I admire a former convict, an ancestor of mine. Okay, you may think, yeah, of course, she’s an Australian—these days they wear their convict heritage like a badge of honour.
No, actually, my great-great-grandfather lived in Saxony, which is now part of East Germany or Poland today. Rubber borders, you see. His crime was trivial by our 21st Century standards in the West. But then, so were the crimes of shiploads of convicts who were transported from Britain and Ireland to Australia in the early 19th century. (For this reason, I have included photos from my visits to convict settlements, Port Arthur and Sarah Island, Tasmania, as my two-times Great-Grandfather, Friedrich August Schammer, was living his life in Silesia around the same time, in the early nineteenth century.)
Friedrich August spent less than three months in prison for a crime he did not commit, but I admire the way he managed his dire situation.
How did he get into this trouble?
According to the family history book, of this particular branch of the family, in the town in which Friedrich August Schammer studied as a medical student in the 1820s, the military came to power and enforced strict and arbitrary rules. I might add here that my ancestor had already endured hardship, having been orphaned as a child, suffered poverty, and then, his older brother, who was his guardian, died from typhus. I imagine these events spurred him on to be a doctor.
Anyway, in this university town of Jena, the students protested against their restrictions on their liberty by reacting against the ridiculous laws the military had brought to the town. Some of these laws were that there be no singing in the streets, no wearing of caps, and no waving of flags. The students protested by marching in the streets to the town square, singing and waving flags. All went smoothly and peacefully with no trouble from the authorities.
Then some of the young men, probably after drinking a few beers, became bolder as young men tend to become. They threw rocks at windows, an action that got the authorities’ attention.
The military swooped in and arrested many of the protestors. My great-great-grandfather was walking past the action and was in the proverbial wrong place at the wrong time.
Arrested and tried, though otherwise of exemplary character as a good Christian belonging to the Moravian Brethren, Friedrich was convicted and sentenced to prison for six months.
It seems by his account and letters, a certain beadle in town had it in for Friedrich August.
Yet Friedrich accepted his time in prison and made the best of the situation both for himself and others. He studied, enjoyed the view of the valley from his prison room (I think he was in a low-security prison), and used his medical knowledge and skills to help those around him.
The authorities noticed great-great-grandfather Friedrich’s quiet conduct and enrichment of the prison community, and they released him less than three months into his term.
Released, Friedrich’s ordeal was not over. The university where he’d been studying banned him from returning to study there. His reputation tarnished, the villagers shunned Friedrich.
However, Friedrich did not give up. He moved to Berlin and, keeping a low profile, completed his studies at the Charité Hospital and graduated as a Doctor of Medicine. He had a heart for the poor, having been poor himself, and would treat those in need without demanding payment.
Friedrich August Schammer demonstrated those godly qualities I admire—justice, mercy, and compassion. And perseverance, even in the face of adversity.
Philippians 2:14-15—Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe…
Note: Port Arthur housed what British authorities considered the worst of the convicts transported to Australia in the early to mid-nineteenth century. I visited this convict settlement in 1981, 1995 and 2009. A place well-worth visiting to learn from the mistakes made from the past (how not to treat fellow human beings). Although the place appears serene, the presence of the tortured ghosts of the convict past can still be felt.
Sarah Island situated in the Macquarie Harbour on the west coast of Tasmania, imprisoned the worst of the worst convicts transported to Australia in the early nineteenth century.
I have visited Sarah Island as part of the Gordon-Franklin River Cruise, both in 2001, 2011 and again in 2016. I highly recommend this cruise—a bucket list for travellers—history, wilderness, rare beauty of unspoilt rivers and rainforest and…excellent food.
Carl August Trudinger was a successful businessman, a wool merchant in Bradford, Yorkshire. He owned a beautiful mansion on a sprawling property in Chevin Grange, Guiseley. So, what made him move all the way around the world to Adelaide, South Australia, with his wife and twelve children? Was he in love with the Utopian dream that Adelaide offered in the mid-1800s? Or was he on a mission?
Part 1
Family
Although he’d been naturalised as a British citizen, Carl August was born in Nördlingen, Bavaria, on February 8, 1839. Built on a meteorite crater, the houses have diamonds in their stonework. The town is one of the few remaining to have a complete wall around it. And to give you a picture of the town, remember Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? The red rooves of the Altstadt Nördlingen are what you see in the last scene of the film as the main characters rise above in the balloon.
Born to a large, well-to-do family, my great-grandfather was the fourth child (third son) of Gottlob August Trüdinger and Helen Salome T (née Erdlen). He had three younger siblings, the youngest born when he was eleven. The Trüdinger family had become key figures in the Nördlingen community, Carl August’s grandfather, Georg, having been mayor of the town. One branch of the family owned the regal, high-end Kaiser Hof Hotel Sonne, where royalty used to stay when visiting the town, and also, more importantly, the famous author, Goethe.
However, Carl August’s father, Gottlob, was a linen weaver, as was Carl August’s grandfather, Georg, who was not only a master linen weaver, as mentioned before, but also the mayor of the town. Linen weaving wasn’t any ordinary job, but one that earned good money, enough to buy a hotel at some point in the late 1700s.
So, for all intents and purposes, the Trüdinger family in Nördlingen had a high social standing. Did I mention there’s a road named after the family?
That being said, not much information exists about Carl August’s childhood and growing-up years. As a boy, he would’ve been educated in the local school. I was able to access some photos of a school in Bavaria from the mid-1800s and was surprised to see it looked exactly like the school set up at the Hermannsburg Mission in the Northern Territory, Australia. Carl August would have sat at a heavy wooden desk in a room painted green, with a blackboard at the front of the class. From what I’ve read of this era, in Germany, teachers were strict, and students disciplined harshly if they misbehaved.
However, I believe Carl August was a model student who had a passion for learning. But I could be wrong. He was the middle child after all. One thing about the Trudinger family, I can say from my research, is that they were, and still are, highly intelligent and creative. Many of Carl August’s relatives and descendants have become prominent and successful in their fields of expertise: a renowned architect in St. Gallen, Switzerland, plus university professors, doctors, businessmen, artists, and accomplished musicians.
Speaking of music, as this has played such a significant role in our family, I imagine music was central to Carl August growing up. Nördlingen is famous for its music and currently, its choir, which came to perform at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Adelaide in 2017.
As far as his religious affiliations go, I remember asking my dad’s cousin about whether Carl August was Catholic or Lutheran. She was certain that he was Lutheran, or as in German one would say, Evangelisch.
He probably attended the Daniel Cathedral as a member of the congregation. It’s just over the road from the Kaiser Hof Hotel Sonne, owned by the extended Trudinger family for around 200-years.
Another pivotal moment for Carl August would have been the establishment of the railway network in 1849. In my mind’s eye, I can see the excitement, the fascination for the ten-year-old Carl August as the first steam train rolled into town.
Carl August followed in the family tradition of textile making and selling. Most, but not all, of his siblings followed their father in the textile trade. The oldest brother, Friedrich, became a farmer.
As a young man in his early 20s, around 1865, he moved to England, settling in Bradford, Yorkshire, where he worked under the supervision of his uncle, Philipp Trudinger, from Basel, Switzerland, as a wool merchant. I reckon, to be successful in this merchant trade, Carl August would have been socially aware, interested in people, and a good salesperson.
However, my great-grandfather is reported to have had strong opinions; he was passionate about politics and justice. According to another family member who has researched Carl August, as with many of his fellow countrymen, he didn’t like the direction Bavaria was going and the influence of Otto von Bismarck, who planned to unite all the different kingdoms of Germany into one country. Bavaria was one of the last kingdoms to join Germany. When we visited Germany in 2014, my German cousin’s husband joked that, when World War I ended, Bavarian troops were still marching, and the same was true at the end of World War II.
Hence, the reason Carl August moved to Bradford, England. There, he became a wool merchant and became a British Citizen.
The Bradford Wool Exchange was built between 1864 and 1867. Bradford, with all its industries: mining, milling, ironworks, and textiles, had become one of the most polluted cities in England. It was also growing at a cracking pace. A canal had been dug from Leeds to Liverpool to enhance the transport of goods, and in 1850, the Bradford Railway Exchange was established. Bradford had become the hub of industry.
To adapt to his new social and cultural environment and fit in, Carl August changed the spelling of his name to Trudinger, the umlauts over the “u” being dropped, as they don’t exist in English.
Love and Marriage
While in Yorkshire, he met Clara Theresa Schammer, who lived in the area with the local Moravian Brethren community—the Little Horton Moravian Brethren Fellowship. Clara Theresa was a teacher there, probably at the school Little Horton Moravian community provided. This makes more sense than the Schammer Family history account, where they met in Kleinwalka, Saxony.
According to my father’s cousin, Margaret Trudinger, the two met at a dance. Another truth is stranger than fiction moment, there. From my understanding of Evangelical Lutherans from Bavaria, Germany, back in the mid-nineteenth century, dancing was verboten (forbidden). Or was it? Same for the Moravian Brethren, I would’ve thought.
Then again, maybe I’m incorrect. My Grandpa Gross, Pastor Sam Gross (a United Evangelical Lutheran, great-grandfather migrated from Prussia in 1853) danced. His younger sister, Helen, whom I met, said he was a great dancer. But then, upon becoming a pastor, Sam gave up dancing and forbade his wife and children from dancing. He claimed dancing was from the devil, representing vertically, a horizontal act reserved for the bedroom.
Could Karl August’s and Clara Theresa’s theology on dancing have been different back in 1866 when they met? Most likely.
According to a commentary on Yorkshire, where Captain Cook grew up, dancing was an integral part of life. Carl August would’ve grown up with the traditional Bavarian dancing, called Schuhplattler, where the men dress in leder hosen and the girls in their dirndls. Dancing happened in the town square during festivals. Acrobatics were a highlight of the dance, as well as plenty of foot stamping and knee slapping by the men.
*[Photo 5: Traditional Bavarian Festival Dancing AI-generated]
In Saxony, where Clara Theresa was born, waltzing had become fashionable, although folk dancing still existed. I imagine her grandmother, having grown up in Lausanne, the French part of Switzerland, and being from nobility, would’ve been partial to the waltz.
How did the meeting of Carl August and Clara Theresa in Yorkshire at a dance occur? Was she attracted to Carl’s acrobatics on the dance floor? Or were they both unfamiliar with the English dance moves and retreated to the outdoors for fresh air, where they bumped into each other? Or was it “Some Enchanted Evening” where their eyes met across a crowded room?
However it happened, Carl August and Clara Theresa were married in Herrnhut, Saxony, on September 30, 1867. Then they returned to Yorkshire to live. Twelve children followed in quick succession, in the early years of their marriage, one per year.
*[Photo 6: Carl August and his young growing family circa 1881 courtesy L.M. Kling collection]
They started married life in a row house on Claremont Terrace, Bradford. With a younger brother, Rudolf August Trudinger, and a maid or two, plus the children, they outgrew their increasingly cramped dwellings. Within ten years, Carl August and his brother had become British citizens, and they’d moved to Chevin Grange, Guiseley, West Riding, Yorkshire. One of the reasons they moved to the countryside was the pollution in Bradford city. So bad was the pollution that many children died from diseases such as cholera and typhoid. Not sure where Rudolf had gone, but a cousin from Basel had taken his place on the farm. I might add here that the farm still exists and is currently for sale for nearly 2 million pounds. So, I gather the wool trade had treated Carl August very well.
Very well, indeed.
In 1878, his wife, Clara Theresa, advertised for a maid to come and cook for them. So, they were doing well enough to afford servants to help with the running of the household.
One interesting fact revealed through a legal report in the London Daily News, February 2, 1878, Carl August is listed as the administrator of the deceased estate of John Conrad von Mandach, who, incidentally, died intestate. As John Conrad von Mandach’s family were big retail businessmen from Schaffhausen, Switzerland, being a wool merchant, Carl would’ve had connections with them. To be an administrator of this important man’s estate, Carl August would have been well regarded in his community as a trustworthy person who could sort out this unfortunate situation for John Conrad’s widow and young family. John Conrad’s son was only 8 years old.
While in Bradford, the Trudinger family had been worshipping at Little Horton Moravian Church, a fifteen-minute walk from their first home.
But when they moved to the farm, it would’ve been too far to walk to church. They may have caught the train or used their horse and buggy to get there.
But this is not where the story ends. Within the next few years, Carl August and his growing family will travel sixteen thousand kilometres to Adelaide, South Australia.
Next week, find out what made them travel to the “ends of the earth” to live in Australia and what happens next for Carl August and his family.
Have you ever played the game, “Telestrations”? It’s all the rage at the moment. It’s like “Chinese whispers” but done with pictures. Long story short, so to speak, after a picture and its associated word goes through eight people, the results can be hilarious.
Let’s just say, I had a “Telestration” moment this morning. A friend showed me a mention of a Trudinger in a book, my uncle, who conducted an orchestra–yes, so far, so good–but who also was missionary in northern Australia. Now I was confused. I don’t remember my orchestra conducting uncle being a missionary in Central Australia. My dad and his older brother were. I reckon the writer had blended the facts of the three brothers together. However, I will check with my aunt.
So, in light of the way history can be twisted and changed over time, below a post from the past …
[Heading up to Christmas, reminds me we all have them: the proverbial “black sheep” in our families. Or it might be the skeletons we want remain hidden.
As it was, in the past week, I didn’t intend to, but it happened. I made another discovery which I can’t wait to tell my mum. I tell my mum everything.
It all began when I did some research on backyard burning and the iconic Besser block incinerator from the 1960s. A fellow writer in our writers’ group was adamant that burning was banned during the summer months back then. However, I remember things differently, and so does Hubby. Anyway, as I was researching, I came across a map of Adelaide CBD during the 1920s. Don’t I just love incidental detective work! After a little more “digging,” I think I’ve found my great-uncle’s clothing shop location. Amazing!
Then, as I delved into the relatives from that branch, My Heritage offered some fascinating information which kept me burrowing down another rabbit hole. I will not bore you with the details, but I will be telling my mum.
So, on another note, here’s a refined re-blog from not so long ago.]
In the Steps of Sherlock Holmes
Some time ago, Hubby and I received our DNA results. Dear Hubby received his a few days before me.
So, over the last year, I have been familiarising myself with the process and slowly building our family trees. Early on, I discovered a truth, which could be said to be a “skeleton” in one of our ancestral lines. I added the details to see if anything further came up. My Heritage calls this a “smart match”. Nothing did, but I left it there.
For certain family members, this truth appeared absurd and too difficult to comprehend. Surely, that ancestor wouldn’t. Didn’t. No one told us that. You have it all wrong, Lee-Anne.
Hence, Lee-Anne (me), being a good person, only wanting the best for the family, deleted the suspect members from that branch of the family.
Then, curiosity set in. Who was that ancestor’s mother? Father? My husband suggested we go down the line to the descendants and put in a particular name.
This I did.
You wouldn’t believe it, but the same results, only this time verified by the official birth and marriage records. My original hunch had been correct. Moreover, in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, I managed to cross-match the added, yet odd, family members with DNA, and behold, a match.
Now, the reason I’m being so vague about the whole ancestral situation, which I might add, is responsible for our existence, is because out of respect for some people, the details of such conceptions are to remain private/personal; too personal to be published.
Isn’t it interesting that for people who want to protect their reputation, the unacceptable behaviour of other members of their family, ancestors, or close relatives must remain hidden, buried, and plainly, not discussed. Such individuals may even be ostracised from the family.
Yet, such flawed individuals can still be in other circles and be a valued and much-loved member of the community.
My dad’s cousin, Dr. Malcolm Trudinger, for instance. The story goes that he had a problem with alcohol. Legend has it that he couldn’t do surgery without a nip or two before the operation.
Malcolm’s alcohol addiction was too much for his immediate family, who, it would seem, distanced themselves from him. Maybe it was the other way around, and he felt not good enough for them. Whatever…
According to articles about Malcolm on Trove, he was regularly in trouble with the law. Infractions that in the 21st century, we’d consider a nuisance, or minor, but in the 1940’s and 50’s were important. For example, his car making too much noise at night in town. Or even one time, merely driving his car late at night. Another time, he was charged with causing a scene at a function.
Despite these misdemeanours, as I see them (glad my brother and I didn’t live in those times—in his youth, my brother loved doing “donuts” and “burnouts” in his car like in Top Gear at night with his mates), the folk on the West Coast of South Australia loved Dr. Malcolm Trudinger. He was their hero. He once helped rescue people from a shipwreck off the coast during a storm. He cared and was always there for the sick and injured.
I remember my mother telling me the story of how a person, upon meeting my father, and learning his name was Trudinger, sang high praises for his cousin Malcolm. The sad thing was that although he was still alive when Mum and Dad were first married, Mum never got to meet Malcolm.
Dr. Malcolm Trudinger was such a vital part of the West Coast community that they established a rose garden in his honour after he passed away in the early 1960s. We have heard that rose cultivation was his passion, and his roses were prize-winning. My niece discovered the garden when she and her partner were on a road trip passing through Elliston. She couldn’t have been more chuffed having found a Trudinger with a rose garden to his name. It showed Malcolm was a loved member of the community despite his demons.
This is what, I believe, grace is all about—valuing and loving people as they are. We are all flawed. Rather than hide the imperfections, celebrate the person, their life, and the goodness they brought to the community. It’s our pride and wanting to look good to others that makes us cover up our sins or those of our kin. But also, we may be protecting their reputation too.
The reality is, we are all fallen, and we all struggle. No one is perfect. We are all cracked pots. Yet, like in the Japanese art of Kintsugi (the repairing of broken pots), there is beauty that shines out through the cracks.
And so, it is with our imperfect ancestors. When you think about it, it’s the ones whose stories are different and colourful that we find most interesting.
For a sample of where some of the main characters have come from, a short story which will be serialised over the next few weeks. This one focuses on Minna’s future love-interest, Günter and his origins.]
The Choice—Bits
Short Story: Black Forest…in Bite-sized Bits
Bit 1: The Centripetal Force of Günter
Herr Crankendinger cracked the switch on Günter’s open hand. The lad, fourteen years old, the in-between of boy and man, clenched his teeth. He locked eyes with the scowling school master. Günter had the urge to snigger. Not a good urge to have when the school master is beating his hand. Günter pushed down the bubble of snigger rising from his beating chest. His stomach churned, and all fizzed up, the snigger with a mind of its own, rumbled in his throat and then slipped out of his curled mouth.
‘Dumkopf!’ Herr Crankdinger screamed. He hammered the boy’s palm again and again. ‘You will learn!’
‘Aber, the water in the bucket is held by centripetal force, not magic. The man at the Show is not the devil.’
Herr C’s face glowed red and his ice-blue eyes bulged. He stomped his one foot and peg-leg (a casualty of the Thirty Years War), and cried, ‘Heretic!’
In the candle-lit chapel, thirty-nine pairs of eyes stared at their castigated classmate, and the owners of those eyes froze on their cedar benches. One boy in the back row tittered.
Encouraged by the titter of support, Günter continued, ‘Gravity, have you not heard of gravity? Have you not heard of Isaac Newton?’
‘Oaf!’ The teacher pointed at the door. ‘Witch! And don’t come back! Your education is finished. Understand?’
‘Never learnt anything here,’ Günter muttered as he strode between the rows of school boys towards the heavy doors made of oak.
He pushed one open, squeezed through and then bolted. Pigeons fluttered as Günter ripped through the town square, of the small village in the Schwartzwald (Black Forest). First flush of spring made Günter a bundle of nervous energy, especially when he saw three milk maids delivering their buckets full of cow juice to the stalls in the square. He looked at the blonde triplets in their puffy cotton sleeves and blue pinafore dresses, and he stumbled on the cobble stones.
The girls sheered away from him.
‘Oh, keep away from the plague,’ one said loud enough for him to hear.
‘Ugh, he smells like cow dung.’
‘No one would want to marry him.’
‘All he attracts is bugs and flies.’
And the three girls giggled.
‘You’re no beauties yourselves,’ Günter muttered as he dug his hands in his pockets. He didn’t care it was bad manners to dig hands in pockets. Too bad, he thought, then tramped up the hill to his home.
On the way up, Günter glanced in a pond. His nose like the Blauen-Hoch dominated his dusky face, and pimples gathered in clumps like pine trees on his high forehead, square chin and of course, his mountain of a nose. He pulled his thick dark curls over his face to hide the awkward ugliness, and then with his head down and hands buried in his pockets, Günter shuffled up to his home presiding over the village, a mansion crumbling with neglect.
How long before his home looks like those Roman ruins down the road? Günter wondered. Another victim of the Thirty years war that had dominated life in the 17th Century. So close to the sanctuary of Switzerland, and yet…his father had to go and join the cause. So did his older brother Johann. How could Günter as a boy keep the house and home together?
Go on a reading binge and discover the up close, personal and rather awkward relationship between Günter and that nasty piece of cockroach-alien work Boris in…
Oh, dear! I must’ve been deep in the rabbit-hole of painting yesterday. See what I painted in one sunny mid-winter’s afternoon, yesterday. Anyway, being what was intended to be Family History Friday for Tru-Kling Creations, went down a rabbit-hole and ended up somewhere else.
Check out the re-blog of the story of my great-great grandfather from Silesia.
After the phone call to Fifi, Dee leaned back in her chair. ‘Gotcha, Mr. Renard. Gotcha!’ She couldn’t believe her good fortune in Fifi. Didn’t take that “Rannga” much to turn against her former friend.
However, youth group rumours were not enough to “hang” Lillie, she needed hard facts—evidence. She started with the local council office at Glen Huon. After all, most apple picking happened in the Huon Valley, Tasmania. So, a good place to commence digging dirt on her nemesis.
Thankful that she woke up the sleepy young man in the office before the council chambers closed, she trawled through the files he sent her. She was glad that such information about payrolls and workers in the area in 1981, had been digitised. Lillie von Erikson was listed as working for apple orchard owners, Greg and Janine Thomas. However, no mention of a baby or her being pregnant. Dee puzzled over the fact that Lillie, according to Fifi, seemed to have been in Tasmania long after the apple-picking season was over.
What was she doing there after apple picking? Dee wondered.
She moved onto Trove, an online digital archive, that has recorded historic newspaper articles and publications. Searched Lillie’s name in the local and state newspapers from the day.
Nothing.
She calculated when the baby would arrive if conceived in November. Then scrutinized state and also national papers for a birth in the personal pages. August—September 1981, in particular. Nothing. Still, all is not lost. Perhaps she didn’t put the birth in the paper if she adopted the child out.
But a quick check of newspaper dates available revealed that Trove only published papers up to 1950. What a disappointment!
A visit to the South Australian State Library was the next step in the search. There she trawled through the microfiche files for the Tasmanian newspapers, concentrating on births around August and September.
After an unsatisfactory August, she scanned the first week in September.
‘Ah! That looks more like it,’ Dee murmured.
She zoomed in on the notice of a daughter, Zoe, born to Lillie’s apple picking bosses, Greg and Janine Thomas. Detective Dee Berry smiled while resting her clasped hands on her belly. September 1, right in the timeframe too.
‘Interesting,’ she murmured. ‘Did the moll stay to help Mrs Thomas? Or did she give the baby to Mrs. Thomas?’
A check of the births, deaths, and marriages register, and confirmed. Mrs. Janine Thomas was over 40 when she had her first child, Zoe.
‘Not impossible, but suspicious,’ Dee muttered. ‘I think a little trip to Tasmania is what I must do.’ After saving the information onto a file labelled “Moll”, she put in an application for a visit to Tasmania courtesy of the government. After all, it was an enquiry into a murder investigation.
Who knows, Dee smirked, my enemy may be a suspect that needs to be eliminated; one way or another I’ll get her.
Dee gripped the leather-bound steering wheel of Toyota Corolla hire car as it rumbled up the unsealed road. Won’t tell the hire company about that little detour, she thought. From the Council records, the Thomas farm was hidden way out west, close to the “Great Western wilderness”. The further west she drove, the thinner and rougher the road became.
She passed a tiny town with houses painted in gaudy orange and pastel greens. A purple house stood sentinel at a fork in the road. Dee took the left track hoping to reach her destination soon. She’d given up on the Sat Nav. The designated voice, named Jilly was vague and hadn’t a clue where to go.
Dee was proud that she could still read maps and follow the directions of an old local manning the service station at Glen Huon. He said he’d remembered someone like Lillie 40-odd years back. Strangers were a rarity in a small town of fifty-odd people from where he had come. He said Lillie had walked into the church, and all twenty heads turned to size up the blonde from the mainland.
‘It wasn’t long before rumours were flying,’ the station owner said, ‘pregnant, just like the lady who lived in that purple house you’ll see when you get to the town up there. Rumour has it, she’s got a child from ten different men. Anyways, that’s a lifetime ago now. Back then, if someone sneezed across the valley there, everyone in town would know about it and the person who sneezed would have died from pneumonia. Not much better now.’
Dee must have given him a strange look, because the station owner added, ‘Oh, er, don’t believe the rumours. Them folk up there are all related, married cousins and what not, but they don’t have two heads.’
‘Didn’t think they had,’ Dee replied, ‘I just want to know how to get to the Thomas farm.’
‘Don’t know why you want to go there; the family left years ago.’
‘Do you know where they went?’
The man shrugged. ‘The missus died, so I heard. Daughter’s become some big shot lawyer in Melbourne. Something not right there, she never fitted, you know what I mean. She wasn’t one of us.’
‘Did she look like Lillie, the blonde?’ Dee showed the man a photo she had scanned to her phone of 17-year-old Lillie.
The man paused, squinted and then nodded. ‘Yeah, there were rumours. But we could never prove it. Janine, Mr. Thomas’s missus, always insisted the baby was hers.’
Sometimes characters spring from real life, Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction. Sometimes real life is just real life. Check out my travel memoirs, And escape in time and space To Central Australia.
[In 2013, the T-Team, next generation embarked on their pilgrimage to Central Australia. Purpose: to scatter Dad’s ashes in his beloved Central Australia, in Ormiston Gorge. Over the next few months, I will take you on a virtual trip to the Centre and memories of that unforgettable holiday, with my brother and his family; the T-Team Next Generation. This time, the T-Team gather and multiply as we greet our adult sons and our mother (Mum T also known as Mrs T senior) for the day, and the expanded T-Team of us set off to camp at Glen Helen.]
The T-children wanted a campfire. My brother had promised them a campfire. But bushfires in the past year had made campfires, even in the middle of winter in the middle of Australia, almost extinct. On our trip up north this time, each camping ground up until Glen Helen, had restricted fires, and denied the children the pleasure of a campfire. That’s not to say the T-Team Next Generation missed out entirely of some sort of fire to cook our food. We did spend one night in one of those free parking “camps” 30 kilometres south of Marla where we attempted to make a campfire. However, the area was so well picked over for firewood, the few sticks we did scrounge together barely made enough flames to boil a billy. So, no satisfaction regarding campfires. That is, until Glen Helen.
Even far out in the bush, the Glen Helen camping grounds had strict conditions and regulations controlling the operation of campfires. In the Glen Helen camping grounds, there was a designated place for the fire, and we had to provide our own wood. Again, dead wood around the immediate camping site was scarce.
So as the sun sank towards the Western horizon, golden rays blessing the cliffs in hues of pink and scarlet, and the humps of spinifex glowing like lumps of gold, my son and I set out in Mum’s Ford station wagon, down the road in search of a creek offering dead branches for firewood.
As the setting sun deepened the walls of the gorge into hues of crimson, I hobbled down the dry creek filled with smooth rounded river stones. Hard to imagine the creek gushing with water in flood, rushing over those stones, smoothing them to the size and consistency of bocci balls threatening to twist my ankles.
With my camera, a constant companion and permanent fixture hanging from my neck, my focus was not only on dry sticks and logs, but on the scenery. While my son snapped off armfuls of tinder from uprooted river gums that had become casualties of former flooding, I collected snapshots in time of the setting sun, blood-red cliffs, ancient eucalypts towering above the banks and the dry river-bed of stones. Night stole the thin grey-blue light of dusk. With the station wagon stacked full of wood for the fire, and my camera’s memory card full of brilliant photos for my art, we returned to camp.
What joy the T-Team Next Generation family had. Well, apart from their schnitzels that had gone off. Thankfully, we were able to share the extra and expensive lamb chops we had bought the day before at the supermarket. We gathered around the fire. The fire that cooked our dinner, then warmed us and the conversation late into the cloud-free night frozen with a sky packed full of stars.
In the past, a fire would burn slowly all night, keeping animals away from camp. The rules of the camping ground forbade that strategy. Conscious that the local fauna may come foraging, my husband packed away all the foodstuffs and loose items back in Mum T’s station wagon.
Some of the T-Lings were not so concerned about the threat of such animals. During the night, though, a half-full cereal packet would prove fair game for a roving dingo.
So, stories told, marshmallows burnt and eaten, most of the T-Team Next Gen retreated to their tents and snuggled into their sleeping bags. Mum T had gone to her cabin way before the rest of us. She hoped to rise early, with my help, to catch the sunrise on Mt. Sonder.
My brother and his son stayed chatting around the campfire. A dingo howled. Freaky. An eerie haunting cry. My nephew was sure he’d come face-to-face with the dingo when he’d taken a trip to the toilets. I left my brother and his son to their conversation around the fire and with the responsibility of waking mum before dawn, I headed to the tent to join my husband and sleep.
[Have you ever been to a place and had an immediate affinity with it? Well, that’s how it was for me when the T-K Team on their Swiss adventures visited Murten. Loved the place. I’m sure, now, that it wasn’t just the perfect weather, the picture postcard views of the lake and the charming medieval architecture so perfectly preserved. There was something more, which I was to discover recently.
For a start, my younger son would insist on put a dampener on my dreams—’How can you be related? You’ve got no Western German in your ethnicity,’ he harped on and on about that point. Anyway, later, 2024-2025, My Heritage updated their research and I no longer feel like an imposter. I am indeed, 38% Germanic. Phew! Now, the Traits recently available on My Heritage, well, that’s a different story. Talk about “Imposter syndrome”, but that will be for another time, another blog.
All I can say, is that there must be something in the connection I felt with the place. While doing my family history, I came across some ancestors, the De Bons, who lived in Murten, my five times great-grandfather was a protestant pastor in Murten. There were Huguenot connections in the family. And note the museum, where I mention that the Celts lived in Murten. According to my first DNA results from My Heritage, my ethnicity is 25% Celt.
Plus recently, as I’ve been digging into my ancestral history, I discovered more ancestors who lived in the nearby town of Estavayer-le-Lac, just a 24-minute drive from Murton. ]
Murten/Morat
Thursday, August 21, 2014, even earlier up as we planned to drive across the country to Bern and beyond, near the French part of Switzerland. Granny excused herself as the last two days had exhausted her and besides, she really needed to catch up with her uncle and auntie.
I might add here that Granny and her family, being Swiss German, were not fans of the French part of Switzerland. The feeling, I’ve heard, is mutual. (Thanks to Napoleon, the French part of Switzerland only became thus in the early 1800s. So, when my ancestors were living there in the 1700s, they would’ve identified as French.)
In Murten, the people speak French. So, when P1 spoke Swiss German to the Museum attendant, she was not amused. We almost didn’t get a Museum pass.
Back to the timeline, and some photos.
Despite Tomina’s (Tom Tom) and my under par navigational performance (early morning—yawn), we arrived at 11.30am in Morat/Murten and relished a day of summer, eating lunch by the lake, exploring the Old town and its buildings garnished with flowers, the museum of Stone Age, Celtic, Roman and Medieval relics spanning 10,000 years of human settlement around Murten. Followed by a visit to the Roman ruins in Avenches, the ancient capital of the Roman province of Helvitica.
On our return, we suffered the frustration stuck in peak hour traffic, and Granny suffered stress worrying about our late arrival “home”.
Remember the humble postcard? My maternal grandfather used to collect them…100 years ago. This week, I’m embarking a journey into K-Team history as well as glimpsing life in the past from a postcard taken 100-years ago.
I am amazed at what one can glean from a simple card. Imagine, a postcard in 1921 cost 1-cent to post from the Netherlands! On the flip side, a tiny little script in the middle reads “nadruk verboden”(copying is forbidden). I’m hoping from my understanding of copyright laws, that this restriction has long since expired. That being said, I acknowledge the publishers “Weekenk and Snell, den Haag” and have shared this postcard for historical and educational purposes.
So, we travel forward in time, when my husband and I visited Amsterdam at the start of our European adventures in 2014.
We arrived in Amsterdam and after breezing through customs, Hubby rang up Renault to get someone to pick us up and drive us to the Renault office to pick up the leasing car, the Duster. ‘You’ll recognise us,’ the Renault guy promised. We waited half an hour. No guy, no van. Dragging my big red suitcase, Hubby paced back and forth along the front entrance and I trailed behind him, his smaller suitcase bumping over the pavement. After 45 minutes of no joy, no guy, and no Renault van, Hubby rang Renault again. Apparently, the pickup guy had made several laps of the Airport pick up area searching for us. Hubby suggested we rendezvous by a well-known hotel near the overpass. We waited there for a couple of minutes before Hubby got itchy feet and off he went a-wandering. I began to follow and then looked back. The Renault van rolled around the corner. I ran, and with my free hand I waved at the driver getting out of the van.
I apologised for my husband’s impatience and then we waved at him as he approached.
After picking up the Duster from the office, Hubby embarked on the challenge of driving in Amsterdam on the right side of the road. He took a little while to adjust to not over-compensating and bumping into the kerb on the right. Which he did a few times.
We gingerly drove the short way to the service station and after parking and hunting through the French instructions, found how to open the fuel cap. Hubby had learned French at school, so was able to decipher the information without spending too many hours trawling through the tome of a manual. So, we filled up with fuel and began our journey to our apartment. Our navigation system, a Tom-Tom which we named “Tomina” since it had a pleasant, if not slightly passive-aggressive female voice, lead us to the highway and then off the beaten track, then told us to turn around. Back where we started, Tomina said, ‘Turn right.’
‘Turn right,’ I said.
Hubby obliged by tuning left and into the highway. Cars coming from our right tooted us as we entered the highway. We had to go ‘round the block to get back on track. Then we saw that where Hubby turned was a sign that read, “No Left Turn”.
We found the apartments and since check-in was only from three o’clock, we had the staff hold our luggage while we explored the local station. We admired the rainbow-coloured flags that decorated the apartment block and surrounds, thinking they looked so pretty and decorative. Hungry by this time, we ate lunch, then bought a card, wine and flowers for his aunt Ada who had her birthday on the 30th July. A highlight of the trip for Hubby was visiting his aunts and cousins that afternoon. Had a lovely time meeting and getting to know his father’s relatives over coffee and cake. Some of his aunts Hubby hadn’t seen for 40 years.
The next three days in Amsterdam we spent walking. Hubby had taken it upon himself to become my personal trainer. We must get fit. We walked the roads of Amsterdam absorbing the summertime atmosphere, admiring the canals, the graceful architecture, the boats and hundreds of bikes—everywhere people riding bikes. The town was packed with people, tourists, and revellers, eating, drinking and shopping. As it turned out, we had chosen unwittingly, I might add, to spend the weekend when Amsterdam was celebrating the Rainbow Festival. We did see some unusual sights as well as the usual antics common to drunken behaviour. My foot suffered blisters as it adapted to new hiking sandals. Good thing we had a first aid kit and some blister pads from Rogaining a couple of years ago.
We did the usual tourist stuff, one day five hours in the Reich Museum, next day lining up and herding through the Van Gough museum-art gallery, and then an hour cruise through the canals. We had a 24-hour pass so we could hop on and off certain trams around the city. One tram though, decided to close its doors on me as I tried to get off leaving Hubby abandoned on the footpath. I alighted at the next tram stop around the corner and walked back. What joy to see my husband walking towards me.
Although we mostly ate at our apartment, the last day in Amsterdam we enjoyed pancake with apple and honey for lunch, and for dinner Argentinian steak—tender juicy steak. I’m not sure what it is about Argentinian steak houses, but in Amsterdam, they’re everywhere.
Tru-Kling Creations 