Remember Henty

Henty B&B. Photo by OZinOH on Flickr 

The following piece about my father Bede James Smith appeared originally in the Katharine Susannah Prichard Past Tense Anthology in June 2016

Remember Henty

Bede woke to the sound of rain pelting on his tin roof. He pulled up the window and leaned out to sniff the air. A plume of steam was rising from the earth, giving off a pungent smell of  eucalyptus. Somewhere from the centre of town he heard voices cheering, so he quickly dressed and dashed down the road to investigate. The sudden downpour had taken everyone by surprise and a group of wild-eyed locals were whooping it up, dancing barefoot in the main street. It was March 1939 in the New South Wales town of Henty. The drought had finally broken. Rain continued all morning and by lunchtime floodwaters were lapping the bridges of nearby Yerong Creek, washing away grim memories of the dry.

My father, Bede, was 29 at the time. He had been in Henty for three years, having bought his first dental practice there. Bede spent his boyhood in the neighbouring Riverina district, so Henty was familiar ground. He was sweet on a girl called Moira, the local teacher and his best mate, Frank, worked for the Commonwealth Savings Bank. Henty had a lively social scene in those days with Bede and Frank at the centre of it. They organised mystery dances for the Henty Younger Set, played tennis and golf and starred in amateur theatre productions at the School of Arts. Bede was captain of the Henty Cricket Team – the tall all-rounder could be relied upon to knock up a classy innings with the bat and take wickets with his medium-pace bowling. He could have remained in Henty, married his sweetheart and lived out his days as a country town dentist. Instead, he was lured to opportunities elsewhere and set sail for Canada in September 1939, breaking at least one heart on the way out.

There were 12 other Australian dentists on the Pacific crossing, all of them venturing overseas to take a postgraduate degree at the University of Toronto. Bede planned to return to Sydney after his studies and start a dental practice there. But two things intervened to alter his best-laid plans – war and love. While the ship was mid-ocean, Prime Minster Robert Menzies declared his "melancholy duty" and committed Australia to the war in Europe. The ship sailed on to North America regardless; there was no point turning back.

In Canada, Bede fell in love with a Toronto girl, my mother Marg Baggs. After finishing his studies he stayed on in Toronto and married Marg in 1941. Their first child, my sister Pat, was born in 1943. Bede enlisted with the Canadian Dental Corps and was posted to the wilds of Northern Ontario before serving overseas from 1943 to 1945, with the Allied Invasion of Europe. After the war he brought his Canadian wife and daughter back to Sydney and by 1950 they had three children.

The war changed Bede. When friends invited the family to go boating on the George's River, he found excuses to stay home. Marg pleaded with him to socialise, but he preferred to potter around the garden or listen to his opera recordings. And the last thing he wanted to do was take the children camping. His three years in the Canadian Army, were enough to put him off camping for life. Yet Bede always had time for his Henty mate Frank and the two reconnected in Sydney in the 1950s with their wives and children. They shared a passion for classical music, cricket and Henty.

On one occasion Frank came around to visit, with his newest LP record.

'What have you brought this time?' Bede asked.

'It's my latest, a recording of Heifetz doing the Beethoven Violin.'

Like a treasure hunter uncovering gold, Bede took the vinyl record out of its paper sleeve. Holding it carefully around the edges, he placed it on the turntable, pressed the start button and lowered the stylus onto the rotating disc. There was a small crackle before the opening beats of the timpani, then the woodwinds, and finally the strings took control. The two friends settled back on the lounge for a session of Beethoven.

In summer, Bede and Frank often made their way to the Sydney Cricket Ground, with wives and children in tow. The men retreated to the hallowed ground of the Members' Pavilion to watch their hero Richie Benaud, leaving the women to spend the day in the Ladies' Stand, chasing after bored and restless children. Later on in the evening after a few beers, the conversation inevitably circled back to that small NSW town.

'Remember Henty!'

'Ah yes, what about the time ...?'

At this point the women rolled their eyes. 'There they go again.'

As children we thought it a huge joke. We were sophisticated city kids. What was so special about some one-horse country town we had never even seen?

Those days are long gone. Bede and Frank have passed into history. Looking back I can see that remembering Henty became a shared folklore between two mates, a testament to good times and bachelor days. Bede and Frank didn't have a men's shed to escape the travails of life, but they did have Henty and those memories sustained them for many a year. In the 1960s we moved to Perth, many miles away from the charms of Henty. We never did go camping.

The angel Bede in 1912

 

Bede James Smith, 1909-1965

My grandmother, Alice Smith, was pregnant with twins when she went into labour at her home in the New South Wales bush in October 1909. I don't know if  the doctor or midwife was able to reach her in time, but they would have had to travel by foot or horseback to do so. Many women died in childbirth in those days. Happily, Alice survived but one of her twins, a baby boy, died.
 

Alice and James Smith had been married in Sydney on January 26th 1909 and started life together in Marsden, NSW a small town 466 kilometres northwest of Sydney. My grandfather, James Smith, taught at the local Marsden Public School.

Alice's twin who survived was my father, Bede James Smith. The above photo is of him as a young boy. Dad used to joke about his traumatic start in life, saying of his twin brother: "he took one look at me and passed out".

 

In about 1912, when Bede was a boy of 3 or 4, his mother took him on a long train journey from Marsden. They probably travelled to Sydney and visited a photographer's studio where the photo of Bede could have been taken. In the photo he's standing in a semi-formal pose wearing sandals and a boyish suit. With his angelic face and long curly hair you could be forgiven in thinking this is a girl, except for his outfit. Bede's holding a small ball in his hands – most apt as he grew up to be an outstanding cricketer. 

One family story we heard from Dad's childhood was that my grandmother couldn't bear to cut her little son's curly locks. When I look at the Botticelli angle in this photo I can understand why. It was Bede's father, Jim, who eventually cut the curls, a fact I discovered when I found this message on the back of the photo which was sent as a postcard from Alice Smith to her mother-in-law Cecilia Hession Smith, a pioneer of the Nelson area of New South Wales.

Alice Smith's photo postcard from Marsden circa 1912

 Alice wrote:

"This is Bede's photo. Hope you like it. It was a fair trip. Bede was a bit sick on the way. Jim met us at station. He looks very well. Most of my fowls were gone when we got home, 12 young ones and 4 or 5 hens. They tell us the dogs killed them, but I think it was some two legged dogs. Hope you and father are quite well. Girlie is making big attempts to crawl (walk?) now. Ta ta, love from all, Al.

P.S. Jim cut Bede's curls off on Sat."

I'm not sure who Alice is referring to as being "two legged dogs". Possibly some workers on their property?  Girlie is Bede's sister born in November 1911. She was born Honora Smith, but the family always called her Girlie. We knew her as Nora.

Today, more than a hundred years later, the town of Marsden no longer exists. There is just a rest stop on the Newell Highway, halfway between Forbes and West Wyalong.

Marsden rest stop on the Newell Hwy NSW 2016

Dixcove, Ghana 1973

The following piece originally appeared in the Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Past Tense Anthology in June 2016 

Dixcove Fort, Ghana 1973

Words of Wisdom

We had been staying in the fishing village of Dixcove for over a week and had settled into a comfortable routine of ambling down to the beach each morning, and waiting by the boats to inspect the day's fishing catch in the afternoon.

On Saturday evening, we heard there was to be a local funeral and were eager to stay around for the experience. As darkness fell, villagers gathered in the dusty square, below the imposing stone walls of the Dixcove fort. Shops around the square were lit by kerosene lamps and some food sellers were hunched over smoky braziers, roasting cobs of corn.

From a side street, drums started up and a group of dancers approached the square. The mood was contagious, with locals joining in, and I felt a child's clammy hand grabbing mine, pulling me into the throng. I did my best to follow the confident dance moves of the local kids, swirling hips to the rhythm of the beat, until I spun out to take a break with my friends.

At this point an African gentleman approached us. His thick-framed spectacles gave him the look of a professor, marking him out from the other villagers.

'Good evening my friends, you are most welcome to Ghana. May I invite you to my house, to share my hospitality.'

We followed him several hundred metres out of town, until we reached a brightly lit house. The entrance was up a tiled staircase and through a porch, leading to a spacious lounge room. His house, with its fluorescent globes blazing, was in sharp contrast to the darkness outside. We were amazed – this was 1973 and no one in rural Ghana had electricity. This gentleman must be a person of some wealth and status, to have his own generator.

His wife brought us cake and cordial while we made ourselves comfortable on their vinyl upholstered chairs. After a few moments of polite chat the gentleman went to his book case and retrieved a small black book.

'Do you know this book?' He held the book with reverence, opening the front cover.

'It is called "The Axioms of Kwame Nkrumah". We known it as "the little black book". It contains words of wisdom from our former leader.'

He gestured to a framed black and white photo on the wall showing a distinguished Nkrumah wearing the traditional Ghanaian Kente cloth robe, draped across his shoulder. We nodded and politely sipped the sweet cordial. After a suitable interval of exchanging pleasantries, we thanked him and took our leave.

The following day I left Dixcove and continued travelling along the coast of Ghana to the capital Accra. I never discovered the identify of our mysterious African gentleman, but he had planted a seed, prompting me to find out more about his hero Nkrumah. Kwame Nkrumah was Ghana's first Prime Minister after the country gained independence from Britain. He was a freedom fighter who had a grand vision for a pan-African future, free from the bonds of colonialism and tribalism. In 1966, while on a state visit to North Vietnam, Nkrumah was overthrown in a coup. At that time his government was aligned with the Eastern Bloc. After Nkrumah's overthrow, Ghana shifted to align itself with the West. Kwame Nkrumah never returned to Ghana and spent his last years in exile, where he wrote his little black book. Much later it was claimed that the American CIA were behind the coup to overthrow him.

What had started out that night in Dixcove as a quest for an African cultural experience, lead to something much more, giving me an insight into Ghana's tortured history and politics. Today Nkrumah is revered in Ghana and in the year 2000 he was described by the BBC World Service an "International symbol of freedom as the leader of the first black African country to shake off the chains of colonial rule". Now, I am left wondering about western interference in Africa and whether colonialism has really ended.

Mystery woman of County Clare: Honora Boyle 1841 - 1901

Honora Boyle 1841 - 1901

The lady in the photograph is still somewhat of a mystery to me. She is my great-grandmother, Honora Boyle. She's the mother of my Australian grandmother, Alice Grady. I don't know where or when the photo was taken. Probably somewhere in Mudgee or Gulgong, New South Wales where Honora lived after arriving in the colony.

As often happens with family history research, more is known about Honora's later life, because it is still within living memory. My 95-year-old aunt Joan says my grandmother, Alice Grady, was effectively orphaned at the age of 19 when Honora Boyle Grady (the lady in the photograph), died in Gulgong, New South Wales in 1901. Honora originally came from Miltown Malbay in County Clare, Ireland.

Over the last few months I have pieced together some of Honora Boyle's story.

Early Life in County Clare, Ireland

Honora Boyle was born in County Clare and baptised on 4 June 1841 in the parish of Kilmurry Ibricken, Clare, Ireland in the Diocese of Killaloe. Her parents were Peter Boyle and Mary Daly from Seafield, a hamlet on the Clare Atlantic coast. Honora's younger sister, Mary Boyle, was baptised on 27 Mar 1844 at the Kilmurry Ibricken parish. 

Miltown Malbay was a market town close to the parish of Kilmurry Ibricken where the sisters were baptised. It is about six miles from Seafield where their parents were living when the children were born.

In 1855 Peter Boyle, Honora's father, was listed in Griffith's Valuation as renting a house in Seafield, Clare.

Arrival in the colony of New South Wales in 1864

Sometime in late 1863 or early 1864, Honora Boyle and her younger sister Mary left Ireland and made their way to Plymouth, England to board the Sirocco, bound for New South Wales. Their wooden sailing ship was carrying a large group of "government immigrants" comprising 145 women, 121 men and 48 children. Honora and Mary Boyle were in that group and they arrived in Sydney on 3 October 1864 as sponsored unaccompanied single women. A shipping immigration record from Ancestry places the 20-year-old Honora Boyle and 16-year-old Mary Boyle on the Sirocco (2). Both Honora and Mary are listed as dairy maids, Roman Catholic, not able to read or write and from Miltown, Malbay, Clare, Ireland. Another document says they were servants so it is most likely that they were brought to New South Wales to work as servants, as the colony was short of female workers at that time.

Once in New South Wales Honora found her way to the town of Mudgee in a wheat and wool farming district 200 miles north west of Sydney. I am not sure when she arrived in Mudgee, but do know that the woman who sponsored them, Ellen Egan, went to there too. Two years later, in 1866, gold was discovered in nearby Gulgong and the great Gulgong gold rush began, swelling the town to 20,000 inhabitants by 1872.

Around that time a young man from Ireland, Peter Grady, arrived in Gulgong and applied for a gold lease in 1875. Honora and Peter Grady met and were married in 1879 in the Catholic Church in Mudgee.

Their first child, Mary Grady, was born in 1879 and their second child, my grandmother Alice Grady, in 1882. Tragically, young Mary Grady died of scarlet fever at the age of six in Gulgong in 1885. I remember my Gran telling me about her older sister dying so young: "only the good die young" she used to say. Gran would have been three at the time and she was their only surviving child.

Eventually the gold ran out and the population of Gulgong fell to 1212 by 1881. But Honora and Peter Grady stayed on and farmed at a property at Stoney Creek. Sadly, Peter Grady died of bronchitis in 1890, leaving Honora and her daughter Alice Grady on the Stoney Creek farm.

 

Honora Grady was accounted for in the 1901 Census living at County Phillip, Mudgee, NSW. But a few months later, in November 1901, Honora died suddenly in her sleep. An announcement appeared in the local newspaper, the Mudgee Guardian and North Western Representative:  she was "a well respected resident of this district, well liked by everyone who knew her". 

Honora is buried with her husband and daughter Mary in the Gulgong Cemetery. Amazingly, there is a photograph of Honora GradyBoyle's grave at Gulgong on the Australian Cemeteries Index site.

Unanswered questions

Many details of Honora's early life in Ireland have eluded me, thus far, such as:

Why did she and her sister leave Ireland alone?

They were sponsored by Ellen Egan. Was she someone from their town? There are quite a few Egans in the same parish and the name Egan keeps popping into the story.

What happened to Honora and Mary's parents in Clare?

The girls would have been small children during the Great Hunger in Ireland from 1845-1852. How did this shape their destiny?

And what happened to Honora and Mary Boyle after they arrived in New South Wales in 1864? 

By 1879, Honora was in Mudgee and the photo, a cabinet photo, appears to date from the 1870s. But what about Honora's sister Mary Boyle? She seems to have disappeared and I can find no record of her death in NSW.

One great source for information on the Boyles of Clare is:

The Family Boyle Website which mentions "our" Boyles and other connections around the world. Some Boyles of Honora's generation from the parish of Kilmurry Ibricken emigrated to USA. 

One great Clare resource is Clare County Library Clare Genealogy &Family History links

 

According to the County Clare Library GenMaps, the name of Boyle in Clare is most common in the parish of Kilmurry Ibricken where Honora and Mary were baptised. See the bright orange spot on the left of this GenMap showing Kilmurry Ibricken as the greatest concentration of Boyles in Clare in the 1901 Census of Ireland.

Boyle name occurrences in Clare 1901 from Clare County Library GenMap

I plan to write another post about the journey of the Sirocco and what I can glean about the arrival and dispersal of the Boyle girls in New South Wales in 1864. Richard Reid's book, Farewell My Children: Irish Assisted Emigration to Australia 1848-1870 is a great resource for this.

I'd be thrilled to hear from other descendants of the Boyles of Clare, who may know more the family fortunes or misfortunes. Just post a comment below.