Yes, I had three grandfathers. Two I never met. One was an army officer in British India. One was a drunk and a poet.
The third was a Yorkshireman, and became an orchardist. He brought his family – my Nana, my Uncle Ian, my Mum and my Aunty Franki – out to Tasmania. Where I was born.
1.
When I was born, my father’s father, handsome John Thomas Robinson (Jack) wrote a poem for me, in pencil on a scrap of paper. I’m 83 now, and I still have it.
I had a Grandpa on hand, my mother's 'Pater'. This one, over on 'The Mainland', was my Daddy's father, so I called him 'Grandpa Daddy'.
He never crossed Bass Strait to visit us. By the time we crossed it, he’d left Grandma and gone off to live with some other woman. All six of the seven children still alive supported their mother. (Who never would hear a bad word said about him, even then.)
I thought that he and his brother built the Warburton pub. But no, that was his father (of the same name, my great-grandfather) and his uncle.
He – my grandfather – was for ten years Mayor of Flinders Island, where the youngest four of the seven children were born. He had a farm there, and worked hard, but it failed. Later he worked in Wonthaggi….
While they lived on the Island, he successfully represented its interests to the Tasmanian Government, to set up a much-needed regular ferry service from Launceston.
He was spoken of as a popular, sociable man. I heard that he liked to dance and sing. He was famous for liking the drink – too much! Grandma became a staunch member of The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which is probably not to be wondered at.
He didn’t live long enough for me to grow up and meet him.
That’s his wedding picture, holding a glove – perhaps the one she removed to receive the ring.
I edited Grandma out of this copy. (She was very pretty then…)
Part 2 and Part 3 appear in the following posts.
Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #51 where the prompt is to write about the number three. But doing all this in one post would be too long for the P&SU guidelines. You can read the others now if you feel so inclined, or wait until I share them on future Fridays.
That glove totally has my attention. A great picture and story.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed it.
DeleteFascinating background. Not surprisingly, I see a shadow of his face in yours.
ReplyDeleteFamily resemblances are funny things! Two of his children resembled him; the rest, including my Dad, looked much more like their mother, my Grandma, and I would have said I took after that line too, as does my Firstborn son. But as I've got older, many who knew her have seen in me a likeness to my own mother. I think, in different lights, from different angles, suggestions of various of our forebears may appear. My brother has looked very like our Dad for most of his life, but now that he is an old man, he has acquired more of a resemblance to this grandfather.
DeleteThis is such an interesting story. I would have liked to have seen Grandma and wanted to know more about your clan Enjoyed this.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'll write more snippets of family history. Writing this made me feel I'd like to do more.
DeleteRall forgot to put her name on the Anonymous comment...
ReplyDelete:)
DeleteHe certainly lived a full and fascinating life. It's interesting looking at these old photos and reflecting on the life going on in full color after the picture was snapped.
ReplyDeleteCertainly a colourful gentleman who enjoyed life and the good times, Rosemary! A wonderful story!
ReplyDeleteHank
Glad you enjoyed it, Hank. Yes, I think you have summed him up very well.
DeleteWhat wonderful grandpas!! I love this history. I had one grandpa who also knew how to have fun and made elderberry wine. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteHe sounds like an interesting fellow, too!
DeleteInteresting background. I think those early days in Australia are not easy, as are my grandfathers who migrated from troubled lands to settle in South East Asia. They, without an education, had to settle for menial jobs. Your post makes me think of them.
ReplyDeleteYes, life was pretty tough, I gather, for 'Grandpa Daddy' and Grandma. Seven children and not a lot of money. Apparently Grandma was a 'good manager', who knew how to be thrifty.
DeleteFascinating Rosemary .... I can certainly tell where your intelligence, flair, zest for life originates. The ancestors you write about ... all mighty fine stock.
ReplyDeleteA varied and interesting bunch, for sure.
DeleteIt's hard to keep all those grandfathers straight especially when you add great grandfathers. I had three sets of grandparents too because my mother's parents divorced which was almost unheard of then, and both remarried. I'm curious about the poet.
ReplyDeleteWell, this one was the poet. He never sought to get his poetry published, but if they were all as lovely as the lines he wrote for my birth, I wish I could have seen more of them.
DeleteI like your Grandpa FSH! I never knew my grandparents. I hope my grandfathers were like your grandpa. I love that he helped and encouraged the girls in your family.
ReplyDeleteYes, wasn't I lucky to have him in my life?
DeleteRosemary, I like this a lot. Sort of reminds me of my three grandmothers. Like yours, one didn't hang around. She died in 1918 in the flu epidemic, I never met her as my mom was only seven then. Mother's well kept secret was a bad feeling for killing her mom as she had brought the flu virus home from school.
DeleteBTW, my blogs automatically require comment moderation after 10 days or two weeks, I can't remember. That happening is an option for me to choose in its settings.
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Now who might you be, dear Anonymous? Maybe Jim? Or someone with a Wordpress blog? (I don't think the option you mention is available in Blogger.) Anyway, I'm glad you like this story, thanks.
DeleteI had only two grandfathers. One was fantastic, love telling us stories and pretended to smuggle candy for us (which he had cleared with my grandma, in secret). The other was a monster I'm still glad died before I was born. So strange (and so natural) looking back to our roots, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteNice picture. Slightly eerie glove...
I'm glad too that you knew only the wonderful grandfather. That glove looks less eerie when you see the whole photo, with Grandma wearing the other one, but I wanted to focus on him and that is the only photo I have.
DeleteHow fascinating, Rosemary! A pleasure to read about your family. I love that you still have your grandfather's poem on a scrap of paper. I hope the pencil hasn't worn away. What a delicate fragile heirloom that must be. Is that where you are then, Tasmania? :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sunra. No, I left Tassie when I was 15 and my parents divorced, spending holidays there with my Mum and (lovely) stepfather, but school terms on 'the mainland', in the State of Victoria specifically, with Dad and the Wicked Stepmother. Which meant I went to university in Melbourne instead of Hobart, and ended up working and marrying in Melbourne, raising my own kids there, and spending most of my adult life there. Though where I am now is fast catching up in number of years. I now live in the Northern Rivers region of the State of New South Wales, in a small town which is in many ways like the Launceston I grew up in, but has (thankfully) a warmer climate.
DeleteWhat a great story, Rosemary! I never got to meet my mother's dad, but he sounds very much like this. He was Romanian, and always seemed to be at a gathering of men, instead of working.
ReplyDeleteOh, that sounds like an interesting ancestry!
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