Some other Australia Days

Flowering gum

January 26th, Australia Day, evokes much debate around the country but here I reflect on my personal memories of this date in times past, in other places.

In 1980 we were living in UN housing in Srinagar, Kashmir, in the middle of a very cold winter. We flew to New Delhi for a short break and went along with the 2 million people who on that day attended the parade celebrating Indian Republic Day. The twenty sixth of January is celebrated as the day the Constitution of India came into effect in 1950. It is one of India’s three nationwide public holidays.

The parade was spectacular displaying the wide variety of Indian ethnic groups, along with the colourful marching bands that accompanied the military units. My abiding memory is the size of the crowd pressing in around us. After the parade ended, we walked back to our accommodation with my husband in front, me behind him hanging on to his belt and another Australian male colleague behind me with his hands on my shoulders. That was the only way we could stay together in that huge moving mass of people.

Twenty years later, after many summer based Australia Days back home, we were living in Paris. The tradition in most embassies is a celebration of each country’s national day, so too did the Australian Embassy celebrate. A more casual function for staff on the following Friday night was held in the recreation room located on the ground floor of the residential building. That space was known as Matilda’s and was also a popular staff venue for children’s parties.

We enjoyed another memorable Australia Day about 2005. Our children had given us tickets to a lunchtime jazz cruise on Sydney Harbour. Out amongst all the boats on that magnificent harbour with the bridge and Opera House in the background, we enjoyed an afternoon of superb entertainment. The flotilla of boats of all sizes and shapes displaying a variety of flags, added to our appreciation of all that Australia offers to those of us who call it home.

My Irish ancestors chose it as their home in the 1840s and 1850s long after the original inhabitants had made it their home. Now we are 22 million from all corners of the world, Australians all.

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin

A succession of wills

The full text search feature at Familysearch/en/labs has revealed a whole family of wills. The will and probate details of this Horgan family range from 1883 until 1956. Specifically, I now have access to details left behind by these people. Husband and wife John Horgan 1883 and Honora Horgan 1927, 

their children Thomas died 1941, John died 1942, Andrew Joseph died 1952 and Catherine Mary died 1956.

One page of John Horgan’s probate package 1883

In addition to those, the wills of John Horgan’s brothers Thomas of Mintaro and Daniel of Gulnare are also available. All these wills and the accompanying probate documents detail how well these three brothers had managed since their arrival in South Australia in1852 with their widowed mother Johanna.

Tracts of land are detailed along with instructions for sons and brothers in the administration and responsibility of estates. Forms that were completed at the time also detail assets and relationships. In the case of the unmarried descendants of John and Honora, donations to charities, nieces and nephews are listed.

All of these valuable documents have been added to my family archive at WeAre.xyz 

Next task for me, the Smyth family wills and probate documents.

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin

Hands through the years

Image by Avelino Calvar Martinez from Pixabay

I started seeing my own hands mirror those of my mother when I was in my late fifties.

Her time worn hands showed signs of wear and reflected the care she had for her family.

When her hands were young they toiled in the yard gathering eggs and tending vegetables. As she grew her hands mixed the batter for cakes and shaped biscuits for baking.

Skills were added to those hands as they stretched across piano keys and held needles for the stitching and mending of clothes.

We will probably never know when she learned the rhythm of the knitting needles. Did her maiden aunts Hannah and Margaret O’Dea teach her, or was this a skill passed on through her mother Georgina?

Each crinkle could tell a story of babies nurtured, washing done in hot harsh conditions and lines flapping with heavy wet burdens in the depths of cold winters. Hot irons warmed on the log stove were held steady to press those wrinkled garments.

Rooms swept, floors washed and polished, waste carried outside; the tasks those hands undertook multiplied through the years.

Those arthritic swollen knuckles in mature years still managed to write letters and cards to families and friends. They were expert at manipulating Scrabble tiles and managing the wrappings on favourite sweet treats.

Those gentle hands nurtured me through my childhood, held me in hugs, dried my tears. Alongside her I learnt many of those skills and now my hands remind me of her.

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin