Catching up with a cousin...

Today DH and I again went up to Toowoomba. This time my brother and his partner also came along...they both took a day off work...

So what was so special about going to Toowoomba today? My cousin Liz and her husband Allan were going to be there on their journey home to Corowa (in southern NSW), from Badu Island ( in Torres Strait to the north of the mainland) where they have managed a supermarket for 3 years. Liz and Allan wanted to avoid driving into Brisbane as they felt that its traffic would be rather overwhelming so we organised to meet in Toowoomba. 

Liz is very special to my brother and I. In 1999 she gave him the information he needed to find his birth mother; that last piece of the 'jigsaw', was my phone number. He had written to Liz but had never met her so he was thrilled to learn that he could thank her in person. I finally met Liz in 1973 but, encouraged by our grandmother, we had written letters to each other in our teens. I found her a few years ago on Facebook and have shared old family photos with her via that medium.

Liz as a debutante; a photo that she sent to me in our letter writing days...

A photo I took of Liz in 1973...

We all had a lovely lunch at a Teahouse near Liz and Allan's motel at Highfields and talked about our family, especially our late grandparents and Liz's mother, my Aunty Mary. My brother has also done a lot of research on my grandfather's side of the family, so his notes piqued Liz's interest in doing some work on the family tree. 

Posing for a photo today...



The last 3 photos show the smoke from a number of fires burning around Toowoomba, Grantham and Gatton. It's obviously very worrying for those communities...

Some more cousins for Adrienne...

Last year I wrote about meeting Adrienne, a long lost relative of DH's who lived in Huntington Beach.

The 3 of us had a lovely lunch at Laguna Beach  March 8, 2011

Neither of them knew of the other's existence up until a few years ago. On our US trip last year, our first stop after landing at LAX was Santa Monica. An elderly cousin of DH's mother lived there and we planned to visit her. Sadly she died, aged 97, the month before we arrived . So our plans were to change somewhat.

Thelma was an Aussie but had become a US war bride, so she ended up living longer in the US than she had in Australia. Thelma had one daughter (Adrienne), and catching up with her had also been on our itinerary. Following her mother's death, Adrienne was to get a few surprises as secrets from long ago were gradually revealed.

Thelma at her daughter's home, with the dogs

When Thelma's birth certificate was obtained it showed that the woman that Adrienne believed to be her grandmother was actually her great aunt or her mother's aunt. Thelma's  biological mother (Johanna) was actually her adoptive mother's (Anna) sister. Johanna had given birth out of wedlock. Oh dear we are talking about the early years of the 20th century. Now DH's mother was very close to Johanna who died in 1975 and the family often visited Aunty Josie as she was called. So Adrienne was so excited to be able to speak to someone (DH) who had known her 'real' grandma. But it gets better...

Thelma is the flowergirl in this wedding photo of DH's grandparents

On Monday I got a call from Ann, who told me she was DH's second cousin. Ann hadn't seen DH since he was a little boy. She was 'doing' her family tree  and needed some help with DH's mother's family. She sounded so excited on the phone that she ended up coming over to see me. (DH was at golf) She'd heard a rumour that her nan had had a baby out of wedlock...did I know anything about it? Her nan was Johanna/Aunty Josie. I said yes it's true and though this woman is now deceased, her daughter is living in the US...would you like her email? 

A photo of Johanna in her later years. I had found this photo on Ancestry.com.au

To cut a long story short, I copied old family photos for her, she went off to ring her sisters and to send an email to Adrienne introducing herself. Adrienne was absolutely thrilled!  You see Ann , her siblings and Adrienne share the same grandmother, Johanna. Johanna spent her latter years living with one of her sons and his young family...this son just happened to be Ann's father. So Ann and her 7 siblings have so many memories to share with their newfound cousin. And of course, DH is renewing the ties with his cousins after so many years. As Ann makes more and more phone calls to siblings and other cousins, we are all gradually getting more old photos, documents and stories for our family histories. And it feels great :-)

Cousins! Glenda, sisters Patsy (Glenda's mother) and Ann with DH

Beautiful California and family secrets from long ago...

Now I realised yesterday that because I sent a link via email to some friends and relatives, that there may be some readers who aren’t that familiar with ‘blog-land’. For example, some may be puzzled by the use of the initials, ‘D.H.’. No I haven’t started holidaying with Derryn Hinch or Dustin Hoffmann and no it doesn’t stand for the Aussie derisory term, ‘D*ckhead’!!!! It stands for Darling/Dear Husband!

Bloggers also love to get comments (nice ones preferably) and readers can do this by clicking in the comment box. If readers don’t want to go to the trouble of getting a Google account, you can still leave comments anonymously but blog etiquette requires you to put your name at the end of your comment. Now we have those details out of the way, here is some more of my blog which, at the moment, is mainly all about our travels.

On Tuesday, Bruce’s cousin Adrienne drove up from Huntington Beach to meet us and take us out to see some sights. Adrienne’s mother Thelma, was DH’s mother’s cousin as they shared the same grandparents. Thelma has only recently passed away at nearly 98 years old, and it is since then that a number of family secrets have been revealed to Adrienne. Added to those shocks, Adrienne has discovered a whole lot of Australian relatives she formerly had little or no knowledge of. DH and I met Adrienne for the first time and she took us on a lovely day out.



Our lovely guide, Adrienne



First of all, we went to a secluded and quite exclusive cemetery where many celebrities have been buried. People such as Eddie Albert, Marilyn Monroe, Donna Reed and Eve Arden are just a few celebs buried/resting there. While we were walking around looking at the plaques I saw a little squirrel. He was so cute and the first American squirrel I’ve seen.

The flowers in the holder were fresh flowers albeit slightly dead! The story goes that Joe DiMaggio arranged for fresh flowers to be placed there every day...but we think he's dead now...

A long view of the wall where Marilyn is

A favourite actor of mine...Eve Arden and her husband

A famous family; I remember their brand of baking soda!

Another view of this little 'oasis'; it is surrounded by many highrise condos and apartments now

The little chapel where services were held

The little squirrel

He let me get quite close

Then Adrienne drove us along the Pacific Coast Highway and we admired the beautiful coastline which is similar to many parts of the Australian coastline. We passed a number of exclusive communities, especially some houses on the cliffs fronting the sea. The road view of the houses wasn’t impressive being mainly garages etc but Adrienne assured us that the parts of the houses facing the sea would indeed be impressive.

Malibu

We drove to Malibu which, thanks to the ‘surfie’ movie era, and ‘surfer music’, we were familiar with. Then we had lunch at a seafood restaurant called ‘Gladstones’, overlooking the beach...it was a beautiful venue and the food was wonderful. My Californian salmon salad was so delicious and beautifully presented.

View through the window at Gladstones

The lime tarts DH and I shared for dessert

We had a wonderful day getting to know our American cousin!

A 'Maria Goodwin Original Throw' which we brought over as a gift for Adrienne. (I actually have little labels which say that and which I sew on the back!)

Another day dawns...

Today I started the day turning on the TV straight away which is something I just don't normally do. I wanted to see how the city fared with the high tide affected the flooding river at 3 am. The good news was that the peak level was lower than expected; the bad news was that many homes and businesses  flooded over the roofs. I found myself overcome with emotion for the plight of those poor people; some of whom had gone through all of this before with the infamous 1974 flood. I sat there sobbing...
Yesterday we found out that one of our girls had been wading through floodwaters at her work the day before. She then went to stay at a friend's place and within 24 hours she was again wading through chest deep flood waters to get to safety. We believe she and her car are now safe with a friend who lives away from the river.



N standing on the footpath near Suncorp Evacuation area, Milton. The day after this her work building was under water to the second level.


I know this tragedy has been on news reports in many parts of the world as well as the rest of Australia. Interstate family members who I haven't seen or spoken to for years (well I send Christmas and birthday cards to some but never hear back!) have contacted us to see if we are ok...that's pretty special that they are thinking of us and are concerned for our safety.

Showing the flooding (r.h.); compared with the same scene without the river flooding

Mid morning a teaching friend came over and we exchanged Christmas gifts. The gift giving is much later than we intended but in the first week of the holidays her elderly mother was hit by a car and taken to hospital. Her mum is still in hospital but is on the mend from her injuries which include 2 broken bones in one leg and an ugly sore on the foot of the other leg. Naturally Tricia has been preoccupied with visiting her mum and also tidying up her mum's townhouse a bit as the OT was concerned it was a bit cluttered  for someone with both legs injured. Later we went out and had a coffee at a local coffee shop to continue our catch-up.

This afternoon we went to my husband's cousin's place where another cousin was also visiting to work on the common family tree. We took all DH's mother's boxes and bags of papers etc `and filled in a few blanks. There are possibly a few 'skeletons' and some 'cover ups' in the family history and DH was able to give the others some anecdotal info that he had heard from his late mother. DH's branch of the family had maintained contact with a cousin of his mother who was unknown to the other cousins until this elderly cousin turned up to a family funeral. This cousin is now 89 so it's important that some of DH's generation gets her information. We also need to organise to get some birth and death certificates to fill in some gaps. The Historical Index online doesn't give enough details and as well people are often called by one name but have actually been registered with another first name, or a different spelling. Then of course the stigma of illegitimate births of those times means that often elaborate cover ups were devised...DH says he's not enamoured with the idea of working on family history as he feels looking back is a waste of time...it's the future that counts...Myself and his cousins think otherwise...