My 2x Great Grandparents, Jessie Davina Ballantyne and Alexander Macvean

This post has become bigger than Ben Hur, (old movie reference). I set out to find out what I could about the property Kooringal and I have been so fortunate in finding some really great information on that, but in my search, I just kept discovering item after item on life events that were happening not only for my Great-grandparents, Jessie and Alexander but to many of their family members as well.

I started digging about three months ago and ended up with over 160 slides in this post. WordPress couldn’t cope with this level of information and started slowing down so much that as I typed a sentence it was displaying about 8 words behind me. So I have done the old trick of splitting this post into two parts. As an amateur historian, finding this amount of information is the equivalent of hitting the motherload, I’m so aware of how lucky I am.

I first became aware of Kooringal when I read the death notice for my 2x great-grandmother, Jessie Davina Macvean, nee Ballantyne. A copy is posted in part two of this post, it is titled “The Late Mrs. Jessie Macvean“.

It clearly states that she is from Kooringal and funnily enough, on my first visit to Wagga Wagga, back in 2018, I learned there was a suburb called Kooringal, but it wasn’t actually around in 1918 when Jessie passed away.

I was intrigued but didn’t have enough time to dig into it on that visit. Still, in the intervening years, I found other sources mentioning it as the name of a property in Wagga Wagga on Lake Albert Road about three miles from Wagga Wagga City.

I had always intended to do more research on the property but just never got there. Then recently Alex and I happened to be visiting Wagga Wagga as Xander, Jessie, and Alexander’s 3x great-grandson was working in the area. By the greatest of luck and coincidence, we bumped into our very dear friends Cath and Pete from Medowie at the local distillery pub. This chance meeting with them led me to a new discovery on the property.

Cath and Pete were in Wagga Wagga visiting a good friend of theirs, Margie who happened to be at the pub with them that same night. She explained that she and her family were long-time residents of the area. When I happened to share my link to the town and the story of Jessie and Alexander’s property and that I hadn’t been able to pinpoint its location,  Margie stated she was pretty sure she knew where the property was.

What, how? Margie stated there was an old property on Kooringal Road, that she drove past regularly that was heavily grown over with bushes and trees but there was a sign outside with the name Kooringal clearly displayed on it. After a few schooners of some excellent craft brews, she drove us to the property. It was literally five minutes from the caravan park Alex and I were booked into. It was pitch black but we found it.

I located it on Google Maps so we could see it in the light. Check it out below.

How random is that, a chance meeting with a friend of friends of ours? Right? I just couldn’t believe it. The questions now are: Is this Jessie and Alexander’s property and how do we confirm the link? I hit our old friend Trove. Thank god the ongoing funding for this National Treasure was approved recently by the Albanese Government. The thought of not having access to it frightened many researchers worldwide, myself included.

I had some amazing information come up about when Kooringal came into Alexander and Jessie’s possession. This time, it came from Alexander’s death notice.  An excerpt with the relevant information is contained below.

This type of detail is gold. The date of when they moved to the district and a list of properties they owned up to Kooringal and beyond. I was incredibly lucky again. Of course, I have searched out the other properties mentioned here but I will put that in another post as this one is in relation to Kooringal.

At the risk of jumping to conclusions, it seemed obvious to me that the suburb that exists today, Kooringal, was named after the property, and lucky for me, I found some evidence to support this conclusion. The City Council of Wagga Wagga published a paper titled, “The Street Names of Wagga Wagga” in 1990 by William R. Ellis. This paper stated that the old Cemetery Road was renamed Kooringal Road after the property and Homestead that stood in the center of an old pastoral holding, which was first established back in 1860. https://museumriverina.com.au/about-us/collections/street-names-of-wagga-wagga

I also discovered a Thematic History paper commissioned by, The City Council, The Heritage Council, and The Office of Environment and Heritage from May 2013. It confirmed that the suburb of Korringal came into being in the early 1960s as a direct result of the massive increase in the popularity of cars throughout the 1950s, which brought people to the district. https://wagga.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/34257/Wagga-Wagga-HS_Final-Report_Vol_2.pdf

It is just fantastic that these resources are so readily available and so generously shared by their authors.  Armed with their knowledge, as well as the information from the article in (Figure 2) above, that Jessie and Alexander were in the area in the 1910s, I started doing the usual combination searches on Trove.

After only a short time of digging, I found this amazing article on house and land sales mentioned in The Argus from Melbourne.

Talk about land barons. So Weenoona and The Yeronga Estate are new ones to me, I haven’t researched those properties yet. Sunnyside is mentioned in Alexander’s obituary article, so I was aware of this one, but the real gold here is the mention of the purchase of Kooringal. This places Jessie and Alexander at Kooringal sometime in 1913 after presumably a couple of years at Deletroy and before that, 40 years in Howlong. What a move. I can only speculate as to what the impetus was for this massive change at this later stage in their lives.

I went looking on the Land Registry site to see if I could, first of all, find the correct map that matched with the property Margie took us to and secondly, to see if I could find Jessie and Alexander’s names printed on the property section of the maps.

No luck with their names being printed on them, but I was able to match up the exact section on the map with the property we visited. I have marked in yellow where Kooringal sits on Section 68 of the map below and I have also highlighted Wagga Wagga Station as a map reference for a comparison with the present-day Google Map that appears below this first one.

When you look at the map below and compare it to the one above, you can clearly see that the rail line matches on both maps. You can also see that the cemetery site fits as well, it is the next block up on the left from Kooringal, marked on the map above next to Section 62. This fits perfectly with the information that we know from the Street Names of Wagga Wagga report, mentioned above, stating that the Old Cemetery Road becomes Kooringal Road.

On the map below the cemetery is the large light brown rectangle area below the rail line, which is the line that dissects Kooringal Road at a 45-degree angle.

So the Kooringal Homestead’s current street address is 525-529 Kooringal Road, a nice close-up aerial shot below.  You’ll note that on the Land Registry map, Fay Avenue is not in existence as yet, but the start of Vincent Road is already there, which matches with the present-day corner of the property.

I know we are still missing the Macvean name linked with the actual map site, Section 68 but there are a few other factors that help lock it in for me as the correct site, even without the name.

Kooringal is mentioned in many articles I have seen as being three miles from Wagga Wagga township, and Google very conveniently converts that into km for us.

This 4.8 km matches very nicely with the estimated travel time noted on the Google map (Figure 5) above, between the Station and Kooringal.

The other factor that locks it in for me as the correct site comes from two further pieces of information. The first is the notation on the Land Registry map above of Willans Hill, it is Sections 90-92 on the map. And then secondly, from this fantastic photo below titled, “Photograph taken from Willans Hill of the new suburb of Kooringal, including St Alban’s Church” taken circa, 1960s.

This was such a random find on the Charles Sturt University website. I wondered if that mass of out-of-focus buildings and trees in the distance of the photo could be Jessie and Alexander’s property. Looking at the Land Registry Map, if you place yourself on Willans Hill and look across to the right, this matches.

I just needed some other landmarks. Luckily for me, there was a note with the description of the photo stating that the white church-like building was St Albans Anglican Church. I went back to Google Maps and look what I was able to match it up with.

In the foreground, which I have circled, is St Alban’s church and also the large property to the left of it, which are clearly visible in the 1960s photo and whose sites match perfectly with this Google 3D map. And there in the distance is 525-529 Kooringal Road sitting exactly where we would expect to find Section 68 on the Land Registry map and Kooringal the Homestead.

So I’m confident in saying that this is my 2x Great-grandparents’ home, Kooringal.

This is the closest Google will let us get to the property, but when you look at that Google Maps aerial shot in (Figure 6) above, that is a substantial old homestead roof there. I wonder if this might be the original home still standing?

Because I have been working on this post for so long, we have had a second visit to Xander in Wagga Wagga since bumping into Cath, Pete, and Margie and we took the opportunity to visit the Kooringal site ourselves. We parked on the corner of Vincent Street and Kooringal Road. The photo below is the view from this angle.

Alex and I went right up the fence line and they definitely looked as though they could be original shed buildings from Jessie and Alexander’s time. This next shot below follows on from the left of the one above. We are walking up to the corner. You can just make out the roofline of what I’m suggesting is the Homestead.

Once again this shot below tacks on to the left of the one above.

We then followed the footpath on the left to the entrance of the property and Alex snapped a pic of this undesirable loitering out the front.

I know it was only in the family for just a little over a decade but I wonder how long since a Macvean descendant has been this close. I know I look pretty dishevelled in this photo but there is a reason for this. Alex and I had just come back from a drive to Holbrook. Only 55 minutes south of Wagga Wagga and where my Great-grandfather, Alexander, (Jessie and Alexander’s son), and my Great-grandmother, Agnes Brookman Macvean nee Cox had their property, Rooksdale.

The reason I look dishevelled is that we had been cleaning up the grave site of my 3x Great-grandmother, Christina Strachan Brookman nee Russell, Agnes’s Grandmother. (Yep, poor Alex, It was a big weekend of Macvean Ancestors) I discovered Christina was buried there in Holbrook a number of years ago but this was the first time we were able to visit.

Christina’s grave has been standing in that spot for over 111 years. Unfortunately, it looks like vandals hit it sometime in the past. Luckily for us, the main part of the headstone is still intact.

We bought a cask of water and a couple of soft toothbrushes and gave the front a light wash.

I have no doubt that Jessie and Alexander would have been at Christina’s funeral in Holbrook.

And what incredible luck, the Presbyterian Church in Germanton (Holbrook) is still standing today, especially when you read the notice below and work out when the church was built.

1873! And just thirty-nine years later, this is where my family gathered over a century ago to send off one of the matriarchs of the family.

I can almost see them waiting to follow the coffin out on its way to the cemetery.

I’m sure my Grandfather John Hugh Macvean who was seven at the time, would have been there with his parents, brother, and sisters.

My Pop, Jack, whom I was named for passed away in March 1970 when I turned one. Even though our paths crossed for at least 12 months there are, unfortunately, no photos of us together.

I know we went a little adjacent to Kooringal, Jessie, and Alexander but I thought it was a good spot to share that information on Holbrook as it was on the same trip. Below are three more photos to share with you, just to finish off.

I can imagine that Jessie and Alexander knew these trees quite well. This next photo shows one of what I’m imagining was one of the original posts on the corner boundary.

This is the back paddocks behind the homestead and I’m sure that Jessie and Alexander would recognise this view, maybe minus the silos.

Talking of the Kooringal homestead, this phenomenal photo below shows a section of that original homestead roof, but more importantly, it shows Jessie and Alexander together in their beautiful motorcar.

Like the photo of my Pop, this family history treasure was generously shared by a recently discovered Cousin, Tony Edwards, who we worked out, is my 3rd Cousin. Tony’s son Michael stumbled upon my blog site when he was searching for accommodation in Wagga Wagga and reached out. He and Tony have a lot of Macvean ephemera and have been so generous in sharing photos and documents with me since.

Tony’s Great-grandmother, Margaret Anne Macvean, and my great-grandfather, Alexander Ballantyne Smith Macvean, were brother and sister, being children of Jessie and Alexander. I so wish we could be certain of who the good-looking bloke in the driver’s seat was, but alas, there were no other details with the photo other than the title of “Car leaving Kooringal”

I have no doubt that it is Jessie in the back seat and Alexander in the front especially when you compare it with the two photos I have of both of them below.

Another random find, this time in relation to the car. It comes from a review of the Wagga War Chest Day Appeal held at the Wagga Cattle Saleyards in October 1917.

Not only were Jessie and Alexander donating five fat lambs for raffling but also making their car available as a taxi service. Wouldn’t it be amazing if this very photo of Jessie and Alexander in the car was the day of ferrying the ladies of the War Chest Appeal committee back and forth to the sales yards?

The photo below is of the original sale yards that the committee ladies would have been ferried to in Travers Street. This photo is 19 years later but I’m sure it hadn’t changed too much in that time.

It is safe to assume, that I would love to find out what type of car Jessie and Alexander were in. We can confidently date this photo between 1913 when they purchased the property, and 1918 when Jessie passed away, so this is very early in the history of cars in Australia. I have posted the photo on a couple of historic car Facebook pages, but unfortunately, I have had no responses as yet.

Wow, this is incredible. At the time of typing this section, it is the 22nd of July, which just happens to be Alex’s and my 23rd Wedding Anniversary, and I’ve had those Facebook posts in for a week or so with nothing. But today I posted a note on the Facebook page of the “Vintage Sports Car Club of Australia” and I received a response from the President, Jeremy almost immediately.

What a generous response and loaded with extra information that I could use. I couldn’t really find any images on Google that looked similar, so I wondered if Trove might have something. No photo or diagram of the car revealed itself but look what I found when I searched “Renault, Mcvean and Wagga”

Jeremy knows his cars, I can’t wait to let him know. I mean how fantastic is that? I had been searching with, “car, Mcvean, and Wagga” and only found the one article above about Jessie loaning the vehicle to the Ladies Charity Committee, this little find confirms that it was indeed a Renault they had and what a gift to make to the Burnside Homes.

This is six months after Jessie’s death, so I wonder if this was a grand gesture on Alexander’s behalf memorialising his wife and all her hard work on behalf of the war effort?

I tried one last image search with just “double-seater Renault” and this appeared.

It looks like a very close match to Jessie and Alexander’s motor vehicle. It is so much fun when little gems of information come up like this, this is why I love researching.

In regards to that research, we have come to that collection of articles that I mentioned at the beginning of the post that either mentions Kooringal or describes life events for Jessie and Alexander or for the family whilst they were in residency there.

They are, as usual, such an eclectic mix of tiny slivers of information that provide us with a fantastic look back into their lives. I will try my best to follow that elusive timeline just to keep it in some sort of order.

We start off with an exciting family get-together, a wedding. Jessie and Alexander’s daughter Edith Jessie. (For articles that have multiple pages displayed, such as this one below, read them from left to right and then down.)

Article 1: Courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia

This article is such a who’s who of the family and is filled with great information on them at the time. You can see that most of Jessie and Alexander’s children are there, the only one not mentioned is David Hunter Macvean.

Jessie Macvean, the bridesmaid, is my great aunt, my grandfather’s sister she is 13 years old at the time. I think the first bridesmaid, Constance McKechnie, is Jessie and Alexander’s other granddaughter, who is 13 months old at the time. She is Amy Davina McKechnie nee Macvean and Leonard McKechnie’s first daughter. Ancestry.com just happened to have this wonderful photo of her, and I’m guessing at what looks about the same age.

This is St Andrews in Wagga Wagga as it was at the time of the wedding.

And this is where the “…recherche repast.” was held. Yes, I had to look it up on Dictionary.com, it means rare, exotic, or obscure meal. Hope it wasn’t an obscure one.

I’m so lucky that we have this photo of Jessie and Robert together, obviously many years after their big day but I love the fact that they are holding hands. I don’t have many photos of family members being this affectionate.

The next article is about the other end of the spectrum as you can get to a wedding and what can only be considered as mundane. An advertisement for help, but it tells us so much.

It is interesting to note here that Jessie is in charge of the household business. I’m assuming for the time, this is how it would have been for most of the wealthy rural families.

I was very lucky to find an article written at the exact time about the average wages. I went looking as I was interested in the £52 a year salary that was on offer.

There are 20 shillings to the pound, so that is a pound a week for the wages. To try and put that into some sort of context, the Reserve Bank of Australia has a pre-decimal calculator on their website that will crunch the numbers for you. £52 in 1913 is roughly about the same buying power as $7138.98 in today’s money. https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html

The other factor to note from the Wanted advert, is the reference to a small family. Does this mean we can assume that it wasn’t just Jessie and Alexander living there? I found the family in the Electoral roll for 1913.

The first name to note is Robert McNamara. Keep him in mind, he has already appeared in the wedding article for Jessie and Robert as a guest and he is coming up again later in this post. 

The next point of interest is Deltroy. This is the property mentioned in (Figure 2) that Alexander and Jessie purchased in 1910. That same article mentions that other members of their family take up residence in the area. Those members were John Hugh Macvean, their second oldest son, and his wife Isabel Maria (Marian) appearing here in the electoral roll.

Next is William Hill Macvean, Jessie, and Alexander’s youngest son. I know it doesn’t say that he was actually living at Kooringal but I think William was and working at Deltroy. All of Jessie and Alexander’s other children were married at this stage, my Great-grandfather included. Out of the seven children, only two were not living in the district. Margaret Ann Macvean was married to Robert Burnet and living in Victoria, and David Hunter Macvean was married to Amy Blomfield, living in Bathurst and working as a fireman. So I’m sure there were lots of visits and family coming and going all the time.

Following the timeline the next major event to hit the family is one that was being faced by families all over the world.

The first person to enlist from the family was Jessie and Alexander’s nephew, Maffra William Bushby Macvean who would go on to serve in the 1st Battalion.

Maffra was known as Jack and enlisted on the 24th of August 1914, twenty days after Britain declared war on Germany and just ten days after the first Australian recruiting offices opened. https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/ww1/military-organisation/enlistment

Jack was the eldest son of Alexander’s brother Donald Macvean and his wife Lottie Jones. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of Lottie but that long-lost cousin of mine, Sally, (who I have mentioned many times before) had this corker below of Donald in a digital stack she very generously shared with me.

The next family member to enlist as far as I can work out was Jessie and Alexander’s youngest son.

William took the oath in Melbourne on the 10th of August 1915, 12 months after his cousin Jack, but he actually signed his attestation paper on the 21st of July 1915.

Hopefully, this meant he had the time to go home to say goodbye to Jessie, Alexander, and the rest of the family.

This amazing photo below shows exactly what the Wagga Wagga railway station would have looked like when the family farewelled William, not knowing if they would ever see him again. Sadly for Jessie and William, it would be the last time they see each other.

This next article is a Gazette listing showing the stock branding for the sheep being run on Kooringal and the number of animals in stock. (Don’t forget, I did mention, that it is an eclectic mix of articles I found.) The number on the left is the registration number of the property and the number on the right is the head of stock.

This next find is very special to me. I had no idea about this fantastic undertaking that a non-government organisation ran for the men who enlisted and to see Jessie involved like this, just makes me feel very proud. Crazy isn’t it, to have that feeling about someone I never knew and something that happened over a hundred years ago.

I tracked down a photo of what was known as the little Kahki Testament.

The photograph below shows the specific bible that was produced by the Victorian branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

There is a really interesting story behind this particular bible. It was in the breast pocket of Sergeant Major Georgio Sergeant of the New Zeland Forces when he was shot in Gallipoli. The bullet lodged in the bible and saved Georgio’s life. https://ehive.com/collections/3021/objects/72879/bible-new-testament

You will note the name that is inscribed in the bible looks like Warnes and definitely not Sergeant. It looks like Warnes was part of the 14th Battalion, D Company.  As the first name is not visible, I searched both Warnes and Warner, just to be sure I had read it properly and found one match in the 14th Battalion.

William Edward Warnes, he was 24 years and 10 months old when he enlisted.  I haven’t been able to find a photo of Edward but the details on his War Record Casualty Form tell us what happened to him.

He was wounded and taken prisoner by the Turkish forces and died from his wounds a couple of days later. Presumably, the bible must have fallen out of William’s pocket at some stage when he was on the cliffs of ANZAC Cove (Gaba Tepe), and Georgio must have picked it up.

What a story that would be to uncover how Georgio had William’s bible in his pocket, which just happened to save his life. Imagine if this was one of the Bibles Jessie covered the cost of. She could never have imagined just how important they would become.

The article following is an excellent example of the esteem the community must have held for Jessie and Alexander. Just a bit of context, they donated significantly towards the building costs of a new school hall built right next door to St Andrew’s Presbyterian, their local church.

Article 2: Courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia

Oh, I have searched and searched for a photo of the occasion but nothing has come up yet. But you won’t believe what I did find.

These ceremonial trowels just happened to be on display at the Mitchell Library and I happened to walk past them on my last visit. How I wish I could find a photo of Jessie’s trowels or uncover the whereabouts of the real things.

Alex the boys and I had the great fortune to discover the school hall and our link to it on our family visit back in 2018.

How lucky is that? An interior shot of the school hall as well. We also got to go inside the church. On that first visit in 2018, the Parish Priest very kindly opened up both buildings for us.

The photo below is from my and Alex’s visit to see Xander in August of this year.

In 2018, we knew nothing about the ties the family had with the hall. We visited the site because I was aware at that stage that Alexander was an Elder of the church and thought it would be good to see the church in person.

You can imagine the great surprise we had when Xander and Calan spied the foundation stone. We, of course, knew nothing about it. It was a talisman moment. I couldn’t stop touching it, thinking that my family was right here over a century ago, and here we were, the four of us, occupying the same space all these years later.

This photo above is also from our trip in August as well as the one below of the actual church, where the afternoon tea was held after the laying of the stone.

I didn’t realise it back in 2018 but so many of the big family events took place in this church, weddings, funerals, baptisms, and fundraising events, not to mention the fact that Jessie’s father, David Hunter Ballantyne, my 3x Great-grandfather preached in this very church.

Below is the interior of the church.

You really can feel those echoes of time. If you have read any of my other ramblings you will note that this is a reoccurring theme for me.

My next find is an article printed two days before the Gallipoli landings. This mentions Alexander buying a stretch of land called the Glenisle Estate and also notes him selling off some of the original land holdings of Kooringal.

And here below, is another section of Kooringal being subdivided and sold off and in addition to that, Alexander purchasing some suburban property, 85 acres in size. I would love to find out where this was situated and if there was already housing on it.

Now this next estate I wasn’t aware of either. The “Karinya Estate” Jessie and Alexander purchased it in 1914.

There is basically nothing out there that I can find other than this notice above that ties Karinya to the Macvean name. I searched the Land Registry maps but Macvean doesn’t appear anywhere. I have taken a screenshot of the map from 1917 showing the railway line mentioned. So it was somewhere along this yellow line that Karinya stood.

Interestingly, the Angel family who sold Kooringal to Alexander and Jessie must have owned Karinya sometime before C. A. Beggs as there are a couple of family notices for them mentioning the property.

And in a moment of pure coincidence, we just happened to walk past Eliza and James’s headstone in the Wagga Monumental Cemetery on our latest trip. It was while we were there visiting Alexander and Jessie’s headstone.

This next article, even though I can imagine, not completely unexpected must have sent shockwaves through Jessie, Alexander and the rest of the family.

Jack was wounded, according to his casualty record, in the first four days of the Gallipoli campaign, he was shot through the thigh. I then came across this extraordinary article from the Daily Telegraph printed on the 10th of June 1915 where Jack confirms in his own words exactly what happened to him and also confirms when he was wounded.

What an amazing find, a description of the first day of the battle of Gallipoli from Jack himself and confirming that he was wounded at 4 pm on Sunday the 25th of April 1915.

Word of his wounding was obviously heard all around the district, as these next articles show. They also give us some insight into Jack and his life before his time in the Australian Imperial Force.

Article 3: Courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia

Once again, I can only imagine, that mixed with the constant fear that something was going to happen to both William and Jack, (a fear that had been realised) there must have been an immense sense of pride in both of them for Jessie and Alexander. Something I know a little of now, with Alex and my eldest son Xander, having just completed his basic training with the Australian Defence Force. This is why he was in Wagga Wagga.

This feeling of pride I’m sure fueled Jessie and Alexander’s desire to support the war fund as much as they could. Here they are donating an extraordinary amount to the Australia Day Fund.

When you think that we just learned that £52 was the yearly wage on offer for a woman at the time, this £250 is a huge donation from Jessie and Alexander.

This was the first time that Australia Day was celebrated at this time and the date agreed upon was the 30th of July 1915. This date was chosen in order to focus fundraising activities by drawing on the public pride for the efforts of the Australian Forces in Gallipoli. It was endorsed by the then NSW premier Sir Charles Wade at the suggestion of Mrs. Ellen Wharton-Kirke who had all four of her sons join up. https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/the-other-australia-day-30-july-1915

I found this amazing photo at the Mitchell Library on that same last visit when I discovered the trowels. An actual photo of the day that was shot somewhere in Sydney.

This next phenomenal photo shows contemporaries of Jessie’s, the Ladies of the Wagga Soldiers Comforts Fund working their fundraising street stall.

The motto of the Soldiers Comfort Fund was “Keep the Fit Man Fit” It focused on buying and making items and food that could be sent to the Soldiers overseas. They also ran some canteens on the front line and provided local comfort items such as magazines, newspapers, primus stoves, games and sporting equipment. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/accessing-records-at-the-memorial/findingaids/special/souvenirs/comfortsfund

The Daily Advertiser, one of the local papers for Jessie and Alexander printed the list of soldiers they were sending comfort parcels to. I can’t believe my luck, I found three articles that list William as being on the recipient list.

Article 4: Courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia

Article 5: Courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia

So even though Jessie wasn’t actually on the Soldier’s Comfort Fund committee I’m sure she would have known these women well. From what I have read so far there was a real effort to ensure that the Red Cross League who Jessie was working for and the Soldier’s Comfort Fund weren’t duplicating the work they were doing in the support they were providing to the troops.

When I found this next article, I mistakenly thought that Jessie might have defected, and lent a helping hand in the other camp but then I realised it was more likely that it was her daughter-in-law, Isabel Marian Macvean that it was referring to.

Isabel you might remember from (Figure 26) above, is married to Jessie and Alexander’s other son, John Hugh Macvean, William’s brother.

And of course, the link here is Tarcutta or more specifically Deltroy the area they are all living at in 1913 as noted in (Figure 26). I now know that John and Isabel owned a property a mile outside of Tarcutta (more coming up on this estate soon) which I’m hypothesizing is where William was living before enlisting and where I know he eventually settles on his return from Europe. (Sorry, good spoiler, William survives the war.)

Alex and I had a wonderful discovery of this family connection to the area on our last visit. We went for a drive down to Tarcutta after seeing Xander’s march-out ceremony at Kapooka, and this view below was basically the first thing we saw when we hopped out of the car.

It was a special moment, I bloody well teared up with pride but it was also twinged with a little sadness. I couldn’t help but think that William’s name has been sitting there for 94 years watching the town and community he lived in wither away to become a truck interchange (which is what it is known for now) and couldn’t help but think, how long had it been since another family member had laid eyes on this tribute?

This next article is another example of Jessie’s commitment to the war effort, here she is helping with the cost of another 1000 copies of the New Testament for troops.

I happened to find a couple of really informative articles, below, just explaining the idea behind the plan for the Bibles and a little of the logistics of producing and supplying them.

The next find came out of left field and has proved to be an absolute gold mine in terms of the family information that is just sitting there waiting to be discovered. Letters that were written by Jessie and Alexander’s grandchildren to their local papers’ “Children’s Page”

This first example is from Jessie and Alexander’s granddaughter, my 8-and-a-half-year-old great aunt, Marjorie, sister to my grandfather John.

Not only is Aunty Marj’ sharing what is happening in her world at Rooksdale but also it is probably one of the first letters sent to “Uncle Jeff” with the new town name of Holbrook noted, allowing him to comment on the name change from Germanton. The local council just approved the change three days prior to Marj’s letter being written, it was in response to the severe anti-German sentiment that was building amongst the Australian community against anything associated with Germany. https://www.visitgreaterhume.com.au/Featured-Content/History-and-Heritage/Consequences-Exhibition-Project/Germanton-to-Holbrook

And what a find Aunty Marj’s letter was, look at all that information about my family just sitting there. Rooksdale is the family property my great-grandparents owned, Jessie and Alexander’s eldest son Alexander Ballantyne Smith Macvean, and his wife, Agnes Brookman Cox. I will share more about their property in a future post.

I can’t find anything specifically about a fair on the 28th July 1916 but there was a Jumble Sale on Saturday the 29th July 1916 for the Red Cross and I wonder if the date may have been mixed up. The article also notes a donation from my great-grandparents.

Article 5a: Courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia

Aunty Marj’s dressing in the Red Cross uniform was very common at the time and was one way that children were encouraged to do their bit for the war effort. https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/quick-march

Elise Edmonds in an article published in the State Library of New South Wales magazine suggests that children of the First World War were brought up to be loyal citizens of the British Empire and were constantly reminded through a number of different resources in the classroom to recognise the might of the Empire and how it was compelled to confront the aggressor Germany for the good of all. https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/quick-march

Check out this amazing example I found in the Charles Sturt University Archives of what Aunt Marj probably looked like. It’s from Wagga Wagga as well.

I can just imagine how wonderful it would have been for Jessie and Alexander to read how things were going for their grandchildren through these printed letters. I was really interested to find out what the idea was behind these children’s pages and why the children were writing to this “Uncle Jeff“

I found one result that looked like it might be a real winner.

But Nooooo! It turned out to be a dead link. Such a shame as it was an Australian article as well.

I found one other result, and this was a winner. It was from the British Newspaper Archive, I have just given a screenshot of the title, the link below will take you straight to the article if you are interested.

In a very small nutshell, Rose Staveley-Wadham explains that the children of newspaper readership were seen initially as an untapped market by the newspaper owners but it then developed into a way to instruct children on how to be well-behaved and how to have a strict moral code. She also discusses the fact that the personas writing the pages were most often referred to as “Uncle” and she believes that this was to develop an air of familiarity and also a hint of authority with the children. https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2021/04/29/birth-of-the-childrens-corner-in-victorian-newspapers/

This Children’s Page structure seems to have been adopted all over the Empire. Certainly doing a search on Trove it appears in most states in Australia at the time. I had some fantastic luck in finding the very first “Uncle Jeff” column, the very column Jessie and Alexander’s grandchildren would eventually write into, printed in 1906. It was in the Albury Banner and Wodonga Express, another of the local papers for Jessie and Alexander. In the column, “Uncle Jeff” clearly states the motivations for the Banner setting up this page specifically for young Australians.

I find this absolutely fascinating and can’t help but think that this just might be the first example of mass media control of the youth population in Australia.

Hopefully, you have noticed that I have been trying to follow that timeline for us, with the occasional blowout when there is something that I think needs to be shared out of time. We have now reached February 1916 and we find Jessie is on a bit of a break from Kooringal.

I have no context to this article other than assuming Jessie is on a short break visiting with her daughter. Lucky for us, there is a little bit of information in Trove on Hollyburton in Sandringham.

That last line of the article is my favourite. What a treat that must have been not to have to worry about chamber pots. Would you believe no photo is coming up for the property but I did find a beautiful watercolour of Hollyburton done in 1977.

It was built in 1908 and was noted for its Australian style Arts and Crafts features. It sat on 930 square meters of land and originally had a servant’s wing. https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/614c295b4739c077d925d7b4

Hollyburton was still standing in 2013, how lucky to save a treasure like that.

Mrs. L McKechnie is Jessie and Alexander’s 2nd youngest daughter, Amy Davina Ballantyne Macvean. Amy was married to Leonard McKechnie on the 21st of October 1909. I then found another article mentioning the stay at Hollyburton and, look who else is joining them and for how long.

So we can assume that Jessie got to catch up with her three grandchildren, Merlyn, George, and Leonard. But check out the length of their stay. The notice for Jessie’s visit was printed on the 18th of February and here they are a month later still there. That is some serious money.

We now have a wonderful example of another “Uncle Jeff” letter and this time it is from Aunty Marj’s cousin Ivan Laurance Macvean. He is Jessie and Alexander’s eldest grandson from John and Isabel Macvean who you will remember were living at Deltroy on the Electoral listing way above.

Here is a fantastic photo of Ivan, it is a bit grainy but to see him as a child is pretty special. He is obviously younger than the age he was when he sent the letter to Uncle Jeff. In 1916 he was 13 years old.

You’ll note the property name Ivan is writing from, Strathvean, sound familiar? There is a reason for that (Macvean) this is the property I hinted at earlier and more details are coming up.

Again, Ivan’s letter like Aunty Marj’s is also dripping with information on the family, and what an insight to have. They are sharing their perspectives on their lives that are unfiltered and that just doesn’t exist anywhere else. The most amazing thing I want to highlight first from Ivan’s letter is the information on his Uncle.

Ivan is referring here of course to William Hill Macvean and what about that absolute pearler he shares about the pick going through William’s hand? This solved a question I had about William’s embarkation for the war. I knew that the 29th Battalion that William was assigned to departed on the 10th of November 1915 on His Majesty’s Australian Transport (HMAT) Ascanius, but William was not on the departure list. We now know why.

This amazing photo below is of the Ascanius on the day of its departure. https://www.awm.gov.au/learn/glossary/h

I could not find the name of Ascanius or the 10th of November noted anywhere on William’s service record. The only information was this handwritten note on the top of the page indicating that he embarked on the 18th of February 1916.

With that date, I could search and eventually find which ship he departed on.

I couldn’t find a photo of the Ballarat on its day of departure but I did find this beautiful clear picture of the ship around the same time.

Thanks to Ivan’s letter and this one detail about William he has shared, another piece of the story falls into place for us. It just made me so happy to put this together, and it is this; we now know why Jessie was away from Kooringal and in Sandringham, Melbourne in February 1916. To see William before he departed.

And how lucky for all of them, William got to see his sister, Amy, and his niece and nephews as well.

The dates match perfectly with the timeline. In (Figure 58) above, the Herald printed the notice on the 15th of February that Jessie was staying at Hollyburton, this is the day before William departed, so this confirms she was there at the right time. I so hope she got to wave him off at the dock. Thanks to Ivan again, we now know with certainty that this would have been the last time Jessie and William saw each other. Don’t forget, we already know that William survives the war but unfortunately, Jessie dies fifteen months before William returns to Australia from the fighting.

Oh, that is one of those magic moments for me. I just love figuring stuff like that out. Now after that little dive into William’s injury and delayed departure for the war, let’s go back to Ivan’s letter for another piece of fantastic information he shared. That is the detail about his Grandmother, Susan Jane De Mamiel nee Holmes.

Susan is Isabel Marion Macvean nee De Mamiel’s mother. Remember Isabel is Ivan’s mum. Here is Susan with Isabel’s father, Stanislaus De Mamiel.

Stanislaus was 46 years old when he married Susan and she was 16 years old. She was also the niece of his dead wife, Katherine Holmes. They married in June 1880 four months after Katherine passed away in February 1880. This is one of those examples I have talked about before where the harsh reality of past norms but up against today’s values and expectations. And damn, they always hit hard.

And this is where Ivan would have gone for his holidays had his aunt arrived from Sydney. Morebringer Homestead in Howlong, New South Wales.

From left to right, Ivan’s mum, Isabel, his grandmother, Susan De Mamiel, and his aunt Katherine De Mamiel.

Our next find is another wonderful example of Jack’s own words. A second letter to his aunt and uncle, Jessie and Alexander, this time describing the evacuation of the ANZAC troops from the Gallipoli peninsula. Again, what a gift to find.

Article 5b: Courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia

How wonderful for us that it appears that the whole letter from Jack was printed and not just a precise of its contents. I can almost hear his voice it just comes across as so informal. I love the part about so many women in the country and that if there wasn’t a restriction on letting any more in his mum might take a run at it. What is that about?

There is lots of interesting information in Jack’s letter but the issue that is of genuine interest to me is the mention of the delivery of billycans. This is something that Jessie’s organisation the Red Cross League organised.

Alex and I had the fortune of finding the Riverina Museum quite by accident on our much-mentioned last trip to Wagga Wagga. I had a great chat with one of the Museum Assistants Virginia, and she shared this amazing photo below of the ladies of the Red Cross League and other volunteers packing the billies.

I wonder if Jessie is staring back at us, I’ve scanned those faces but nothing is screaming out to me that it is her. I then found this lovely mention of the ladies packing the billies and I wonder if this photo is the day mentioned here?

After reading Jack’s letter regarding the billies, we now know that his was here being packed and readied to ship to him.

We next go back to those wonderful letters from the grandchildren to “Uncle Jeff“. It is a second letter from Aunty Marj’, although she does mention that it is her third. I can’t find the second one, so perhaps it wasn’t printed. It is interesting to read what she shares about her Uncle, William.

That is very specific phrasing Marj uses for a 9-year-old. “…at the war, at least he is in Egypt…”. I wonder if she has heard her parents talking about William and his situation. He has missed Gallipoli of course and from the history I’m aware of, Egypt was the staging ground for re-grouping the troops in readiness for their transfer to the European theatre of war. I was intrigued so I started digging.

First off though here is a photo of Marj and her brother, my grandfather, John Hugh Macvean.

I found this one photo in Trove of Aunty Marj’s cousin’s baby she refers to, on the occasion of her engagement in September 1939.

I then had the great fortune of having this next photo very generously shared with me by a 3rd cousin three times removed, James Ross. James also stumbled onto this family history blog and sent me a message. His grandfather, James Roy Ross is the young boy standing on the very right of the photo.

The photo also shows Aunty Marj’s cousin, the father of Margaret above. He is the young boy standing on the left, Gordon Ross. Gordon’s mother, Jean Ross, nee Strachan (seated next to him), and Aunty Marj’s grandmother, Agnes Cox, nee Brookman (my 2x great-grandmother) are half-sisters. Christina Strachan, my 3x Great-grandmother, who you will remember I shared her headstone with you earlier in the post, is their mother. You got that? There will be a short quiz at the end.

Referring back to Aunty Marj’s letter, I so wish I could find a record of what type of car her parents had, but nothing has come to the surface as yet. Will have to keep digging.

Now back to the issue of how she referred to Uncle William in her letter. I checked out his service record and I can see there might be a reason for the specific phrasing Marj used in that “…at least he is in Egypt“. She of course could be referring to the pick accident and the delay in his departure this caused but I wonder if William might have shared some details with his brother about what was really going on in relation to his health and Aunty Marj had picked up on this in an overheard discussion somewhere. I will explain what I discovered.

William arrived in Suez, Egypt on the 22nd of March 1916, after a journey of around 12000 nautical miles. I’m sure that his ship would have stopped in at Colombo, from what I have read so far this seemed to be the normal practice for this run, presumably to take on more coal and provisions.

These departure details were confirmed in William’s service record.

On the day William disembarks, the 22nd of March, he is transferred immediately to the 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital in Abbassia. I can’t find an actual photo of the Dermatological Hospital, but I think it may have been in the same area as the 14th Australian General Hospital, which was also at Abbassia, pictured below.

I was intrigued by the fact that there was a specific dermatological hospital set up. It didn’t take too much digging to find out why it was this particular hospital William was admitted to, especially when you take into consideration what the acronym V.D.G. on his record below means. Venereal Disease Gonorrhea. (https://www.allacronyms.com/VDG/ww1)

There was a huge problem with VD infection rates during the First World War. (https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/ww1/military-organisation/australian-imperial-force/army-medical-corps)

I’m not going to go into any great details here, put it into Google if you are interested, and there is certainly no judgment from me on William’s diagnosis. I can only imagine if you were facing the very real likelihood of being killed at any moment, then you might take some solace and comfort wherever you could.

Oh yeah, just have to share with you how wrong I was on what the hospital may have looked like? It is a couple of weeks since I wrote the paragraphs above. Since then, I discovered a fantastic book on the history of the medical service in Egypt and it had a photo of the Dermatological Hospital in Abbassia.

Wow, tents. You’ll note William was admitted for 24 days. Imagine being in those tents for that length of time. The average temperature in Egypt at that time of year was around the 27 degrees Celsius mark. https://www.intrepidtravel.com/au/egypt/weather-in-egypt

You might be wondering like I did, why a dermatological hospital for a V.D. diagnosis? Well, historically venereology (the study of and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases) began and developed as an offshoot of dermatology. https://www.swissmedical.net/en/dermatology-venereology

He is then immediately moved to the Dermatological Quarantine. I can’t find any details of where this quarantine area was but I’m assuming it must have been on the same sight.

I don’t know how long he was in quarantine but the next entry on his service record states that he was admitted to the No. 2 Australian Stationary Hospital in Tel-El-Kebir. He is only there for the day.

I know this says General Hospital and not Stationary but if it isn’t the correct hospital I’m sure it would have looked very similar to the one above. (I know bold, considering I was wrong with the other hospital) William is then transferred back to the Dermatological Hospital in Abbassia where he was first admitted. His admission this time is for 48 days. The average temperature for the time he is discharged is 34 Degrees Celcius. https://www.intrepidtravel.com/au/egypt/weather-in-egypt

He must have been suffering so bad with the symptoms. From the little bit of reading I have done so far, 30-40-day admissions were not unusual for a V.D. diagnosis. Apparently, William’s pay would have been docked for the time that he was admitted as the cause for his admission was not related to his war service. https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/temptation-troops/

You can see from the last section of William’s service record above that he eventually reached his Battalion, the 29th on the 28th of September 1916, seven months after he arrived in Egypt. I can’t imagine William shared any of this with his parents but I wonder if he might have shared it with his brother, my Great-grandfather Alex in a letter and maybe Aunty Marj picked up on this, perhaps not the specifics but the tone of frustration of not being at the front for so long.

The next find is a letter from Aunty Marj’s brother, Alexander. He too mentions William being in Egypt.

I have this wonderful photo of him which looks like he might be around the age stated in his letter, early teens.

This next article is rather a poignant moment in retrospect. It is actually referring to Jack, Jessie and Alexander’s nephew rejoining the 1st Battalion in France at the beginning of April 1916. This is after evacuating the troops from Gallipoli and then traveling from Egypt to France.

At the time Jessie and Alexander would have been reading this notice, Jack was in his third week admitted to the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance (AFA) station, battling Influenza. I found the war diary entry for the 3rd AFA at the time. Just before Jack was admitted on the 29th of April, the 3rd AFA had moved from Strazeele to Doulieu.

This is where Jack was admitted when the 3rd AFA was set up in Doulieu. I can’t find a photo of its actual site in Doulieu but amazingly I found one of the Allied Camps in Strazeele and I’m making the assumption here that 3rd AFA was probably here before it moved. I also found a couple of photos of the church and the village of Doulieu showing the destruction they were all living and working in.

The reason I’m suggesting that this return to duty notice is poignant is that Jack is just eight short weeks away from being involved in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. The battle for the tiny village of Pozieres in France.

The announcement below must have been a source of much pride for Jessie, Alexander, and the whole family when they read it.

Jack’s promotion was actually noted in his service record at the end of March, three months earlier.

Next, we have a letter from Isabel Macvean, Ivan’s sister.

Obviously, the family was keeping up to date with what was happening to William. Here is Isabel in Tarcutta mentioning, just like her cousins in Germanton, her Uncle William, affectionately referred to here as Willie. It is sad to think that a 10-year-old Isabel is worried that all the young men will be gone because of the war.

We are lucky once again to have a photo of Isabel and like the one of her brother Ivan, it is thanks to the generosity of the same Ancestry user again.

I was definitely aware of Lord Kitchener and his importance to the war but I wasn’t aware of the tragic circumstances of his death. The fact that Isabel is mentioning it here shows just how much of an effect it had on the population.

Article 6: Courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia

Lord Kitchener was the Secretary of State for War at the time and was on his way to Russia to attend negotiations with Tsar Nicolas II. He was travelling on the HMS Hampshire when in rough weather near Scotland the ship hit a German mine. All 737 people on board died.

Here is a photo of Isabel’s Daddy, John Hugh Macvean, Jessie, and Alexander’s 2nd eldest son.

So, remember how I mentioned to you way back in (Figure 26) to keep the name Robert McNamara in mind? Well, we are here. Did you notice that Isabel mentioned Robert in her letter and that she had received a lovely card from him?

Just to remind you, Robert was noted in the electoral role at the top of this post as living at Deletroy, the property that Jessie and Alexander owned, and was noted as a guest at their daughter, Edith’s wedding.

Unfortunately, I can’t dig up a photo of Robert, but I did manage to find his Service Record in the National Archives with an example of his signature.

I also tracked down the death notice for Robert that Jessie and Alexander would have read. It mentions his link to them and must have been very upsetting for them to read.

An interesting fact in relation to the photo of Robert’s headstone. I found it on the Virtual War Memorial of Australia site and I sent a thank you message to the guy who had provided it, “Je Suis Catweazle”. He was very appreciative of my reaching out and said that there was no need to reference the photo back to him for its use. He just asked that I share his web page. Which I have done above.

He shared that his Grandfather had been a station manager in the Riverina area just like Robert and that his World War One diary was the inspiration for him to start a worldwide journey to visit all 25 630 Commonwealth War Grave Sites. He has been on the road cycling the world since 2015. If you are interested, check out his webpage it is more than worth it.

This is the notation in Robert’s service record describing his death as a result of a gunshot wound to the chest.

Here is another poignant moment, an article that I’m sure Jessie and Alexander would have seen and again I think it would have affected them deeply, especially with Jack and William still in the thick of the war in France.

107 years later this article still has some power to affect you, it certainly did for me.

Separately all these articles and bits of information on Robert are very special. But when you piece them together, what a gift they are in helping us to build up a picture of Robert in a small way and to understand how much he obviously meant not only to Jessie and Alexander but to his community as well.

After reading Robert’s death notice I decided to see if I could track down exactly where Deletroy was situated. I’m pretty sure I found it. I was very lucky I uncovered a couple of articles on Trove giving us some markers as to where it was situated.

This enabled me to find it on the correct Land Registry map, which wasn’t easy trying to locate it on the corresponding Parish and County map combinations.

Lower Tarcutta from the first article is great, you will see it in very small print on the first map below “Lower Tarcutta“, just down from the top in the center of the map. You’ll note also the parcels of land on the map with Alexander’s name on them, denoting which ones belonged to Jessie and Alexander.

You can see here too that the bottom of the map above and the top of the map below fit together, showing that all their land joined together on the left with just those few parcels out on their own on the right.

This is where the second article above assists us in confirming this is Deletroy, the double frontage on the Tarcutta Creek. You can see that in the map below parcels 166, 127, 170, 155, 169, 230, 88, and 87 all front onto the creek from either side.

And then how convenient, to finally confirm it for us is the name “Dellateroy” written just under the parcels of land I have highlighted. It is a little misleading for us as it isn’t written on those highlighted parcels, but I think it was probably noted there when the land holding was larger before being subdivided. Just like Jessie and Alexander did with Kooringal.

You probably noticed the other big whack of yellow highlighter at the bottom of the map, this is Strathvean, where Isabel and Ivan were living when writing to Uncle Jeff. It sits just to the right of the village of Tarcutta which is clearly visible in (Figure 76) above. This map enabled me to match it with this wonderful aerial shot courtesy of the Farming Project. It shows the position of the original homestead (I’ve marked it in yellow) that Ivan, Isabel, and their parents John, and Isabel lived in.

As you might have guessed from the aerial shot, Strathvean Homestead still stands today.

I can just imagine, Jessie and Alexander visiting with the family on that front verandah.

So we have reached the halfway point people, I hope you can join me for Part 2, which will be out soon as it is basically already written.

And finally, I just want to share with you, I have uncovered a fantastic resource that Alex actually knew about, it is called IntraMaps. Alex informed me that it is the mapping software that they use in Planning. It is an amazing tool and it has corrected some misinformation I had on the Kooringal Homestead. I will slip that into the beginning of Part 2.