of
James POWER
of Wyndham, N.S.W.
and
Kate POWER
of Kiah, N.S.W.
and their family
Foreword
This is the fourth story in stage two of the
project to record the family histories of the children of John and Mary Power
(nee Donovan) of Creewah and Wyndham.
All of the twelve stories in stage two can also now
(2009) be found on www.monaropioneers.com and they tell of the lives of James’s
brothers and sisters: William, Thomas, Mary Ann, Jane, Honorah, Elizabeth,
John, Edward, Henry, George, Ellen, Bridget, Charles and Patrick.
The story of Kate’s family can also be seen on the
Monaro Pioneers’ website under the “The Story of Michael Power and Jane
Crotty”.
I wish to acknowledge the assistance I received in
writing this story from the late Mary Ann Strangwidge and the late Vera Hamman,
my father’s step-sister.
I am a great-grandson of James and Kate Power.
Bryan Power
P.O. Box 610 Gisborne, Vic 3437 (03) 5428 2795 bryanp2@bigpond.com
Born during a Severe Drought
James
Power was born on the Monaro Tableland of southern
John
Power was employed as an overseer on a 16,000 acre cattle run known as Creewah
that was located approximately 15 kilometres north of the present day
Despite the drought and the severe
difficulties John and Mary must have faced every day in providing for their
children, James did not remain the baby for long - his brother Henry was born
13 months later. By the time that James had turned nine he had six more
brothers and sisters, with Patrick the fifteenth - and final - child.
None of the children had a
chance to be educated for no school existed on the Monaro in those very early
pioneering days. However, some of them achieved a level of literacy in later
life and my father recalled that James, as an old man, particularly enjoyed
reading the bush ballads that appeared in newspapers and magazines such as the
Bulletin. In those days there was a patent medicine known as Wood’s Great
Peppermint Cure and advertisements appeared for it in the form of poems which
all ended with words of praise for the product and with the final line: “Wood’s
Great Peppermint Cure”. When James had laboriously worked his way through a
poem only to find it end with these words, he would throw the paper down on the
floor in disgust.
At about
the time James was 11 the family left the Monaro high country for Lochiel, a
small settlement on the warmer coastal strip inland from Pambula, and later, in
1859, John selected land at the new settlement of Wyndham.
I know
nothing of James’s life as a young man except that he would have been 17 - and
perhaps younger - when he first met his future wife, Kate Power of Kiah. The
occasion would have been the wedding of one oh his older brothers, John, to
Kate’s older sister Ann on
When
James’s mother died in 1862 he was 16 and the third oldest of the children
still living at home and, no doubt, was fully occupied assisting his father in
working the farm as well as helping to care for the five younger members of the
family.
Two
months later Kate’s father Michael died and her second oldest brother Thomas
took over as head of that family. He maintained that role until after the
marriage of his three sisters and the death, in 1878, of his mother Jane.
Thomas had known a local Kiah girl, Mary Pendergast, all of his life but they
did not marry until 1879. By then Thomas was 35 and Mary 31.
On
James and
Kate were married at the home of Patrick Pendergast (Mary Pendergast’s father)
at Kiah on
The
marriage of James and Kate was solemnised by Father Patrick Slattery whose
parish extended from Bega to all of the small coastal settlements down to the
Victorian border.
On the
wedding certificate James’s occupation is recorded as “carrier” and he was one
of several male members of his family who followed that hard way of life. (See
“The Story of Edward and Esther Power” for a description of the life of the
carrier in those days.)
A few
years after James and Kate’s wedding, the Pendergasts moved to Mowarra, an area
closer to
James and
Kate settled in Wyndham, possibly in the family home, as by then all of the
children except the two youngest sons, Charles and Patrick, had left home and
his father’s health was failing. When old John Power died three months later in
September 1872 James was the one who went to
Father
Slattery visited Wyndham on
James and
Kate’s first two children were born in Wyndham but the third, their only
daughter, was born at Kiah. James continued to work as a carrier until about
1880 when the family moved to
The
following details of the births of James and Kate’s eight children summarise
the family’s movements and James’s occupations.
NAME D.O.B. BIRTH FATHER’S PLACE OCCUPATION
1. John Henry
2. Michael Thomas
3. Agnes Jane
4. James Adrian
5. Hubert
6. Francis Nicholas
7. Leonard Vincent 17 Nov1886
8. Stephen Vincent
The wreck
of the coastal steamer, Ly-ee-Moon,
occurred on the night of
The loss
of the Ly-ee-Moon was
incomprehensible. There was nothing amiss with the ship, the lookout and bridge
positions were manned, the night was clear and yet the ship drove onto the reef
directly below the
Following
the coronial enquiry held at the lighthouse two days later the third mate,
James Fotheringham, was charged with manslaughter. Prior to the subsequent
Marine Board enquiry the charge against Fotheringham had been dropped and the
captain of the Ly-ee-Moon,
A.W.Webber, was charged with manslaughter.
In that
year Mary Ann Strangwidge was a twelve year old girl but eighty years later
when she recalled the events of that tragedy for me her memories vividly
returned. These are her words:
“Well, it was a terrible tragedy. The captain, you
see, was carrying on with a woman in his cabin when the mate came and reported
breakers ahead. Well, the captain called him a fool and sent him about his
business and so the ship - it was a steam ship with 86 people aboard bound for
Sydney from Melbourne - ran up onto a great flat rock at Green Cape, just below
the lighthouse, and within minutes had broken in two. The forward section slid
off into a terrible deep hole and even years later on still days I have seen
the rusting wreckage on the bottom.
Well, only 15 people - mainly the crew - were
saved. A big Swede attempted to rescue the captain’s woman but she was struck
by a falling spar and when he felt the blood gushing over him he knew she was
done for so left her and got over the side. Somebody passed a little boy out
through a port hole to him and the Swede saved him. My father and some other
men later recovered 26 bodies. One of the bodies was brought to James Power’s
hotel - The Pier - where my mother cleaned it and laid it out. When found the
body had nothing on it but a pair of scapulars. We found that the dead person
was a Mrs McKillop of
Mary Ann,
of course, was not a direct witness of the wreck and her account is no doubt an
amalgam of the truth and the speculation that constituted the stories that were
hotly circulating in the town during that turbulent week. However, she would
have seen the body of Flora McKillop and been engaged in such duties as
collecting flowers to adorn the room of the deceased and attending the
prayerful vigil at the hotel.
The
June 1 1866 The following account has been telegraphed to
us from Green Cape by the Rev W. Poole ...... who was one of the passengers of
the ill-fated ship Ly-ee-Moon:
“Within ten minutes from the time of her striking, the forepart of the vessel,
in which was the saloon, broke right away and drifted towards the shore; then,
turning round and reversing its position, it eventually lay broadside on to the
rocks on the shore. By this time the steamer had canted over, with her deck
almost perpendicular and facing the shore. All of the passengers and crew on
this part of the vessel clung to the rigging and bulwarks, some of them outside
the vessel, and standing on the portholes. Heavy seas were continually washing
over the wreck, and the wonder is that all the passengers were not washed away.
Eighteen
adults and three infants remained in the saloon after she struck, on account of
the stairs breaking away and the water rushing into the cabin, and from the
position of the ship it was impossible to save these. The aft part, containing
the engines and steerage remained fixed on a reef about 100 yards from the
shore. It was impossible to render those on board this part of the vessel any
assistance. No boats could live in the sea that was breaking on shore, and
unfortunately there were no rockets or life-saving apparatus except ropes at
the lighthouse. The waves were so strong that before morning nothing but the
masts of the after part were visible.
Among the
incidents of the wreck it may be mentioned that only one lady was on the deck
of the forepart of the vessel at the time she struck. The third officer, Mr
Fotheringhame, made a gallant attempt to take her to shore, and had nearly
succeeded when she was struck by some floating debris and instantly killed.
Fotheringhame managed to regain the ship, catching hold of the leg of a
gentleman who had just succeeded in regaining the vessel himself after trying
to get ashore by the mast. In addition to the lady two others died, not from
drowning, but from exposure.
Another
incident in the wreck was the rescue of a lad named Henry Adams. Young Adams
was down in the saloon after the vessel struck....... He clambered out of the
port hole .......two of the passengers, Herbert Lumsdaine and the Rev. W.
Poole, managed to lift him out and put him in safety. He was one of those who
were eventually saved, but for some time his life was despaired of as he was
brought on shore in a semi-dying and unconscious condition. He was taken ashore
by Andrew Bergland A.B., but the unremitting attentions of Mrs Skelton, wife of
the lighthouse keeper, brought him round.”
The
Marine Board ...... arranged to dispatch the pilot steamer Captain Cook to the
cape to bring up to
One of
the sailors named Bergland, said to be an immensely powerful man, tried to take
ashore one of the lady passengers, Mrs Adams and her little boy. The
unfortunate lady was struck by a spar and swept lifeless from his arms, but he
succeeded in bringing the child to land. (This
information was given to a Special Correspondent at
Mrs Flora
M’Killop (one of the drowned saloon passengers) whose maiden name was M’Donald,
was a native of Invernesshire, Scotland, and arrived in Victoria in 1839 and
married the late Mr Alexander M’Killop. There were eight children by the
marriage, and three are living - viz., Mother Mary, Superioress of the Sisters
of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, Sydney; Father Donald M’Killop, SJ., at present
in England and Miss M’Killop, residing in Victoria. Sister Mary, of the Sacred
Heart, who died three years ago at Abbotsford, Melbourne, was also a daughter
of the deceased lady. Mrs M’Killop was on her way to
Though
within three days of 70 years of age Mrs M’Killop was still active, and her
amiable and self-sacrificing disposition endeared her to all who knew her. When
the news reached
The
Captain Cook returned to
The following are extracts from statements made at
the inquest held at the lighthouse: James
Fotheringham, third officer, stated: I was exceedingly careful of the course,
as I thought we were too near the land. I continued to steer the course that
was set for me, true north, until
The jury’s decision was: We find ...... gross neglect has been shown, but there has not been sufficient
evidence before us to point to the guilty person or persons … (we) also
recommend to the favourable consideration of the Royal Humane Society the names
of Daniel Whelan, second lighthouse keeper, for saving the lives of six persons
from the wreck; Olaf Thorpe and George Walter (telegraph operator) for saving
two lives; Andrew Bergland and James Fotheringhame, third officer, for
endeavouring to save the life of a lady.
Despite the inconclusive verdict brought in by the
jury the following occurred: At the
conclusion of the inquest the third officer, Mr Fotheringhame, was taken into
custody by direction of Sub-Inspector Baker on a charge of manslaughter through
negligence and disobedience of orders.
Debate in the Victorian Assembly. Mr Zox asked if the government
intended ..... to initiate an inquiry into the cause of the wreck of the Ly-ee-Moon.
Mr
Gillies, (the Premier), said the
Government did not intend to take any action at present, as the matter was
outside the jurisdiction of the colony.
Mr Woods
remarked it was not beyond the jurisdiction of this House and the colony to
take some action ..... as the vessel sailed from this port. Blame, in his
opinion, lay with the company.(The A.S.N.
Company) It was well known that the captains and officers of these ships
obtained their promotions for making them run a little faster and making them
burn less coal than others, and in order to do this they hugged the shore too
closely. ...... How was it that they did not hear of such accidents with the P.
And O. and Orient Company’s steamers? These latter boats kept further from
land. It was the duty of the House to see that such steps were taken that
public confidence would be restored.
Mr Young
thought that the House could scarcely form an opinion ...... until they were
acquainted with the result of the inquiry which would be made in another
colony. ..... Until they obtained information as to how the accident happened
it was not for them to assume that it was the fault of the captain or officers
in running too close to the coast. The
Little
Harry Adams has completely shaken off the effects of his long exposure, and
seemed in very good health and spirits during the trip up (to
There is
one man who has built himself a lasting monument in many a heart - Dan Whelan,
the assistant lighthouse keeper. But for the recklessness with which he faced
almost certain death, it is hard to say whether more than one or two souls
would have survived the loss of the Ly-ee-Moon.
With Mr Walter, the telegraph operator, he stood down below the cliffs on rocks
swept every minute by a roaring wave, and when the mast fell shorewards,
bringing the first four men within reach of help, he rushed in and managed to
bring the last of them safe to shore. No one who has not seen the spot can
sufficiently realise the stout-hearted bravery of that plunge, and it was only
one of a series of gallant deeds which were continued from the time the vessel
struck till the last survivor was ashore. Whelan is a young man, a native of
this colony, and the colony has reason to be proud of him. (Dan Whelan was a son of Patrick and Mary Whelan (nee Ryan), both
natives of
Description
of Recovered Bodies No.10. Female, dark hair cut short, brown stays, red
flannel petticoat, black quilted skirt, Russian leather boots, the left one patched
back and front. This is believed to be the body of the only lady who reached
the deck, one with whom the third mate Fotheringham made an attempt to reach
the rocks.
Photo caption: Green
Keon replied: Started
one whaleboat and crew to
The body
of Mrs Flora M’Killop, one of those who perished in the Ly-ee-Moon, was
conveyed to
Yesterday
morning at St Michael’s Church, Miller’s Point, a solemn dirge and requiem high
mass was celebrated for the repose of the soul of Mrs M’Killop. The Very Rev
Dr. Carroll, V.G., presided at the dirge; the celebrant of the mass being the
Rev. Dean Murlay, Rev Father Couppe deacon, and Rev. Father Furlong sub-deacon.
Some 30 other clergymen were present, and the religious orders represented were
the
(The death of her mother was yet another cause of
heartbreak for Mother Mary. By 1886 seven of her brothers and sisters had died,
she was experiencing poor health and the antagonism directed towards her by
some bishops and priests was causing her much distress.)
On the
application of Mr Westgarth, Fotheringham was then discharged.
........
His Worship said he was quite satisfied that there was a prima facie case, and
he would commit Captain Webber for trial at the next sitting of the Central
Criminal Court.
As noted
in the reports above the only body to be brought to
Photo caption: The Pier Hotel is to the right of the road winding
up the hill from the harbour.
In any
case it would not have been an easy matter for James and Kate. Kate was four
months’ pregnant and had six young children aged 2 to 12 to care for. No doubt,
however, the women of the town would have rallied to her assistance.
As noted
in the reports in the Daily Telegraph the body of Flora McKillop would have
been at the hotel from the evening of 3 June until its removal by Mrs
McKillop’s nephew on 7 June.
The following
is the letter written by Elly Keon on behalf of Kate Power to Mother Mary:
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Altho’ not having the pleasure of your
acquaintance, we all sympathised much with you and yours in your recent sad
affliction. Tho’ there is a melancholy comfort (in) finding your loved mother’s
remains, still it must be a source of peace and consolation to you all.
Mrs Power has just been here to show us your kind
letter to her and begged of us to write to you stating that Mr Flannigan had
nothing whatever to do with regard to your dear mother’s remains. Mr Flannigan
(not Kennedy) arrived by same steamer as your nephew going back to his Master,
a Mr Harrison, to whom he is cook (entre nous); no person here knows who he is
or anything about him.
Mrs Power and Mrs Strandridge (nurse tending) (Mrs Emma Strangwidge was the
Mrs Strandridge, nurse tender when Constable Davis
(not Woods) went on the boat to fetch the remains, accompanied him.
After the dear deceased had been cared (for), Mr
and Mrs Power had the remains taken to their Hotel, where they placed it in
their best room. Mrs Strandridge procured all the nice flowers she could get,
and both she and the Powers paid every respect due to the remains of your good
and holy mother.
Mrs Power particularly wished to mention that she
saw Flannigan’s name coupled with hers in the ‘Daily Telegraph’, as being the
principal man looking after your dear mother’s remains. She desires this
contradicted as it was her husband, James Power. From what we hear, this
Flannigan made himself (a) very prominent personage before your cousin.
Kind regards to your cousin, Mr McDonald, whom we
had the pleasure of seeing for a little while.
You will kindly excuse all the explanation, but
these good women, Mrs Power and Mrs Strandridge, begged of us to write.
Any particulars you wish to know regarding your
dear mother, Mrs Power and Mrs Strandridge may be able to tell you.
(Copyright C The Generalate, Sisters of
As you can see, Kate and Emma really got themselves
worked up over Mr Flannigan! I must point out here that although not mentioned
in the above letter there is a strong family tradition that Ann Power was also
involved in caring for the remains of Mrs McKillop.
After the
family left the Pier Hotel they lived in a big house that had formerly been the
Exchange Hotel in
When
James and Kate’s only daughter Agnes married George Thomas Allen on 26 October
1898 the reception was held at the house and Bill Greig who lived opposite the
Powers (and who, incidentally, was the last of the Eden shore whalers), told me
in 1979 that the “Power boys got pretty drunk that day”.
Bill
remembered Jim Power as a very quiet man. He was only home for weekends as he
worked for years at the Pipeclay mines at Pambula. Bill recalled that Jim was
short but broad and with a red beard.
Mary Ann
Strangwidge confirmed that Jim was a quiet man: “All of the Power men were
quiet.”
It must
not have been very long after the wedding that James and Kate packed up to
leave
As I
shall relate in more detail later, Agnes also joined the family at Dellicknora.
Photo caption: James Power with sons Len and Vince shovelling snow at Dellicknora. Kate
is standing in the doorway with my father, one year old Joe Power. Thus this
photo was taken in 1901.
After
some years in
In Broken
Hill they lived in
Photo caption: The Power family at
James did
not live for many years after going to Broken Hill. The toll on his health of
the years of mining - especially his time in the notorious Yowaka mine at
Pambula that cut short the lives of so many of the Power men - saw him die on 9
September 1912, a month before his 66th birthday. In James’s final
years the family had moved to
The
details supplied by Len indicate, I believe, a final note of pride on James’s
part. He is recorded under the heading of Occupation as “Miner (Gold)” and one
can imagine James telling Len that that was how he wished to be remembered. He
was no ordinary miner - he had mined for the most precious metal of all - gold!
Kate did
not stay in Broken Hill for very long after her husband’s death. She went to
live with Agnes who by then was raising a second family in
After
James’s death Kate had memorial cards prepared as well as a colourised
photographic portrait of James in his later years. She gave the following
directions to the colourist: Hair - dark brown; Eyes - blue; Complexion - good;
Beard - Red.
Kate
lived with Agnes for many years and suffered much from arthritis in her old
age. She died in
Photo
caption: John Power, 1st
Tunnelling Company
Harry was
named after Red Johnny Power (who had taken Henry as a name in Confirmation).
Certainly there were more than enough Johns about in the extended family
already without another of that name to add to the confusion, so it is likely
that he received the name of Harry from an early age.
It is
likely that James and Kate went to live at Eden at about the same time that Red
Johnny and Ann made the move there from Kiah and probably chiefly for the same
reason: to allow their children to attend school and thereby gain the advantage
of the basic education that they themselves so much regretted never having
received.
Harry was
the same age as Mary Ann Power and so they probably started together under the
stern supervision of Mr Wellings. This, of course, was at the
No doubt
after leaving school Harry would have found work where he could around the area
and probably joined his father in labouring jobs and, later, in mine work at
the Yowaka Mine.
His army
enlistment papers record his occupation as butcher but also showed that he had
never been an apprentice.
I do not
know whether he went to Dellicknora and then to Broken Hill with the family.
However, there is a family story that he travelled right across the continent
to become a publican in
Details
on Harry’s enlistment papers throw some doubt on the preceding story. He
enlisted at Geraldton, not
Harry
enlisted on
The army
obviously had more need for Harry’s mining skills rather than his experience as
a butcher, for a month later he was attached to the Miners Corps Reinforcements
and arrived in
The men
of the 1st Tunnelling Company were employed in a variety of tasks
including the repairing of roads which were being constantly blasted by the
German bombardment. However, their major role was the excavation of a network
of tunnels below No Man’s Land extending out to beneath the enemy trenches. The
plan then was to set charges below the enemy trenches and so destroy them and
the German soldiers in them. Simultaneously the Germans were engaged in the
same kind of operation and the tunnels of the opposing armies were often so
close that the miners on both sides had to dig as quietly as possible to avoid
being heard by the other side. While engaged in this hazardous work their own
trenches were being regularly shelled and the following extracts from a report
of Lieut Clinton to the C.O. of 1st Tunn Coy will give you an idea
of the kind of horrors these miners faced.
“ On the afternoon of 25th April (1917)
during an enemy bombardment, a minenwerfer or heavy shell pierced the Officers’
Dugout Quarters, exploding therein. Two officers were killed instantly and one
died ...... on being lifted onto a stretcher. Five other officers were .......
gassed by Carbon Monoxide and Nitrous fumes.
At the opposite end of the system, and near the
seat of the explosion, were the Batman’s Quarters, which were cut off, with the
exception of one small hole just large enough to allow a Proto-man to go
through. This section of the system was very heavily charged with carbon
monoxodide and nitrous fumes, and caused the death of six batmen.
Corpl. Saxton evidently made another inspection of
this portion of the system and was buried by a fall of earth at the exit. We
soon had his head clear, and the mask of a Hovita Apparatus on his face.
Corporal Saxton was breathing for a period of nearly two hours in this
position, the mask not being removed but the cylinders being changed quickly on
the apparatus. Time after time we got the earth off his head and shoulders, but
another fall would bury him again. On some occasions he was completely buried
for two minutes, but continued breathing all the time. There was only room for
one man to work in the face at a time, and the average time a man worked did
not exceed five minutes, on account of carbon monoxide filtering through the
sand from the Batman’s Quarters. On the recovery of Corpl. Saxton’s body it was
found that his feet had become entangled in some electric wires.
During the rescue operations from ten to twelve men
working in this face were more or less affected by the poisonous gases.”
The
tunnels and the large underground chambers to accommodate the explosives were
finally completed and then came the even more dangerous task of dragging the
huge amounts of high explosives to the detonation sites.
By 7 June
all was in readiness and at zero hour (
Harry seems
to have survived the war without any serious wounds but must have had some
narrow escapes and witnessed some terrible sights. He told my father how once
he was in his trench during a quiet period when suddenly a German shell landed
very close by and exploded. One of his mates who happened to be above ground at
the time was completely blown to pieces - he literally disappeared.
Harry was
sent to hospital on four occasions with scabies, influenza, eye problems and
gastro enteritis. Once while on leave in
In the
following letter written to my father three months before the end of the war
Harry seems well and optimistic:
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How is Mother getting on. I suppose it is a trouble
for her to get about at all. I have not heard from any of the boys. I wrote to
Len about 12 months ago and also about 6 months ago but I don’t suppose he has
received them. Well Joe there is nothing to tell you from here. You will see by
the papers before you get this letter about the great Push on Aug 8th.
The
“great Push on Aug 8th” was the inappropriately named Battle of Amiens (it was
actually fought east of Villers-Bretonneux, many miles from
Following
the armistice Harry was soon back in
When
Harry was discharged in
I know
very little of Tom except that he worked as a butcher in
When she
was thirteen Agnes was bridesmaid at the marriage of her cousin and good
friend, Mary Ann Power to Harry Strangwidge.
A few
years later Agnes met a miner named George Thomas Allen from the Pipeclay mine
and considered him to be “the catch of the town”. Allen was working at the
Yowaka mine in the Pipeclay area near Pambula and would have got to know the
Power men, including James, who were also employed there. Through them he came
to meet Agnes. The one photograph we have of Tom Allen shows him to be a much
older and more sophisticated person than 20 year old Agnes. Mary Anne
Strangwidge wrote in a letter to me on 10 September1967: “I would say he was
(30) thirty years, he was no teenager”.
Photo caption: George Thomas Allen who married Agnes bigamously.
Agnes and
Tom Allen were married with a Nuptual Mass by Father Richard Condon at the Eden
Catholic Church on
I am not
sure where Tom and Agnes lived after their wedding but 18 months later Agnes
was with her mother at Dellicknora for the birth of her first child, James
Joseph, on
It wasn’t
very long after this that a rumour reached Agnes that her husband was already
married at the time of their wedding. According to Agnes’s daughter, Vera Hamann
(nee Bateman), when Agnes confronted Allen with this story he said nothing; he
simply mounted his horse and rode away. She never saw him again.
In a letter to me on
In an interview I had with Bill Grieg on
Agnes was devastated by this revelation and her
desertion by the man she had married in good faith, and shut herself away in
her room. The young teacher at the small state school in Dellicknora, Arthur
Bateman, was friendly with the Powers and he convinced Agnes that she had
nothing to be ashamed of and should not become a recluse. Eventually their
friendship blossomed into romance and they decided to marry.
Photo caption: Kate
Power nursing her grandson, Joe Power. Photo taken in 1901.
There must have been much discussion about the
custody, care and upbringing of Agnes’s baby Joe and it appears that Bateman
was not willing to accept the role of step father with all of its attendant
responsibilities. His attitude may have been partly due to the coolness of his
parents towards the marriage. They did not attend the wedding and when Arthur
and Agnes called on them during their honeymoon, Arthur’s mother would not let
them into the house until she had seen their marriage certificate.
Photo caption: Joe
Power in a dog cart at the home of his aunt, Jane Stokes, at Delegate in about
1904.
James and Kate took over Joe’s upbringing and as he
grew up he always considered them to be his parents and their sons to be his
brothers rather than uncles. Over the years too he often travelled to spend
holidays with Agnes but always looked upon these times as visits to his sister.
Joe went with the family to Broken Hill and
attended the convent school there during his primary school years. He managed
to get a job as a lolly boy at the cinema and recalled that he was at the
cinema on New Year’s Day 1915 when the news came through of the infamous
incident when Afghans fired on the picnic train on its way to Silverton.
At the cinemas in those days there were vaudeville
acts as well as films and Joe assisted a comedian named Leonard Nelson with his
props. A popular part of his act was playing the role of a drunk while singing
“Mr Booze”. In later years my father could always be enticed at parties to sing
a comic song called “The Old Cock Fowl” and his performance was always rewarded
with great applause. He possibly learnt that song at the Broken Hill cinema.
He told me of how he annoyed Kate one day by
mimicking over and over her daily washing instructions to him: “Head, neck and
ears”. She became angry and hit him on the head with a dipper which set him
running around the house screaming, “Help! Police! Murder!”
Kate apparently had very few teeth left as she grew
older and Joe once suggested to her that she buy false teeth. Her reply was: “I
wouldn’t have dead people’s teeth in my mouth.”
Joe proved to be a bright pupil and James and Kate,
with the assistance of their sons, put enough money together to have him sent
as a boarder to
By the time that he completed Form 4 his widowed
“mother” Kate had moved to
Photo caption: Lieutenant Joe Power in
1917
When he was 17 he decided to join the Citizens
Forces (Army Reserve) and wrote off for his birth certificate. Joe was puzzled
when he received a letter to say that there was no record of the birth of a
James Joseph Power and asked Kate how this could be. Agnes sat him down and
told him the story of his father and how Kate and James had raised him and that
she was not his sister but his mother. Vera said, “Well, Joe kicked up a stink
and said that Mum (Agnes) wasn’t a fit and proper person to be a mother.”
Eventually he calmed down and accepted the situation but decided to retain the
Power name.
Joe obtained a position with the British Phosphate
Company in
Joe met a
Photo Caption: Joe
Power and Tasma Meeking on their wedding day, Christmas Day 1926.
Agnes and Arthur Bateman had been married at
Photo caption: Agnes Bateman (seated) with
Jimmie, Vera, Frank, Ethel Louise (“Dolly”) and Wilf.
As a school teacher Bateman was sent to various
postings around the state so apart from the school holiday time it was
impossible for Agnes to maintain regular contact with Joe and her parents.
Agnes and Arthur Bateman had six children:
Name D.O.B. Birth
1. Francis James Bateman 1903 Orbost 20345
2. Wilfred Power Bateman 1905 Korong Vale 19318
3. Vera Annie Bateman 1906
4. Arthur Thomas Bateman 1907 Serpentine 30198
5. Ethel Louise Bateman 1909
6. Bertram Vincent Bateman 1911
On 27 and 28 January 1978 I recorded interviews
with Agnes and Arthur’s older daughter, Vera, and most of the information that
follows will be based on those interviews, with any direct quotations being
Vera’s actual words.
Frank was born at Dellicknora so it is probable
that Arthur was still teaching there up until that time.
By the
time of the birth of their second child, Wilf, Arthur had been appointed to
Korong Vale, a school north-west of
Vera
recalled Agnes’s stories of living at
Arthur
had suffered from rheumatic fever during their honeymoon and from then on never
seemed to enjoy really good health.
Vera was
born at
Arthur
was a good teacher, firm but not severe with the children. His own four eldest
children attended schools that he taught at. Vera started school at
Arthur
would ring the school bell to summon them for tea. He only rang it once. Vera
recalled that they had to all sit up at the table and speak nicely. If someone
misbehaved “Dad would raise his eyebrow and that would be enough”. One of
Vera’s earliest memories is of sitting on her father’s knee and looking at his
moustache. He said to her, “I’ll let my beard grow right down to there,”
tapping his other knee.
“When Dad
was very ill he gave up teaching and they bought the combined hotel/post
office/general store at Baringhup (west of Maldon) known as the Loddon Hotel.”
Arthur died there in June 1912, a month after
his 40th birthday. Vera remembered coming home from school and seeing her
father laid out in his coffin in her parents’ bedroom with her mother sitting
on the bed. He was buried in the
With her
husband’s death Agnes was left with six young children to raise with Frank the
oldest at only nine years of age. Agnes decided to sell the hotel and move down
to Melbourne, first to Blackburn, then to Box Hill and finally to Brunswick.
Dolly
(Ethel Louise) commenced school at Box Hill.
Three
months after the death of her husband, Agnes suffered the loss of her father,
James, who died in Broken Hill on
Vera
remembered members of the family coming from Broken Hill to visit them. She
also recalls her mother sending a pound note to one of the family in Broken
Hill when the mines were closed because of a strike.
Agnes
came down with cancer when she was in her late sixties and died at
She’d had
a hard, sad life.
Photo Caption: Agnes In her old age
These are
the details of the children of her marriage with Arthur Bateman.
1.
Frank Bateman married Wilma
Martin. Their four children are
1. Ted Bateman
2. Shirley Bateman
3. Betty Bateman and
4. Wilma Bateman
2.
Wilf Bateman married Lucy
Clark. They had two children,
1.
Patricia Bateman and
2.
Arthur Bateman.
3. Vera Bateman married Charles Hamann and they too had a boy
and a girl:
1. June Hamann and
2. Charlie Hamann.
4. Arthur Bateman died at the age of 10.
5. Ethel
Bateman married Leo
McNamara and their three daughters are
1. Maureen McNamara, Photo caption: Nora,
2. Nora McNamara and
3.
6. Bertram Vincent (“Jimmie”) Bateman married Marj Cronin. They
had no children.
Agnes had
another child, Leslie Raymond Bateman,
born in 1915. Leslie married Sylvia
Gaskett and their six children were:
1.
Robert Bateman
2.
Barry Bateman
3.
Marlene Bateman
4.
Barbara Bateman
5.
Leslie Bateman and
6.
Ronald Bateman
Leslie
died in 1970 and Sylvia in 1988.
The Younger Power Brothers
I know
little of the lives of Ade, Hube, Frank, Len and Vince but I shall give the few
details I have recorded.
4. James Adrian (“Ade”) Power (1880-1950)
Photo caption: Ade Power with his four
sons Frank, Vince, Jim & Ted
Photo caption: Norah Power
Ade
married Honorah Catherine (“Norah”) Fitzgerald in the Cathedral at Broken Hill.
They had
six children: Jim, Ted, Frank, Nora, Mary and Vincent.
1. James Power married Kath Hall and they had one son, Robert Power, who now lives in
2. Edmund Arthur (“Ted”) Power married Bess White. Their
children are Ted Power, Patsy Power and Vincent Power, all of whom live in
3.
Francis Thomas Power and his wife are both deceased.
4. Honora (“Nonie”) Power married Ronald Gepp. They
have five children. They live in Broken Hill.
5. Mary Margaret Power is married to M O’Brien with
three children. They too live in Broken Hill.
6. Henry Vincent Power lives in the Home of Compassion in Broken Hill. His wife and only daughter are deceased.
Ade died
on
Photo caption: Nonie Power and Ron Gepp on their wedding day.
5. Hubert Power (1882-1929)
Photo caption: Hubert Power
Photo caption: Mary Mocettini, aged 21
Hube
married Mary Lucy Mocettini in
Broken Hill. Their family consisted of three boys and three girls: Florrie (born 1907), Kathleen (1910), Mick
(1914), Jack (1917), Eileen (1921) and Tom (1923).
1.
Mary Florence (“Florrie”) Power married Harry Bertram.
1.
William Hubert Bertram, the older of
their two children, never married and died in 1980 at the age of 48. Their second
child,
2.
Lorraine Joyce Bertram, married Leo William Schmidt in 1956. Their
three children are Neville Schmidt,
Gavin Schmidt and Narelle Schmidt.
Florrie
died in Broken Hill in 2008 at the age of 100.
Photo caption: A young Florrie Power
Photo caption: Florrie’s husband, Harry Bertram, and Jack Hall working in the North
Mine, Broken Hill
2. Kathleen May Power married Joseph Patrick McMahon
in May 1943. They did not have children and now live in
Photo
caption: Kathleen Power and Joe McMahon.
3. Hubert
Louis Vincent (“Mick”) Power married Florence
Mary Hywood and they had three children: Mary Ellen Power, John Hubert Power and Rita May Power. Hubert died
in 1982 aged 68.
4. John Phillip (“Jack”) Power died in Mildura in 1934 at the age of 17.
5. Eileen Mavis Power married Frederick Arthur
Borchard in 1941. Their twin adopted sons are Keith
Borchard and Barry Borchard.
6. Thomas Henry Power did not marry.
He died aged 34 in Broken Hill in 1957
Hubert
(senior) died in Broken Hill in 1929 at the early age of 46. Mary died in 1956
aged 70 years.
6. Francis Nicholas Power (1884-1943)
Photo caption: Frank Power is third from the
left.
Frank did
not marry until late in life. He was more than 50 when he married Annie May Geoghegan in 1935. Annie had
been born in Bunbury,
7. Leonard Vincent Power (1886-1966)
Photo caption: A young Len Power
Photo caption: A young Mary Murray
Photo caption: Len and Mary’s three children, Thora, Maureen and Ronald enjoy a rare
waterhole near Broken Hill.
Len
married Mary Jane Murray in Broken
Hill in 1914. Their three children are Thora, Ron and Maureen.
1. Thora Aileen Power married Philip Gosschalk at
Broken Hill in 1941. Their two children are
1. Leonie Georgina
Gosschalk and
2.
Photo caption: Thora Power (Mrs Gosschalk).
2.
Ronald Murray Power married Edna
Agnes Armour in
1. Dianne Lynette Power and
2.
3.
Maureen Joyce Power married Francis Arthur Reynolds in
Photo caption: Karen Reynolds’ Christening.
From left: Mary Power, Bertha Gorman (Len’s cousin), Len Power, Karen Reynolds,
Frank Reynolds and Maureen Reynolds.
Len died
in 1966 and Mary in 1979.
Photo caption: Len and Hubert Power at work at their mine
site near Broken Hill.
8. Stephen Vincent (“Vince”) Power (1888-1908) contracted influenza when he was a young man and died in Broken Hill
in about 1907.
Photo caption: Vince Power