland, but there was nothing that could be done and he eventually died of pneumonia. He was buried at Rookwood Cemetery.

 Addie, who had worked as a housekeeper while in Sydney, returned to Greigs Flat where she married Joe Bartley, a man in his 20s.

4. George Edward Power was born at Kiah River on 12 April 1872. George married Norah Leary at the Catholic Church in Bombala on 4 May 1895.

Norah was the daughter of  Bombala selectors, Michael and Mary Jane Leary (nee Way).

The marriage was celebrated by Fr James Walsh and the witnesses were Francis Leary and Minnie Leary.

George became an engineer and his profession took him to various locations in southern N.S.W. He finally settled at Albury where he was in charge of the machinery at a flour mill.

George and Norah had eight children:

          1. Nina Bride Power was born at Bombala in 1896. She died in Albury in 1915. (Her death was registered in the name of Nena B Power.)

          2. Minnie Mildred Power was born at Bombala in 1897. She was known as Mildred. She married William J Edney at St Leonards in 1914.

          3. Ida A Power was born at Albury in 1900. Ida married Patrick Coughlan.

          4. Mary Jane Power was born in David Street, Albury on 22 May 1903. The family at the time were living in Kiewa, Victoria and Mary Jane was baptised a month later by Fr J Gaffey at Myrtleford. She entered the order of the Little Company of Mary (better known as the “Blue Nuns” because of the colour of their head dress) at Lewisham

on 14 July 1928. On professing her vows, Mary Jane took the religious name, Sister Mary Catherine. She went to Adelaide in 1938 and spent the rest of her life there working at the Calvary Hospital except between the years 1941-46 when she was posted first to Hobart and then to Wagga.

Sister Catherine came to be regarded as the most professional teacher in operating theatre procedures in South Australia and under her rigorous direction Calvary Hospital operating theatres became the scene of South Australia’s first major heart operations. Sr Catherine retired in 1974 but stayed on at the convent-hospital spending her time in prayer and counselling the sick.

In 1981 she celebrated the Golden Jubilee of her religious profession. Sr Catherine died on 28 August 1985 and her Requiem Mass in the Calvary Hospital Chapel was presided over by Archbishop Gleeson.

          5. John Joseph Power was born at Corowa in 1906. John married Ellen Cudge and they had one daughter, Margaret, who has two children, Chris and Donna.

John died at Kurrajong on 3 April 1986 and is buried at Rookwood Cemetery.

          6. George T Power was born in Albury in 1908. I have no further records of him.

          7. Josephine M Power was born at Albury in 1909. I think that her second name was Marjorie and this is the name she was known by. She became Mrs Keough but I have no further information about her.

          8. Vincent B Power was born in Albury in 1912. He has a son named Brian.

5. Mary Anne Power was born at Kiah on 4 October 1874. I have already recorded her recollections of her childhood at Kiah and Eden on pages 3 to 7 and now I shall take up her stories again from the time of her marriage to William Henry (“Harry”) Strangwidge. Harry and Mary Anne were married at Eden on 9 November 1890. The witnesses were her brother, John Thomas, and cousin, Agnes Power.

Harry was the only son of Harry Strangwidge and Emma Horsey. Emma had been born in England and as a teenager had come to Australia with her parents and two sisters. Emma married a man named Horsey and they had a daughter whom they called Isobel. Before going away on a trip Horsey said to his mate, Harry Strangwidge (Snr), “Look after ‘Biddy while I’m gone.” Horsey was drowned while trying to cross a flooded river and Harry showed that he took his friend’s final request very seriously by marrying Emma.

Over the years Emma Strangwidge assumed the role of nurse and midwife in the Eden community and was highly respected by all.

Following the wreck of the coastal steamer, the Ly-ee-Moon, in 1886 at Green Cape south of Eden, the body of one of the passengers was brought to the Pier Hotel in Eden whose proprietors were my great-grandparents, James and Kate Power. Kate and her sister, Anne Power, and Emma Strangwidge laid the body out. The deceased passenger was Mrs Flora McKillop, the mother of Mother Mary McKillop. I shall tell this story in full when I write the history of James and Kate Power next year.

The first four of Harry and Mary Anne’s children were born in Gran Strangwidge’s home in Esme St, Eden..

In about 1899 Harry gave up his work as a bricklayer when he obtained a position as a boatman at the lighthouse and the family moved to the cottage at the cliff’s edge beside the lighthouse. The next three of their seven children were born at the lighthouse cottage.

“After I was married,” Mary Anne said, “and I had all the little children you should have seen my washing on washing day. There’d be six pairs of little white pants for every child and all sorts (of other clothing) and all those pinafores. I washed once a week on a fine day. You’d look over to Mt Imlay and see a black sea and you wouldn’t light up to wash because you couldn’t keep them on the line - the wind was so strong there.”

As well as his lighthouse duties Harry was one of the crew of four who would row the lighthouse keeper, Captain Davies, out to the ships that called for water. The captain would inspect the ship. In those days lots of ships would call including the Wakitipu on its trips between Sydney and Hobart. Harry worked a watch of 8 hours on and 8 hours off for ten pounds a month. When the man finishing his watch came to call Harry he knocked on the window and cried, “Ten o’clock, Harry!” The family’s pet cockatoo soon learnt this saying and repeated it over and over, “Ten o’clock, Harry!”

Doris Gocher told me how the family came to leave the lighthouse in about 1910 when she was aged 14. “One day the family were going on a picnic to East Boyd and we tried to talk Dadda into going with us but he refused because he was on watch. Later a whale entered the bay and he lit a fire to signal to the whalers. George Davidson and his crew rowed across but Davidson said that that they couldn’t go after the whale because they were a crewman short. Dadda called, ‘It’s a good big whale, a black and white one,’ but Davidson said they couldn’t go with one man short. Finally Dadda called, ‘Throw me a rope and I’ll come down,’ which they did. However they were only halfway to the whale when a sailing ship came in sight and entered the bay. The lighthouse keeper, Captain Davies, came to the lighthouse when he heard there was a ship in the bay and made a fuss when he found that Dadda was not on watch. Later on when the lighthouse supervisor called in on the ‘Captain Cook’ he tried to settle the argument by offering Dadda a position at Moruya but he wouldn’t take it. ‘I won’t work with another Welshman,” he said.

A friend invited Dadda to go on a boat trip to Mallacoota. When he was there he was told that the guest house was available so when he came back he discussed it with Mumma and they decided to go into the guest house with people named Allen who were Genoa people. Mumma was also in charge of the Post Office there and the Postal Inspector praised her work.

While we were at Mallacoota the writer, E J Brady, and the Minister of Education, Tom Mutch, used to come down and camp on Captain’s Flat. Once they brought Henry Lawson down to dry him out.” Doris and her sister, Lil, talked Henry into milking one of the guest house cows but he wasn’t very successful and the cow kicked the bucket (a kerosene tin) “into a concertina.”

Harry and Syd Allen also took the fish from Mallacoota to Eden. Bill Greig, the son of Alec Greig (the well-known Eden whaler), told me that he worked with Harry and Syd on this job in 1910.

The guest house kept them busy and in the two years they were there the Syme family, owners of the Melbourne Age newspaper, came for both summer holidays. They brought their five children and two nephews as well as companions, a doctor, a nurse, a chauffeur and others - about thirty people all together.

While they were at Mallacoota the children could only go to school on two or three days a week as the school was a part-time one. So Doris and Lil returned to Eden to stay with their Auntie Sis (their mother’s youngest sister, Ada Theresa) and their grandmother, Anne Power, who lived in a small house opposite the Post Office. At the school they were taught by the same man who had been their mother’s teacher, Harry Wellings. Doris told me, “He had kids from Preps to Grade 6 - and could he wield the cane!”

The family returned to Eden for a while and Harry went back to bricklaying. However, they decided that there would be more opportunities to find work in Sydney so Harry went there and once that he had established himself he sent for the family.

They lived first in Roselle and then in Lakemba where Mary Anne opened a grocer’s shop. Later they moved to a double story house in Petersham Road, Marrackville and later again to Pile St, Marrackville. You should read Edna Lopez’s charming accounts of the family’s life at their different homes in Sydney in those years.

In 1926 Harry was diagnosed as suffering with a duodenal ulcer and, despite attempts by Mary Anne and others to dissuade him, he underwent an operation. The operation was not successful and he died of internal bleeding.

Mary Anne outlived Harry by 43 years and never ceased to be the source of wisdom and strength for all members of the family throughout those years.

Mary Anne died four weeks after her 95th birthday on 1 November 1969.

Mary Anne and Harry Strangwidge with their first five children and Mrs Emma Strangwidge.

Mary Anne Strangwidge with her five daughters.

Harry and Mary Anne’s seven children were all born in Eden. They were:

          1. Mabel Anne (“May”) Strangwidge who was born on 14 January 1892. While at Mallacoota May was quite a favourite of Henry Lawson who wrote a poem about her.

At Eden she became a keen rider and rode show horses belonging to Hughie Carragher who lived at the Customs House.

May married Thomas Naylor in Sydney and they had one son, Bernard Thomas Naylor, who lives in Geelong. Bernard has two girls, Colleen and Jeanette.

May died in the Prince Alfred Hospital on 26 July 1962 and is buried at Rookwood Cemetery.

          2. Emma Isobel Strangwidge was given her father’s mother’s names. She was

born on 19 June 1893. Emma made a collection of poems in an exercise book. Some were her original efforts and others were transciptions of verse that appealed to her. The book is still in the possession of the family.

Emma married Henry Kirkman in Sydney and had one daughter, Moya, who died of cancer at the age of nine. Emma and Henry were divorced and then she won seven thousand pounds in the Queensland Golden Casket Lottery. With that windfall she bought a home and two cottages at Tuncurry near Taree but in 1964 she sold them and moved back to Sydney to live with Doris. Emma died the following year at Prince Henry’s Hospital and is buried at Rookwood.

          3. Doris Rebecca Strangwidge was born on 24 July 1895. She married Charles Tennison (“Chilla”) Gocher in Sydney and they had one son, William David, who made his career with the R.A.A.F. He was married to Joan and they have two daughters, Jill and                                                 Rhonda.  He retired to Surfers Paradise and later moved to a 12 acre property at Murwillumbah. He died in 1993.

Doris died at Maroubra in 1987, a few weeks before her 92nd birthday. 

          4. Lilian Irene Victoria Strangwidge was born on 22 May 1897. She married Arthur Haddon Tatham in Sydney on 19 April 1922. They had one son, Gordon Patrick, who married Peg. They have two boys, Stephen and Martin.

Arthur died in 1952 and Lil died many years later in 1993 at the great age of 95.

          5. John Henry (“Jack”) Strangwidge was given his mother’s father’s names. He was born on 27 November.        . 

As a boy at Mallacoota Jack was rowing across the lake with Tom Mutch and Henry Lawson one day when he saw a bee in the water.

“Oh, look Mr Lawson,” cried Jack, “a bee can swim.”

“My man,” said Henry, “all creatures can swim except man or camel.”

“I can swim, “ said Jack.

“Yes,” replied Henry, “but you were taught.”

The Scott family were neighbours at Eden and two of them had gone to sea on wind jammers. Jack always wanted to go to sea too but his mother would not let him. However, Tom Mutch arranged for Jack to be interviewed for a job with a firm of marine engineers in Darling St, Balmain but Jack decided that he could not work for the gruff old Scot who had interviewed him. However, many years later he was involved in a maritime drama - in August 1937 - when he rescued a seaman from the wreck of the “Urana” at Taree Old Bar Beach.

In 1919 Jack went to help his Uncle Charlie on a dairy farm at Terranora where Charlie had 97 cows on a share farm. He came down with the flu during the great epidemic but survived  and returned to Taree.

He became a timber worker in the forests around Taree and finished up as the manager of a saw mill.

Jack married Emma Pauline Smith in Taree and they had three children: Shirley (Mrs Scanes), Bernice (Mrs Beatty) and Henry (“Ted”).  Shirley has a son, Gary, born in 1954. Bernice and Alan Beatty have three daughters: Robyn, Anita and Susanne. Ted has two sons, Mark and Leigh.

Shirley Scanes has the clock that was presented to her grand parents, Harry and Mary Anne Strangwidge, when they left Eden.

Jack died in Taree six months after Emma’s death in 1988.

          6. William Stanley (“Stan”) Strangwidge was born on 19 February. He married Veronica Mary (“Vera”) Thomson in Albury. Their one son was Stanley William

who was married to Dawn. Their two sons are Glen and Jamie.

          7. Eunice Madeline Strangwidge was born on 24 July. She married Frederick Leonard (“George”) Hardwick in Taree on 28 September 1942. They had one daughter, Patricia Anne who was killed in a car accident in 1968 at the age of 16.

Eunice died at Musselbrook in 1995.

6. Charles Patrick (“Ducker”) Power was born at Kiah River on 19 January 1877. He was a quick-witted young man, a “joker” as they would say in those days. He became a miner working mainly at Pambula but the 1903-1904 Electoral Roll for the Eden Division records him as a miner at Yambulla, a mining township south-west of Kiah.

A few weeks after the death of his father in 1902 Charles married Esther Emma Lindwall, the daughter of Peter and Julia Lindwall (nee Russell). The marriage was celebrated at the Lindwall home in Nethercote on 6 May.

Bill Greig told me: ”Ducker worked for George Davidson and saved my father’s life when the boat was cut by a whale’s tail.” Bill’s father was Alec Greig who crewed with the Davidsons for many years.

Ducker was fond of using dynamite to catch fish but on a couple of occasions this hobby of his had unpleasant consequences. Once while fishing from a boat at the mouth of the Pambula River the stick of dynamite slipped from his hand as he went to throw it and instead of splashing into the river it landed in the bottom of the boat.

The other occasion was when he threw dynamite into Salt Water Creek and as well as the bodies of the dead fish floating to the surface up came the body of a local named Bill Thomas who had drowned in the creek.

Lil Tatham remembers that she was intrigued by Uncle Charlie’s habit of using the soot from inside the chimney to clean his teeth.

Charles and Esther had six children, all born at Pambula. Ducker taught them all to swim in McPherson’s waterhole.The children were:

          1. Julia Madge Power who was born in 1903. Madge married Ted Dorman in Sydney in 1933. Their children are Madge, Marea and Peter.

          2. Dorah A Power was born in 1904. Dorah married Norm Ahrens and their five children were John, Patricia, William, Brian and Doug. Dorah died at Kingscliff in 1994.

          3. Beryl Eileen Power was born in 1906. Eileen married Roy Livingstone; they had no children. Roy died in 1981 and Eileen in 1987. Eileen showed me a gold medal her father had won in a rowing race at Tathra. The medal is inscribed: “Wallagoot R.C. Pres. By Col. Bland”.

          4. John H Power was born in 1909. Jack had three children: Barry, Nanette and Janice. Jack died in 1983.

          5. Arthur P (“Dug”) Power was born in 1911. He never married and died in 1982.

          6. Mary I Power was born in 1916. She has two children, Marie and John.

Like so many others who worked in the Pambula mines, Charles became very ill and went to his sister, Mary Anne, in Sydney. She arranged an appointment with Sir Herbert Maitland who could do nothing for him. Mary Anne had to support her shocked brother out of the building.    

He died at Uki at the early age of 44 on 21 August 1921. He is buried at Murwillumbah.

7. Rebecca May (“Beck”) Power was born at Kiah on 2 February 1880. She was named after Mrs Rebecca Keon who had raised her mother, Anne Power, after Anne left the farm at Kiah River following the drowning of her youngest brother, Michael. Anne’s father had blamed her for Michael’s death.

On 14 June 1898 Rebecca married William Lindwall, an older brother of Ducker’s wife. The Lindwalls were a large family - there were 17 children. William continued that tradition by fathering a large family: he and Beck had eleven children.

            1. Peter Lindwall married Molly. Their two children were Patricia and James.

            2. Bert Lindwall was killed as a child in a sandfall at Pambula. His body was found by Black Mick Power whose hair, according to Lil Tatham, went white a short time later.

            3. Molly Lindwall married Jack Lynch. Their three children are Norma, Margaret (Mrs Chant) and Patrick.

            4. Alice Lindwall married Bill Vears and had three daughters: Noelene, Ann and Patricia.

            5. Harry Lindwall married Lorna. They had three girls and three boys: Maureen, Lorraine, Peter, Michael                                                           .

            6. Les Lindwall was a bachelor.

            7. Charlie Lindwall was also a bachelor. He died in 1982.

            8. Flo Lindwall married Matt Lynch. They have no children.

            9. Patrick Lindwall was killed when hit by a car on his 12th birthday.

          10. Eunice Lindwall married twice. She was first Mrs Huxford and after the death of her husband she became Mrs Hobbs. She had two children, Pam and Graham.

           11. Edna Lindwall was born in 1916. In 1950 she married Thomas Lopez. They have no children.

8. Herbert James (“Joe”) Power was born on 21 November 1882 and did not marry. He went to New Zealand and was never heard of again following the Hawkes Bay earthquake.

9. Ada Theresa (“Sis”) Power was born in Eden on 22 April 1885. Sis never married. She worked as housekeeper for a Mr Collins in Dulwich Hill. She died on 6 August 1964 and is buried at Rookwood Cemetery.

Doris Gocher remembered her grandfather, Red Johnny Power, as being a tall, well-built man with a big white beard. Doris always cleared off when she saw him coming to visit them at the lighthouse at Eden because he carried a pair of forceps with him to remove any of the children’s aching teeth. Bill Greig told me: “Red Johnny pulled one of my teeth when I was a boy.”

His years of working in the Faulkner Mine in Pambula had their tragic result and he died in Sydney in 1902 aged 58. He is buried at Rookwood.

After John’s death his wife Anne lived with their youngest daughter Ada, first in Eden and later in Candelo.

Lil Tatham remembered her grandmother, Anne, as a short, broad woman. “She used to cook beautiful meals in a camp oven suspended from a hook and chain in the open fire. Once in the kitchen while cooking a meal she told me about Ben Boyd bringing the black men from the islands to work for him and that once a young black man had spoken to her on the beach at Boyd Town and said that he once had a mother like her.”

Anne died at Candelo on 26 December 1918 and was buried in the old Bega Cemetery (which is now the site of Bega High School).