That trip north...

I've previously written a post about my 'crochet hook' experience at Brisbane Airport when we flew to Cairns in early November. But since then I haven't written any posts about our 4 days up north. 

The reason for the trip was all about catching up with family rather than sightseeing, although on the second last day we did do a fair bit of the latter. 

My cousin Sarina lives near Innisfail and we had not seen each other since 1966. I looked liked this, but I don't have a photo of her at that time but she was 23.

Luckily though, for a number of years, we have communicated by phone and email. 😉

So you could say that this trip was mostly about the people DH and I met up with...

This is my 'big' cousin and her husband Len. Len got talked into having his DNA done recently and he is a match with both Sarina and I. It looks like the link between Satina and I is through my grandfather who was most probably a cousin of her father! ( we still have a bit/lot more to do to be able to put ourselves on each other's family tree) But the link with Len seems to be a bit further back.

We had arrived mid morning on the Monday and that afternoon Sarina took us to meet her friend Katie ( Caterina), whose cousin had been my dad's first wife.

I had taken my dad's old photos on the trip with us in the hope that someone might identify people in those pics.

You can imagine the frisson of excitement when Katie recognised herself and her sister...and then her parents!

So three more photos 'now have names'! 

The next day DH and I were driving to South Johnstone to meet up with my cousin when my phone rang. It was the son of a man who had come out from Sicily on the same ship as my dad. Mario and dad stayed best friends until my dad died in 1967. His son Sam and wife Teresa were driving from Tully to Innisfail to meet up with us...so we did a U turn and headed back to meet them. I had last seen Sam when I was 15. 

Once again those photos came out! And Sam was able to confirm that one of the photos was indeed his parents and him.

All too soon, we had to leave Sam and Terese to head off to South Johnstone to meet up with my cousin, but only after we exchanged addresses. 

Our next stop was to visit some more relatives of my dad's first wife. They were very welcoming and enjoyed looking at the photos I had of her from my father's collection. 

Because the older people in this group had not arrived in Australia until the 1950s, they did not know that their cousin had married my father in 1937 when she was a teenager. But they told me that counting her marriage to my dad, that made 3 times she was married! 😉

Then my cousin took me to visit another of her friends who had known my father...

This lady gave me the phone number of a lady who might know what village my dad was born in. I did ring this elderly lady when we got home, but she didn't know. 

So it had been a busy Tuesday!