Lilian Gladys
[ Home ] [ Poems ] [ Articles ] [ Lectures ] [ Feedback ] [ Family History ]

This chapter deals with the Cant family for a start and then with Lillian Gladys Cant in particular.

THE CANT FAMILY

A Lincolnshire Posy

The story of this branch of the Cant family in Australia is told by Pat Barden and Nell Pyle in “Thicker Than Water”.  At least they bring our ancestor Francis to Australia with his parents and brothers and sisters and their various spouses; but they lose track of him around the Dingo Creek area.  It is his second marriage, to Bridget Horan, that provides the connection between the Cants from Lincolnshire and the Cants of Goulburn.  The following is a brief summary of the account that appears in “Thicker Than Water”.

Our Cant family came from the village of Great Gonerby in Lincolnshire, where they had been agricultural workers.  We are interested in William Cant who was born in Barkston, Lincolnshire, 16 September 1793.  His parents were Francis Cant and Elizabeth Green.  He married Susanna Curtis who was born in 1799; her parents were Geoffrey and Sarah Curtis.

William Cant and Susanna Curtis had eleven children, all Episcopalean (a strange appellation, for Episcopaleans are American members of the Church of England).  All but two of the family, Frances and Geoffrey, came to Australia on the "Briton", arriving in Sydney 26 June 1844.  Sarah, Susanna, William and Francis (who is our interest here) were already married before they made the journey.  The confused reader should read the Barden and Pyle book which will fill in some of the details.

Francis Cant was born 14 August 1826 in Pickworth, Lincolnshire; he married Susan South who was born in 1821 in Hougham in the same county.  When they arrived in Sydney, Francis Cant, aged seventeen, and his wife Susan Bridget South, aged twenty-three, were engaged to serve J. Rickards, George Street, Sydney, as porter and cook and "otherwise make themselves generally useful", for twelve months; to be paid 22 Pounds per annum.

Francis was so young that one wonders whether this was a marriage of convenience for the sake of the voyage, though later there were two children: Mary Ann, born in Glen Innes 12 November 1850, and Susanna, born 6 July 1852.  These children were kidnapped when Francis was in Queensland in long-since forgotten circumstances - family lore tells of kidnapping by an American couple, or by Aborigines or by gypsies.  Francis and some fellow workers tracked them back over the border and found Mary Ann, but not Susanna.  Mary Ann married 11 April 1872 and died 5 February 1898.  One of her descendants has been in touch with Rita Neal, a Cant cousin who is researching Francis Cant's family and who helped with this account.

Susan South disappears from the scene and Francis Cant remarried: his second wife was Bridget Horan, an Irish lass of eighteen.  Born in Castletown, Tipperary, to Patrick and Mary Horan in 1840, and baptised as a Catholic, she left Ireland at the age of fourteen with an older sister, Catherine.  Their parents were dead, and the girls could have received no formal education, for they could neither read nor write - the common lot of the Irish peasantry of the time.  They arrived in Sydney on the "Switzerland", 20 June 1854.  The eight pounds remittance seems to have been paid by a yet older sister, Ellen, who was in the service of Mr. Owen Boyle of the Harp of Erin Hotel, Goulburn.

Of Francis's movements after he reached Sydney in 1844 little is known: a year, presumably with Mr. Rickards of George Street; then the birth of Mary Ann in 1850 on a property called Marooan near Glen Innes, where he was a groom; the birth of Susanna at Rocky River near Glen Innes in 1852 when he was a gold digger; in 1856 his wife Susanna appears to have been a witness to his brother Abraham's marriage to Catherine Martineau at Dingo Creek near Wingham on 23rd February.  Between 1856 and 1858 Susan probably died and Francis has moved to the Monaro area; from there he moved to Goulburn where he met and married Bridget Horan who was working as a housemaid at The Harp of Erin.

The wedding took place, 15 July 1858, in the Catholic Church at Goulburn, and the ceremony was performed by Father Richard Walsh.  Francis was described as a bachelor and a labourer, Bridget as a spinster and domestic servant: no hint of a previous marriage or children.   Even on his death certificate these details are not mentioned.  This second marriage was unknown to Barden and Pyle, and so none of Francis Cant's descendants from the second marriage are recorded, nor are there any details about the daughters of the first marriage, in their book.

Bridget Horan was the youngest of the six children of Patrick Horan and Mary Hickey, and was born 19 May 1840 at Corbally in the parish of Portrae, Killoran, Castletown, Tipperary.  Her eldest brother Martin was born in 1826 and remained a bachelor; Ellen, born in 1827, married William Tosney, but they had no children; Thomas was born in 1829 and married Alice Kennedy, who bore him nine children; James, born 1834, also remained a bachelor; and Catherine was born in 1838, married Denis Hall and had three children.

Francis was received into the Catholic Church, 11 August 1879, by the same Father Richard Walsh who married the couple.  I surmise that the strong faith that has appeared in this branch of the family was nurtured by Bridget Horan: it is a miracle to me that the tenuous link of Catholicism in our family should be traceable to one young Irish girl transplanted to an entirely foreign and alien environment.  It is more amazing when one considers that at his conversion, Francis was fifty-three and his wife was much younger at thirty-nine.  Her devotion with her nine children must have made a great impact on him.

The nine children were born during a period of twenty years: Sarah Ellen, 22 June 1859; Jeffrey James, 8 July 1861; Francis Patrick, 23 May 1863; Martin, 30 April 1865 (the only member of that line of the family I ever heard my grandmother, Lilian Gladys, refer to); William - our ancestor (Lilian Gladys’s father) - 14 June 1867; Mary - who became Mrs. Hunter and kept contact with her brother William - 6 October 1870; Bridget, 26 April 1873 - to die young at the age of thirteen, 18 December 1886; Thomas Joseph, 4 June 1875; and Gertrude Matilda, 4 June 1877.

Francis died 4 October 1890 at Addison Street Goulburn.  Bridget died in Goulburn, 7 January 1916.  It is their fifth child, William, who concerns us in this story.

William Cant was born 14 June 1867 at Sheet of Bark, Carcoar.  He was married in Goulburn, 7 December 1889 to Anne Wessler, in the Catholic Church.  His occupation was given as plumber with the railways and he stayed with the railways for the rest of his working life.  The witnesses were his brother Martin and his sister Mary.

Of Anne Wessler little is known: she was born about 1869 at Lambing Flat (now called Young); who her parents were remains a mystery, but she was adopted by John Henry Wessler and his wife Annie Walsh.  Search of microfiche records of birth, letters to the Catholic churches at Young and Goulburn and to The Goulburn Post have all produced nothing.  Present Wessler descendants know nothing about her.  The one surviving photograph of her shows a striking dark-featured woman, decidedly non-Anglo-Saxon, with her hair drawn severely back, and dark, piercing eyes.  The only personal comment I have about her is that she was "a more refined woman than Nana Cant" (i.e. Sarah Grieves, William Cant's second wife).  It was only in the last few years of her life that my grandmother told us her mother had been adopted: prior to that we had taken for granted that she was the daughter of John and Ann Wessler.

Anne died 1 October 1895 at Morundah near Narrandera, aged twenty six, of puerperal peritonitis, leaving three children: Lilian Gladys aged five, Francis John Henry aged four, and Kathleen Stella aged two.

It was in the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Goulburn, that William Cant married Sarah Grieves, 20 June 1896.  She was not a Catholic.  Sarah Grieves was born 25 May 1870 at Tallarook in Victoria, her parents being John Grieves, a farmer of Benalla, and Sarah Young.  William met her when he was moving around the southern parts of New South Wales with the railways in various capacities, as plumber, fettler and ganger: she was managing an inn or hotel in Jerilderie.  Their children were William, born in Cootamundra, 29 May 1897; Clarence born in Jerilderie, 29 May 1901; and Mildred (Molly) also born in Jerilderie, 14 November 1904.

From her pictures, Sarah Grieves, always referred to in later years as Grannie Cant or Nana Cant, was a formidable woman.  Family lore has some differing views of her: Gladys presented the conventional picture of her stepmother as a hard woman.  One story from Gladys may serve as an illustration and be judged for what it is worth.  Gladys learnt the piano as a youngster and was preparing for public examinations; the fees for the examination were not sent until too late to catch the mail-train.  Stories from other folk suggest a much warmer, more caring woman, particularly in later years.

Granny Cant may have been a tough woman in the eyes of some people, but that did not stop the home in Granville, where the family moved from Yass, from being a gathering point for the family for many years.

Just when the move to Granville occurred is forgotten now.  Gladys had left home in 1908 and married in 1910, Frank was away from the family soon after; and it was time for Clarence to become an apprentice, which he did at the Railway Engineering Workshops at Clyde after spending six months on a milk run because he was under age for apprenticeship when the family moved to Sydney.  So I put the time of their move at the end of 1914.  They were certainly there when Frank died at Easter in 1915.

They moved into a home at 12 Brady Street, Granville.  Sarah, as good with money as her husband William was hopeless, bought two houses in the area, one in Daniel Street and one in Elizabeth Street: there is an entry in Sands 1917 Directory for W. Cant, Daniel Street, Granville.  The Cant stronghold at Granville remained a family focus for twenty-five years.  Later, when they married, Clarence moved into a home in Smythe Street, and Molly into a home in Woodville Road, both in the Granville-Merrylands area.

Gwen (Cant) Briggs recalls William and Sarah as "loving grandparents" and regrets not seeing more of them.  The house was always spotless and the beautiful white sheets and starched pillow-shams are still a strong memory for Gwen forty years later.  Von (Cant) Fitt recalls Granny Cant's devotion to setting up a little home altar every Friday ready for the priest to come and give Grandfather Cant Holy Communion.  Doug bicycled out to visit them from Darlinghurst.

Von's recollection is that though Granny Cant was not a Catholic she did a good job in bringing up all the children in the faith of their father.  Grandfather Cant himself was a pillar of the local church at Granville and belonged to the Hibernian Society in its heyday.  In a letter from Dorothy Cant I was surprised to see a reference to a fragment of photograph of Grandfather Cant with his "lodge apron", but Von explained he would "wear his green and gold fringed collar" to the Hibernian Society's monthly Mass "with pride".  It was when he could no longer go to the Church that he received Holy Communion at home.

Grandfather Cant went blind in later life, with glaucoma.  Von's mother, Stella Cant (née Turner) took him to the Sydney Eye Hospital where his condition was diagnosed.  Gwen remembers how she and her sister Heather used to lead him around the yard at Brady Street.  Rita Neal, remembers on one occasion visiting the Granville home and walking Grandfather Cant from Brady Street to Smythe Street.  On approaching the house, the blind man indicated: "We're nearly there; one more house".  "How do you know?" Rita said.  "From the dip in the footpath", he replied.  Years later the Smythe Street house of Clarence Cant and his family was still an enjoyable visit for my family.

Because William was on the railways in various capacities, the family moved around a great deal.  Having been born in Carcoar, he was to marry in Goulburn.  There were moves to Jerilderie and Cootamundra, a settling for some time in Yass between 1908 and 1914 and a final move to Granville.  William must have remained close to some of his brothers and sisters, especially Martin and Mary (who became Mrs. John Hunter) who were witnesses to William's first marriage.  There are a number of postcards from Aunt Mary, and they reveal a very homely woman.  Martin was often talked about by Gladys and my mother.  Gwen says she remembers him when she was a small girl.  Von says he would visit them at Smythe Street and her father used to take them to visit him at Ryde.  He made Von a wooden puppet which danced.  She remembers him as a jovial man with a waxed moustache, somewhat taller than Grandfather Cant and rather better off.  Jacqueline remembers being taken to Ryde on the tram by Gladys to visit relatives.  Rita Neal says Martin, her grandfather, was no wood-carver and never lived at Ryde.  The Ryde people were actually the Hall sons, butchers:  William and Martin's oldest sister, Sarah Ellen, had married James Hall.

“Grandfather” William Cant died 11 December 1940 at the age of 74, in St. Joseph's Hospital, Auburn, having suffered from glaucoma, lobar pneumonia and chronic myocarditis.  He was buried at Rookwood by Rev. Father Peter Smith.  His son Clarence had his birthplace as Cowra rather than Carcoar and he claimed very strongly that William’s first wife Anne was surnamed Welby.  That remains a mystery.

Sarah Cant died a couple of years later, 21 June 1942.

So we turn to William Cant's children.

His first child, by Anne Wessler, was Lilian Gladys, our grandmother, born 9 December 1889 at Lithgow Street, Goulburn.  Her mother was twenty one, her father twenty two, and they were married just two days previously, 7 December 1889.  What romance lies behind those dates?  Anne Wessler was an exotic looking woman, possibly part aboriginal, and what charm she must have held for the good Catholic boy!

Their second child was Francis John Henry named for his paternal and maternal grandfathers, born 18 July 1892, died 18 April 1915.  Von says "he must have been much loved; how sad for us that we never knew him".  He was much loved and admired, talked about by all the family, from both marriages.  There are a few touching reminders of Frank; two letters, a composed photograph, some First Communion mementos, a photograph of his grave and a memorial card.  So much is said in that photograph.  It depicts a chubby-faced lad of maybe fifteen, not yet marked by adolescence, with the coat, collar and tie and hat of an adult painted in.  The family were caught by surprise at this death; there was no recent photograph of him.  After his untimely death at twenty three they constructed a suitable memory in this picture.

There is a postcard.  It is marked Binalong and dated 4 January 1910: "Dear Mother, Just a few lines to let you know you can send my food to Binalong on Thursday as we will be shifting to Frampton on Friday if we a(re) finished at Emu Flat.  F. Cant".  His letter, from Razorback, Gunning, was written March 1915, a month before he died: "Dear Parents, Just a few lines hoping to find you all well as it leaves me at Present.  Enclosed please find postal note for one Pound.  Mrs Smith gave it to me and told me to send it to you I am sending the pony today hope you get him alright please write and let me know if you get the money and the horse all right.  I am sending a wire also I think I will be going down for Easter I ordered the truck three weeks ago but I could not get it  until today We have been doing nothing up here for the last week through having no ammunation [sic] but we made a start again.  It is terrible hot and dry up here now. Well as knews [sic] is scarce I will now draw to a close.  I remain your affectly.  F. Cant.  Post Office, Gunning".

He did indeed "go down" to his family at Granville where he fell ill.  The illness was diagnosed by the family doctor in Granville, Doctor Sheldon, as appendicitis.  Frank died.  The family believed it was dengue fever contracted through drinking stagnant water.  His death certificate says: Francis John Henry Cant, labourer, died of Typhoid Fever after an illness of ten days.  Mother's name: Annie Wessler; born, Goulburn; not married.  "How Frank's death must have affected all their lives", Von says.  The story is a tragic one, especially since the young man was so beloved.  His postcards reveal a lovely simple young man.

His grave at Rookwood was adorned with a fine tombstone inscribed "In loving memory of our dear son Francis J. H. Cant", and has two little statues of Jesus and Mary.  There is, too, a memorial card with a verse:

Do not ask us If we miss him:

There is such a vacant place,

Can we e’er forget his footsteps

And his dear familiar face.

Time has passed and still we miss him,

Words would fail or love to tell;

But in heaven we hope to meet him.

Jesus doeth all things well.

There are also Frank's First Communion certificate and a holy picture of the Good Shepherd, signed "With every good wish. For Frank.  From Sr.  M. Vincent".  I do not know much about the children's education, but from this card and a later reference in a card to Stella from Gladys, it is reasonable to assume it was convent school education.  The certificate is inscribed: Frank Cant received the first Holy Communion in Jerilderie on the lst day of June in the year 1905 and was confirmed on 11th March 1906.  Signed P.P. McAlroy pp.

I wonder what Frank's job was and why he was not at the war.  Whatever the answers and whatever his qualities, he certainly left a life-long impression on his family, particularly our grandmother.

The third child of William and Anne Cant was Kathleen Stella, who came to be known as Stella, born 21 June 1893, at Mundy Street, Goulburn.  She was a strong featured woman.  It is obvious from a series of extant postcards that she loved good clothes, parties and male attention.  Surviving postcards to her from an ardent admirer, one Gus Brown, indicate a passionate attachment.  Some photos of her as a young woman show one very conscious of her feminine power and attractiveness.  One brief encounter with Charles Murray left her with a son, John Cant, born 16th December 1909.  Her sister Gladys's postcards to her at this time hint nothing of the affair.

Stella married Archibald John Sivyer, born at Swan Reach, Maitland, 16 February 1884, in Bimbi, 24 May 1919.  John Sivyer belonged to the Mounted Police, and made a very handsome figure astride his horse.  He was also and avid gambler which was eventually to cost him more than his wages.  They had one child, Jacqueline, who was born at Grenfell, 26 May 1923.  Very soon afterwards the family moved to 12 Glenview Street, Paddington, where Jacqueline lived till she died, having married, raised her children, and seen them married from the same house.

When I first became aware of Stella in the late 1940s, she was running a guest house in Merriwa Street, Katoomba, with the help of Bob McConnell.  I spent a number of wonderful holidays at Merriwa House; and though Bob could be difficult with the drink on odd occasions, I was made much of and given much freedom and many privileges.  Sometimes my grandmother, Gladys, would accompany me: she was very fond of Stella.

In the 1950s Stella and Bob moved to Northaven.  Jack Sivyer stayed quietly out of all this, living at Glenview Street; he eventually died in Maitland Hospital, 31 May 1957.  Bob remained with Stella and eventually changed his name to Sivyer.  They moved back to Sydney living in Duxford Street, Paddington, where Stella died quite suddenly and peacefully, sitting in her chair, 3 May 1973.  Bob then moved into Glenview Street with Jacqueline.

In 1946 Jacqueline married Charles Raymond Thomas.  Raymond, as he is always called, was born 11 May 1924; the marriage took place 19 October 1946.  There were two children: Warren Raymond, born 19 May 1948, and Jeanette Frances, born 16 September 1952.  Warren was educated at the Marist Brothers' High School Darlinghurst, and Jeanette at St. Vincent's College, Potts Point.

Warren married Susan McPherson 1 June 1968.  There are five children: Darren Craig, 18 January 1969; Shane Andrew, 9 January 1971; Kylie Marie 24 May 1972; Alison Louise, 1 November 1979; and Michelle Therese, 6 October 1983. Warren has maintained the strong faith that characterises his parents and the Cants; and Susan became a Catholic about the time of Michelle's birth.

Jeanette married Norman McDonald in January 1984 and there are two children: Daniel Charles and Nadine Elizabeth.

We now turn to the children of William Cant's marriage to Sarah Grieves.

The first of their children was William Augustine James, born 29 May 1897 in Cootamundra.  Little is known of his childhood but a picture of him at the age of three shows a lovely child with blond curly hair and clear blue eyes.  The family appears to have been settled in Jerilderie at this time, even though William senior may have been moving about with his job on the railways, for the next two children were born there.  William's education may have been somewhat haphazard: moving from place to place, lack of attention, who knows. He did go to school, as Gladys's postcard attests: "How are you getting on at school?" she writes in 1909.  She asks in another card "How is your arm?" The arm is a real cause of concern, if the extant postcards are any indication.  The time is December 1908; Will's arm had been broken and badly set, so that it had to be re-broken and re-set.  The result was that he was never able to touch his shoulder with that hand.  When he came to join the army in 1918 at the age of twenty one - his parents would not give their consent any earlier - he found himself, at the medical check-up, in a queue heading towards a doctor unsympathetic to would-be soldiers with any physical disability. He promptly changed queues for a more sympathetic medico and was passed into the army only to get as far as South Africa when the Armistice was declared.

In 1926, 8 July, Bill married Dorothy Lutton.  She had been boarding at the Cant household in Brady Street, Granville.  They moved immediately to the recently founded Kandos cement works, he as head gardener, a job he held for thirty nine years until he retired in 1965.  The gardens were a picture and he worked hard at them, even going so far as to obtain his greenkeeper's certificate.

Service to the community was a feature of Bill and Dot Cant.  During the Depression, for example, Bill used to pay the grocery bill for the Huntley family, his father’s sister’s Mary’s family, and give away substantial quantities of vegetables to others.  Dorothy, Dot or Dorrie, was a founding member of the local C.W.A. and served the community in a number of ways.  She was a noted speaker and a splendid singer: she had taken singing lessons at the local Good Samaritan convent in Kandos - a Spanish-style building, still to this day one of the feature buildings of the town - in 1929 and 1930.  She sang at weddings for no charge and performed regularly at variety concerts.  She and Bill, after his retirement, moved to Woy Woy where they died, he in November 1972 and she in 1979.

There were two children: Gwennyth Dorothy was born 29 May 1930, and Heather Myrtle 3 February 1936.  Gwen married Clement Douglas Briggs.  They live at Ilford, where Clem runs a farm of 1600 acres with Hereford cows and Merino sheep [Clem died several years ago and Gwen moved to Canberra – (note August 2003)].  They have two children: Garry John born 8 October 1954, and Lynelle Jan, 23 June 1957.  Lynelle was (1985) private secretary to Senator Don Grimes.  Gwen carries on in her mother's footsteps as devoted C.W.A. identity and a member of the local Uniting Church.

Heather at an early age was discovered to be retarded in her development.  She was able to stay in the family until the onset of adolescence, when the little rages brought on by the indiscretions of other children and the dawning realisation that she would never have a normal social life made it difficult to manage her at home.  She spent a long time in a government institution at Stockton where she received a sound and appropriate education.  There is in Heather a latent charm and talent; she seems to have musical potential.  As a child she used to sit on the office steps at the cement works and entertain the arriving staff with "piano" renditions of the classics which she would sing with some accuracy.  "One Fine Day", from Madame Butterfly, was one of her favourites and she would sing, appropriately enough, "at office meeting" instead of Puccini’s words "at our first meeting".

After a change in government policy she was moved from Stockton to Morriset with less than happy results.  She was for some time now at Leura in the Blue Mountains where Gwen can see her regularly: it is a good place and a pleasant little community.  She has since moved to Mudgee.

Clarence Clyde Darnley Cant was born at Jerilderie 29 May 1901.  He was a staunch, probably stubborn, Catholic, to such an extent that he would not marry Stella Turner until she converted: it is to her credit that she remained faithful to the change.  They married in 1929.  We always enjoyed our visits to Clarry's house at Smythe Street, Merrylands, as well as their visits to us in Boundary Street when we had to keep watch for their arrival from the tram so we could rush back home to alert Gran to put the scones in the oven.  Gladys always cooked scones, and we delighted in avoiding the two Merrylands magpies - one of which was vicious, the other being cowardy custard.  Clarence was a foreman at the Clyde Engineering Works, and a tough one.

Yvonne was born 22 May 1932 - May was a popular month for Cant births!  She was later to marry Wilfred (Bill) Fitt, 23 November 1957.  There were two children: Louise, born 6 May 1959; and Rebecca, born 24 May 1964.  Von's life has not been exactly easy. For one so beautiful to have suffered so much is hard to understand, but she has an inner quality which allows her to cope - a strong characteristic of the Cants.  In the late Eighties Von decided to leave her husband and live with Ian Hore.  They moved to Port Macquarie and later to Queensland.

Clarence junior was born 14 January 1934.  He married June Sheehy and there are two children: Jacqueline born 31 November 1963, and Mark born 23 September 1966.  June died some years ago of cancer and Clarry has remarried.  “Boy", as Clarry was called to distinguish him from his father, was an unassuming man, but a great mimic under that quiet front.

The last Cant child was Mildred Mary, whom everyone called Molly. She was born at Jerilderie, 14 November 1904.  Molly was the apple of her mother's eye and much favoured.  Molly was given the best of educations: she was trained as a nurse and as a tailoress, and she gained her cap and gown in piano studies.

Gladys left home three or four years after Molly was born, and while she visited the family from time to time, she was probably not very close them at that stage.  There were postcards aplenty, and in November 1909 she is saying to Will: "Tell Molly and Clarrie to write to me".  But there appears to have been a long gap in Gladys's contact with Molly then or at some later date.  In 1960 when our family was driving to the Blue Mountains, Gladys announced unexpectedly as they were passing through Glenbrook: "I have a sister who lives here - let's see if we can find her".  There and then they turned about and searched out Molly, and received a very warm welcome, establishing a contact that was to last until the sisters died years later.  Molly’s family was stunned at the revelation of a sister after what must have been years of no contact.

Towards the end of the 1920s Molly met Bertrand Henry Louis Jordan, 16 November 1929.  Soon afterwards she and Bert moved to Woodville Road.  Things did not go easily in their marriage.  Bert soon contracted tuberculosis and had to spend time at Boddington near Wentworth Falls.  He never fully recovered, and when he and Molly moved to Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains she went to work and Maureen, their daughter, went to boarding school in Goulburn.  Von sums it up when she says, "I think Aunty Molly had a sad life.  The loss of both her children (Noel aged four and Maureen much later), and Uncle Bert had T.B. for many years.  She worked hard for many years at the Goodyear Tyre Co., in Granville - all during the war years, and she had to put Maureen in boarding school.  She must have had a lot of tenacity and courage.  Aunty Glad was much more generous in her thinking towards her than my parents were, and Aunty Dorrie always kept in touch with her".

There were two children: Maureen Annette, born 30 September 1934; and Noel William born 28 March 1937.  Noel died at the age of four at Bill Cant's house at Kandos either from meningitis or a germ in the bowel.  Maureen married Frank Ingram (b. 2 August 1926) at Glenbrook, 24 November 1962.  Maureen and Frank had two children; Clare Mary, born 2 December 1966; and Anne Eileen, born 4 December 1970.  Maureen sadly predeceased her mother, dying of cancer 11 January 1983.  Molly died eighteen months later from the same cause, 5 July 1984, eighteen years after her husband, Bert, who died 23 April 1966.  [Note August 2003: I lost touch with Frank and the two girls for some years, but some years ago my sister and I called in to see him in the old Glenbrook house: he was pleased to see us and gave me some very old Cant photos.  He died a year or two later.  I also had a call from his daughter Anne, around 2000, and visited her and her husband Anthony and their children at Kingswood: Anne was interested in the family story.]

I am struck by the quality of the Cant grand-daughters: Honor (born 1910), Jacqueline (1923), Gwen (1930), Yvonne (1932), Maureen (1934) and Heather (1936).  These women had genuine beauty, external and especially internal.  They had a highly developed spirituality, a devotion to God, a sense of steadfastness, loyalty and courage which is impressive.  Each of them had some real suffering - in marriage, in health, in relationships - but they came through as whole people, their faith strengthened.  They have all been devoted to their Church; but they were model Christians before they were churchgoers.  Who knows where these qualities have come from.  It would be romantic to say these are specifically Cant traits.  But I do have a strong sense of respect for Bridget Horan, the young Irish girl who left her homeland at the age of fourteen, married a man some fourteen years her senior, a man who had two children already - although it is unlikely Bridget knew of them - and was probably responsible by her good life for his conversion to the Catholic faith at the age of fifty three.  This strong religious faith, passed through to the present generation and allied to a hard headed practical approach to life lived in the service of others, seems to be a feature of this branch of the Cant family.

  LILLIAN GLADYS CANT

The Book of Proverbs' Valiant Woman.  “Who shall find a valiant woman?  Far and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her.”  (Proverbs 31:10)

The first born child of William Cant and Anne Wessler was Lillian Gladys.  Her birth and death certificates give her name as Lillian Gladys, but she called herself Gladys and came to be called Gladys.  She was born 9 December 1889 at Lithgow Street, Goulburn,' her parents having been married but two days earlier.  Her first four or five years were spent in Goulburn, Francis John Henry (born 18 July 1892) and Stella being born in Mundy Street, Goulburn in 1893; but there must have been a move to Morundah near Narrandera, for that is where Anne Cant died in October 1895, leaving a husband of twenty eight with three children of six, three and two years of age.  It is easy to understand why William Cant remarried the following June: a wife to his bed and a mother to his children, he being on the move from place to place with his railway work.

William Cant met Sarah Grieves in Jerilderie, but their wedding took place in Goulburn.  The children may well have been at Goulburn, perhaps with William's parents.  The next we know of the family is that they are in Cootamundra where William junior was born in 1897.  There seems to have been a more permanent move back to Jerilderie for some years: Clarence was born there in 1901 and Mildred (Molly) in 1904.  It was at Jerilderie that Francis made his first Communion in 1905 and was confirmed in 1906.  At this time Gladys was almost seventeen and close to leaving home.

Gladys seems never to have got over the early death of her mother: she spoke of her with affection and sadness, though she could have remembered little of her, being only six when her mother died.  Her memories were no doubt heightened by her lack of fondness for her step-mother.  It was only a few years before her own death that she told us her mother had been adopted.  At the same time Gladys gave me a photo of her mother, a fine looking woman, if a little severe, with drawn-back hair and penetrating eyes and a the distinctly aboriginal cast of the face.

Gladys must have had a sound education: she was a beautiful writer and had a head full of all those sorts of things that primary education used to insist on in the first part of the Twentieth Century.  Besides, she was obviously well enough qualified to become a tutor to several private families.  It seems that she taught the children of several families for some months when application was made for her to become the teacher of a subsidised school in South Yalgogrin.  The relevant Act stated that "In very thinly populated localities where a private teacher is engaged by two or more families in combination, such teacher, if approved by the Minister, may be paid subsidy at a rate not exceeding Five Pounds per pupil per annum on the average monthly attendance.”

In a letter of 4 August 1908 signed by P. Board, Under Secretary of the Department of Public Instruction, addressed to Mr. V. Norris, c/- E. Pope, Esquire, South Yalgogrin Narrandera, we read: “Sir, Referring to the application dated 20th ultimo endorsed by you and Mrs. B. Goodwin, from Miss Gladys Cant, for the position of Teacher of the Subsidised School at South Yalgogrin, I am directed to inform you that the Minister of Public Instruction has approved of Miss Cant being recognised by this Department as Teacher of the above school.  Payment of subsidy to Miss Cant will take effect from the date of her entry on duty, provided that she then taught the children of the two families.  Copies of the regulations are forwarded ...”

From an extant account, she received for the period of 23 June to 31 July 1908, for teaching an average of ten pupils per day, the splendid sum of Five Pounds, four shillings.  She was to teach there for eighteen months, till December 1909.

Her elegant Composition Book is inscribed with several places and dates: "Rosemead, Easter 1908", and "Melrose Valley via Condobolin [written back to front] "15 April 1909”.  Her composition book probably served as a lesson notes to be copied onto the blackboard or dictated.  The writing of the eighteen year old girl is firm, mature, impressive - so indicative of her character - and of a style that did not change even till the last time she signed her name.

"Salt”, she writes, "is a mineral. There are three kinds of salt …"  "Water is a liquid because it takes the shape of the vessel that holds it …"  Clouds: It is pleasant to watch the clouds and observe their different shapes and colours".  Flax, sugar, air, are all written up for the children to learn.  There are poems and proverbs too: "A bad workman quarrels with his tools", and "To labour is to pray".  These simple lessons were taken to heart - she was a woman who practised what she preached.  There are CXIV pages of notes and poems, the last one being dated 17 December 1909.  She was married 16 February 1910, and the next few pages of the book are used to write recipes for soap, yeast, ginger cordial, hop beer, linoleum cream and furniture polish.

In 1908 the family was living at Yass Junction and remained there till 1914 when they moved to Granville.  Gladys had left home to make her own life and marriage, but in some ways she never left because she always kept contact through letters and visits and retelling of stories: the Cant family was our family in a very real way.  Everybody returned.  Doug even bicycled from Darlinghurst to Granville to visit the family at Granville.

Many of the postcards are still in existence: Stella left behind a whole album full which I found at her daughter Jacqueline’s Glenview Street house.  They are an invaluable insight into these few years of Gladys’s life.  There were nineteen written by Gladys between 23 July 1908 and 18 March 1920, fifteen to Stella, the others to Will, "Mater" and her father.  They reveal something of the woman behind them, but also indicate how much she hid: talk about the weather and things she did, but most of all requests for letters in return - she was quite bossy in her requests, yearning, it seems, for family contact.

The first four postcards from Gladys to Stella are addressed "c/- E. Pope Esquire": Gladys was living with the Pope family at South Yalgogrin.  "It is raining", she writes, 23 July 1908, "but the grass is only fair".  She did not get "either" of Stella's postcards till the previous Monday, and "don't forget to answer by return of post.  Love to all at home".  The postcard features a pretty ribbon arrangement of the name Kitty - Kathleen was Stella's first name.

"Dear Mater" is the recipient of the second card, 20 October 1908.  It is "just a line or two in haste hoping to find you all well as this leaves me at present".  No time to write, shall do so, all is well, enjoy your holidays.  "I remain yours in haste, Gladys", and a coloured view of the Ocean Beach, Manly.

Stella's card arrives and is welcome, 3 November 1908, but "I notice you don't forget to keep me waiting long enough for an answer.  Mind I want an answer in a week".  Seven weeks to Xmas, lovely weather, would like to be back at Yass.  The postcard shows the facade of Sydney University, and a note is added: “… this is the best I have so you will have to do with it."

There is a lengthy card on 15 December 1908.  She will not be home on Saturday, "tell the Mater”.  She is to close the school on Wednesday, go to Kildary till Saturday and return home on Monday.  The weather is very hot.  "I shot an iguana on Sunday and wounded a crow" - it is hard to imagine her with a rifle in her hands, let alone killing anything.

In the New Year she moved to West Wyalong, c/- Mrs. J. King, Stony Flat.  It is not so close to the South Yalgogrin Subsidised School.  She arrives safely and "met two or three I knew, they were very glad to see me back".  There is news of Mr. & Mrs. Goodwin whom she had stayed with in Kildary, of Mrs. Hartigan and Lillie O'Connell.  She saw Mother Philomena who "wishes to be remembered to you", and "says you ought to go back to school".  Mother Philomena must have taught the Cant girls in Goulburn and kept that typical interest in them that Sisters do.  An urgent message: "Write very soon please".

The twenty year old girl is lonely and as anxious for news as she is full of it: Fred and Mona, her aunt Mary's children, have the fever badly, she writes 23 February 1909.  She has had a letter from Aunt Mary (Mrs John Hunter, her father's younger sister).  She has not had one from Stella and “though you say you sent one I can safely say that I did not receive it.  I was vexed to think you did not have the good manners to answer my p. card, but if you sent one, it must have gone astray.  I suppose I will forgive you this time". She won't be home for Easter.  There has been lovely rain.

This postcard could not have had another word written on it; it is packed with news and concludes: "Son Hall sent me his photo, so did Jack".  Son Hall was a cousin and the son of Aunt Sarah Cant who married James Hall.  Love is in the air: Jack was undoubtedly the man she was to marry twelve months later, John James Whittaker; and at this time Stella was probably seeing Charles Murray, for her son Jack Cant was to be born the next December.

The next couple of letters become a little more agitated in tone.  She writes, 27 March 1909: "Are you going to the Yass show?  Have you any exhibits.  I did not like the p.card you sent.  Why did the boys not have the good manners to answer theirs?  I am going to a coffee supper on 5th April, if I am alive and well … Excuse scribble as I am very tired and in a hurry".  And in the p.s.: "What was the dance like.  I hope you did not go to it.  I am not going down at Easter, it is too far.  Write soon and tell the boys to do so, too, please".  The wider family is obviously important to her: Maud and Ciss, who were Uncle Martin's daughters; Aunt Mary's Fred and Mona, this one, that one.

In June 1909 Gladys is writing c/- Mrs. J. Whittaker, Melrose Valley via Condobolin.  This lady is soon to become her mother-in-law.  She is enjoying "the best of health", she writes 22 June.  "This is one of the Condobolin photos. What do you think of it?  The winter so far has been beautifully mild.  Has the excitement about the Federal City died out in Yass?  I am glad the Mater has taken a holiday. Which of the Cants do you have visiting you?  I have no news to tell you as you are not interested in anyone or anything about here".  She concludes: "Give my love to all", adds "yourself included" and finished coolly "Yrs. respect.  Gladys".

Her card of 28 September 1909 seems a mixture of excitement at her own situation and chagrin at Stella's taciturnity.  Stella's card was very welcome and very pretty and "you will think I am a very long time answering it.  I have not had much time".  Mrs Whittaker had been away in Parkes for eleven weeks with a bad leg.  Gladys was in town at show time, and had been to the Vermont Hill Hospital picnic.  There was a ball that night, "but I did not stay for it.  Dancing is not in my line these days".  Has Stella been to any amusements lately: "When you write to me you tell me nothing I ask you.  Why don't you answer any question I ask you?  One would think I did not know anyone about there.  This is all the news this time, so don't forget to write soon and let me know all.  I remain Yours truly Gladys".  By the end of October Gladys is probably pregnant with her daughter to be born in July 1910, so the cards over the previous month or two may reflect something of the tensions in her life at that stage.

Gladys sent cards to young Will also, and several have survived.  An unaddressed card dated 8 November 1909 reads: "Dear Will, [now aged twelve and a half] Just a few lines in the hope of finding you in the best of health. How are you getting on at school?  I will send you a real nice p.card next time.  This is the only blank one I have.  Write soon.  Love from Gladys.  Tell Molly and Clarrie to write to me".  Clarrie and Molly were every bit of eight and five years old!  Gladys had written twelve months previously, December 1908, "How is your arm?" she asks.  "I should not send you a p.c. you did not answer the last one I sent you.  Are you having a concert at Christmas.  If so, are you in it?"  Aunt Mary seems a lovely lady - all care and a touch of fluster; not quite refined but very good natured.  It is said that when she did not have enough washing to make a good impression, she would add sheets and pillows cases from the cupboard to make up a line full.  When she refers to William and Sarah Cant in her letters to Stella she calls them "Pater" and "Mater". 

There are five postcards to Stella in this period and they are very homely: 'Miss Stella Cant, c/- Mr. William Cant, Ganger, Yass Junction.  Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with best love from all to all.  M. Hunter" for Christmas 1908.  And within a few weeks, probably after Christmas: a Happy New Year and “we will be pleased to see Gladys at any time.  Did not know anything about William breaking his arm".  Before the end of January she writes: “I hope all the people got home alright and enjoyed themselves at Cooma and Sydney.  I suppose Gladys will soon be leaving again for school.”

By mid-February two of her children, Mona and Fred, have the fever, she “a hundred and two yesterday and Fred was 107 on Monday.  Give our best love to your Mater and Pater and all the family.  I had one letter from Gladys since she went back.”  In early March Mona and Fred are improving, “The Dr. said they are going as the general run of fever cases.  Mona and Fred has [sic] had their hair cut off.  We are very sorry to see [it] coming off ... How is Willie’s arm getting on?”  Her husband, Jack, visits Sarah and William Cant in Yass at this time.  Mary writes: “Tell your mother I cannot thank her enough for her kindness to Jack.  Well the children are just as well as can be expected.  It is such a lingering illness.  They only take boiling water and milk and talk about been [sic] thin.  They are something terrible.  If you are writing to Uncle Martin tell him about them but don’t say I told you.”

The last we hear of Will’s arm is in a letter from Stella dated Yass Junction, 21 - 1909, obviously January or February.  “Mrs J.Hunter, Reynold Street, North Goulburn, NSW s.a.g.  Dear Aunty Mary, I sent you a P.C. last Tuesday and have not yet received an answer, but I think it must have gone astray because I only addressed it to Goulburn.  The doctor said he cannot do Willie’s arm any good now.  Write soon and let me know how Mona and Fred [are].  Love from Stella.  (s.a.g was a pious Catholic custom - Saint Anthony guide - just in case the Post-Master General failed in his duty.)

The last of Mary Hunter’s letters that we have could have been written at any time: “Dear Brother and Sister”, she writes to William and Sarah Cant, “Uncle Abraham’s Sarah has been down here for a holiday and is going home on the mail train Wednesday morning.  I thought you would like to see her, she would like to see you both.”  Abraham Cant, who married Catherine Martineau, had thirteen children; they lived originally at Dingo Creek and later moved to Carcoar.

We next hear from Gladys in Sydney: there are two postcards dated 4 January 1910, one to Stella and one to her father.  Things have moved quickly.  There is no indication in the letters of any excitement or special news; she is simply in Sydney, on holiday, seeing the sights, with Mrs Whittaker (a lady of fifty) - and, if we read between the lines, a friend.  The friend must be her soon-to-be husband, the handsome John James Whittaker.

She says to Stella: “I am having a bit of a holiday.  Will be home next week.  Might bring a friend with me.”  And to her father she writes, c/- Mrs C.W.Brown, “Kerribree”, Hereford St, Glebe Point: “You will be surprised to hear of me being in Sydney.  I came down with Mrs Whittaker.  She is going home early next week, so I will go home then.  Will you be willing for me to bring a friend home with me … They will only stay a few days" - convenient and ambiguous "they", who had come down from Condobolin on Sunday morning.  They went to St. Andrew’s on Sunday night - the Anglican Cathedral where John James's father had been christened in December 1848.    On the Monday night they went "down to the Quay and out to Callan Park".  The Callan Park visit was not out of mere sight-seeing curiosity: they visited Mr John Whittaker there, for that is where he died in July of that year.

They went to "the moving pictures" and were to go to Manly that day, "not coming home till the last boat".  On Saturday they were to go up to the Hawkesbury Bridge.  "So you can see", she concludes, "we are having a good time".  It was probably the best holiday Gladys ever had.  The friendship with John James included more than sight-seeing: Gladys at this stage was some two months pregnant.  No doubt it was at this time that John James bought her the exquisite engagement ring: it is utterly simple with three sapphires and two diamonds set into a plain arched band of gold incised with several simple scrolls.

Gladys and John James Whittaker were married 16th February 1910 at St. Augustine's Church, Yass, her family's homeplace: he was thirty one and a handsome man, she was twenty and winsome.  The wedding must have been a family affair because William Cant had given his consent, Stella was a witness if not a bridesmaid, and the wedding photo is a work of art.  A hand painted photograph cut out and pasted between sheets of glass, with a painted background to give a three dimensional effect - all in an oval frame.  The wedding dress was elegant, high-necked and embroidered, and John looked splendid in a dark suit and patterned waistcoat.

All of that makes it very hard to understand Gladys's next letter to Stella.  Dated 26th April 1910, it begins: "You know my address ... I have not been too well lately. Jack is having fairly good health".  She goes on to say: “I wrote to Mrs. Lang and sent a letter for you in with hers.  If I write your letter to Yass Post Office, would you be able to get them.  Let me know as I want to send the photos to you if I can.  If you can't get them from Yass let me know and I will send them c/- Mrs. Lang.  Jack is going to write soon".  She concludes: "Hope this has more luck than the others".  There was no address, to or from, on the card.  The most intriguing thing is that the writing is back to front: hold it up to a mirror and the writing is perfectly legible.  It was an art Gladys had cultivated: there is a small example of it in the Composition Book.  But why all this secrecy?  Gladys's marriage was not a complete surprise to the family; there was a month's warning; the events surrounding the wedding seem normal enough.  Did the early pregnancy worry them?  It may have been an embarrassment before the straight-laced Sarah Cant, though William Cant and Anne Wessler's marriage was just in the nick of time: two days between their marriage and Gladys’s birth.  Maybe Stella was out of favour over the birth of Jack Cant out of wedlock; but yet she was a witness to Gladys's wedding.

And the cause may well have been both those matters: Jacqueline was to tell me 11 November 1986, after this story had been originally written, that her mother, Stella, was indeed out of favour: she had to seek refuge in the later stages of her pregnancy or perhaps after Jack Cant’s birth, 16 December, 1909, at the Salvation Army Home at Marrickville.

Gladys's postcard of 21 June 1910 is the last one for six years, and things seem to have returned to normal.  Stella is again at Yass Junction, "Jack and I are in good health at the moment" (though she is a month away from her confinement).  The weather is beautiful; Yass is very cold - though the winter has not been a cold one; any news of the Cants in Cooma?  Condobolin show will be held in August this year.  "Jack is going to write every day, but he keeps putting it off.”

Gladys and Jack’s two children were born fairly close together: Honor Delores Frances was born at Condobolin 16 July 1910, and Douglas John 8 March 1912.  Life must have been hard for Gladys, but she was tough and certainly not afraid of hard work.  I suspect that she had to work to make ends meet: John James had no trade or profession, having worked with teams of horses at an early age and being involved with timber getting.  In one of her letters she refers to him "ploughing his crop" (26 April 1910) and on Honor's birth certificate he is described as a carrier.  I know from Doug that at some time the family was living in a tent in the bush and there was trouble with biting camels and mischievous horses.  Doug used to delight in saying he was born in Cowra "at the foot of Billygoat Hill", (which I discovered was where the hospital was situated!).  The family were back in Condobolin in 1916.

Her letter of 11th November 1916 is written from Orange Lane, Condobolin.  Its glancing reference to World War One is touching, and the letter also shows her devotion to Stella: “I am writing once more to let you know I got the parcel safely yesterday evening.  What a long time it took to come.  I will try to have your skirt done and sent back by Tuesday.  I was surprised when I saw the length of the tear.  I imagined it to be something like the others but I will fix it up for you.  Send along anything you want done.  I will gladly do it for you. I must thank you for the nighty [sic] and the camisole.  They are very nice and won't take me very long to work them.  I must try to have them done before Xmas if possible.  The fur is very nice now and so are the photos. They are very like you.  Mrs Mc says the one of the bust is just what you looked like the day you were dancing around with ‘Bimbi’.  [This may refer to John Sivyer whom Stella was to marry in 1919 - he was born in Bimbi.]  I have a terribly bad headache today.  I can scarcely see to write.  Did you get two letters this week?  I sent a short one on Tuesday and a long one on Thursday.  I have to scrub the kitchen and back verandah now, then go to the train with this.  I have to go to my lesson at 2.30 today.  I went yesterday but they were entertaining someone at afternoon tea.  Twenty boys are going away today.  I will be able to see them off, won't I.  No more.  Love from Gladys.  A fascinating card!  What kind of lesson was it?  Whose place was she scrubbing?  Did she know any of those boys, who were going off to the War?  Where are Jack and the children?  And how anxious she is to do that sewing for Stella.  Gladys's needle work was beautiful and she tried to pass on her skills.

Another undated letter to Stella from Condobolin refers to the dust storms every day.  She asks after Jack - either Jack Sivyer whom Stella was to marry in 1919, or young Jack Cant.  Gladys feels the heat - "it was frightfully hot ... I thought I would peg out” [that is a Gladys phrase!]  She keeps working for her sister: “... I sent you your coat today," she writes in another card.  "I could not do it any better because there was not enough material.  I think that had Mrs. Smith [the former Mrs. Whittaker, who married William Smith in 1919] not joined the pieces I could not possibly have got it at all".  It is addressed, as is the last card, "My darling sister".

The last card we have from Gladys to Stella is dated 18 March 1920 and was sent from Condobolin.  It tells us a number of interesting things.  "My darling sister," it begins, “Just a few lines to let you know that I am still alive and doing well.  I get very good health now.  I only hope it lasts.  I have no intention of going under the operation just yet.  When I tell you I have my boarders back you will know how I am.  They were very pleased to be able to return.  They did not care about McInnes.  Jack is on Wright Heaton's lorry this week.  Mr. Byron is very ill.  They are going to take him to Sydney.  I suppose you have quite settled down in your new home.  I guess Jack had everything in apple pie order and was pleased to get you home.  Did you go out to Granville when you were in Sydney?  We have had some awful dust storms.  How do you feel after your holiday? I suppose you miss being at Katoomba.  Fancy Jack ("The Greek") being down here.  Peter is trying to sell out. Well dear I must close.  Long letter next time.  Love to you and Jack from Gladys.

She ran a boarding house called Myra cottage - in Denison Street, I think - in Condobolin for some years, and it was to become a bone of contention: John James was inclined to jealousy.  Stella was now married to Jack Sivyer, reputedly a fastidious man who was bound to have everything "in apple pie order".  The holiday at Katoomba is beautifully captured in a photo of Stella and some friends below a waterfall.  The reference to "Jack ‘The Greek’ ” is intriguing, but obscure, and uncharacteristic of Gladys.

The Cant family had moved to Sydney by 1914 to provide opportunities for the younger children.  The next Easter Gladys's favourite brother, Frank, died; but there are no extant letters with any reference to the death.  I wonder whether she travelled to Sydney for the funeral.

The last card in this fascinating pack is as unexpected as it is vague: unsigned, even the addressee's name is incomplete - “Mrs. J. J. Whitta--” - and a scrap of verse which speaks for itself:

Though far away Dearest I'll never forget

The love I have borne since the moment we meet

Though smiling I mingle

In throngs of the gay

And I silently pray that a blessing may rest

Everything points to John James, and my sister says the writing is his.

On that happy note we leave Condobolin.  It was 1926.  Gladys had been running a boarding house for eight or nine years.  The children were growing up.  Gladys was thirty seven, Jack forty six, and he looks every bit of it from a photograph taken about that time of a group of boarders on the front steps of Myra Cottage: he is there with Gladys and Honor.  The youthful good looks have faded; the prospects of employment for the children were unpromising; Jack was jealous of Gladys with the boarders, and he was probably not all that close to the family, the romance of 1909 having long since passed. Gladys was the centre that held the family together and she decided it was time to move to Sydney.  The decision having being made and everything packed, Jack could not make up his mind.  Gladys and the children went; Jack and most, but not all, of the goods followed.

The Sydney sojourn begins at 28 Gosbell Street, Paddington: J. Whittaker is listed at that address in the 1927 Sands Directory.  Honor goes to Business College and Douglas to the Christian Brothers' School next to Sacred Heart Church, Darlinghurst.  Gladys must have taken on many jobs, mainly cleaning, but I am unaware of the nature of them during the 1930s.  Soon after Jack arrived he became involved in a garage business in Boundary Street, Paddington, between Campbell and Coombe Streets.  It was not a success by all accounts, and was eventually to be burnt out.  He was to take up work with a vacuum cleaner in time and saw out his working days in the homes of various folk around Paddington, setting off in the mornings with his cleaner strapped to his back.

In 1933 or thereabouts the family moved to 43 Boundary Street and it is here that we take up the thread of Gladys's life, after her children have married, in the 1940s.  Gladys was a good business woman and invested in properties.  She owned the Boundary Street house and she had properties at Manly Vale and in the Blue Mountains.  She made no money, to speak of, from them.  She was a hard working woman for whom hard work was second nature.  When I became aware of her in the 1940s as a youngster I was awed by the amount of work she did.

She began working at Bathurst House in Castlereagh Street, next to the Fire Station, in 1929, according to a reference dated 15 June 1933, from Ernest Steele, the long-time caretaker and friend.  He says that "Mrs. Whittaker was employed by me at the [Bathurst House] address for the last four years".  She is "straightforward, honest and a very good worker ... who holds the respect of myself and every tenant in the building".

Gladys must have been applying for some new job, maybe at the A.N.Z., for there are several references written in the month of June 1933 from, besides Ernest Steele, F.W. Marlin of the Condobolin Steam Saw and Planing Mills (he gives her address as 43 Boundary Street), Thos. B.Watson, Universal Providers, Condobolin, from B.J. Dunphy the Shire Clerk of the Lachlan Shire Council, and from Hon. H. C. Moulder M.L.C.  They all attest to her good character, "very honest and trustworthy, a fine citizen of Condobolin whom we could ill afford to lose (and her family were like her goodself), a woman of splendid character, a good Mother bringing up her two children in the manner that reflects the greatest credit on her, respected citizen of the town, capable, energetic, highly recommended".  They certainly reflected the woman we came to love as our grandmother.

She was up at four or five o'clock in the morning and would go to the city, often enough on foot, and work at cleaning during the day.  She would clean and polish the A.N.Z. Bank in Bathurst Street, between Castlereagh and Pitt Streets (since moved to the north-western corner of Castlereagh and Bathurst Streets) and be finished before the bank opened.

Then it was to Bathurst House, where she cleaned a number of showrooms in that building.  She worked for such names as Pankhurst who sold buttons, for Paynes who sold glassware and crockery - she found her niece Yvonne her first job there - and McGillvrays who sold Rondon shoes, and whose son Allan became the cricket commentator.  Those floors and corridors were spotless and she did them by hand: she could never manage the electric polisher which got away on her, so she went up and down with a padded broom weighted with lead.  The employers treated her with respect and affection and a touch of reverence.

On a number of days a week when she had finished at Bathurst House it was off to the Pickwick Club in Pitt Street near Hunter Street where she was employed to make hors d’oeuvres - savouries we used to call them.  None of your Jatz crackers and French Onion dip: this woman started from scratch.  Fancy shapes of bread cut out by hand, deep fried and drained, special toppings made - cream cheese (at home it was made several days before a function and hung up in muslin to drip, out in the lean-to which was the laundry), gherkins, anchovies, coloured pickled onions, sliced and curried boiled egg, and the inevitable paprika.  She worked for hours on these concoctions.  And there must have been cleaning involved because she sometimes arrived home at midnight, having to face another rising at four.  On a bad night she would also be faced at that late hour with Jack, “dying” yet again, who had to be taken to Dr Waddy in Darlinghurst Road or to St. Vincent's Hospital.  Jack was always dying.

Her hours seemed long, and while there is always danger of romanticising those we admire, she certainly did rise at that early hour, and on many nights, she arrived home very late.  This went on during the Forties and Fifties and into the early Sixties.  Even when the family moved to Elanora Heights in 1957 she walked the three miles from home to Narrabeen to catch the six o'clock bus into the city to continue her cleaning jobs.

She retired from the A.N.Z. Bank early in 1960.  A letter from the manager, 16 March 1960, says "we will all miss your cheerful good morning as we come to the day's toil.  I would like you to know how I personally appreciate the way you looked after and kept the premises and especially the way you always had my room spick and span and ready for me.  The Chief Manager also desires me to convey to you the Bank’s appreciation for your long and faithful service".  She received £141/10/11 for Long Service Leave and pay in lieu of holiday leave: the 11 pence mattered in those days.

A hiatus hernia and prolapsed uterus put her in Royal North Shore Hospital and an end to her working days.  She was over seventy when she finally retired: it would have been a brave employer, a foolhardy union or a stubborn government who told her that women retired at sixty.  In 1964 she had an operation on her eye to repair a detached retina.  It was unsuccessful.  She sent a Ten Pound donation to the Convalescent Hospital at Concord, and the Matron replied: "We were as disappointed as you were that the operation was not a success.  You certainly did your part, you were such a good patient".

The woman was meticulous in her duties and we were taught in the same way.  Corners were for cleaning in, starch was for being made by hand and having a beeswax candle to stir it - that gave a shine to the finish and I can still see the candle that was always used, tapering down to a slim end where it had been melted away.  Sponge cakes were made with perfectly creamed butter and sugar - how we hated that, and no Mix-Masters allowed.  I once tramped Taylor Square and Kings Cross for pimento only to be sent back a third time because she had meant paprika all the time.  You didn’t dare complain that it was her mistake - she didn’t make mistakes!  I carried trays of savouries - now you know how they were made, every one with attention to detail and with threats - up Liverpool Street to the Marist Brothers' High School on Darlinghurst Hill, with her imprecations ringing in my ears: "You drop one and I'll skin you alive".  I was eleven and much as I loved her, I believed her.  I once hid in the toilet from her and was so afraid she would bash the door in that I meekly gave myself up.  This same fearsome woman also bought me a picture of the Sacred Heart, an oil lamp and a supply of mineral oil to burn before it, much to my father's amazement and the accompaniment of smoking wicks.

She was the valiant Woman of Proverbs: she sought out linens and worked them, she made waistcoats and dolls’ bedspreads; she brought food from afar and cooked it magnificently; she rose in the night and attended the household - her husband, or on one occasion rushing me to St. Vincent's when I'd cut my finger badly while preparing supper for the Misses McNulty.  She laid her hand to the spindle and the distaff, and sometimes to our bottoms; all her household was well clothed in good garments; her husband was known in the gates when he sat with the elders of the land, and she did not quite approve.

Strength and honour were her clothing, she opened her mouth with wisdom and on her tongue was the law of kindness.  Her employers and those who knew her as a friend had tremendous respect for her, because she was an honest woman for whom the job was a sacred task.  Socially speaking we were ordinary middle class in those days, but Gladys could hold up her head in any company.  On one occasion she held a party at Boundary Street for the Pankhursts who lived at Gowry Gate in Macleay Street, Potts Point.  It was a pre-Christmas function and Gladys prepared everything for it, with our help, of course, though we children were not permitted at the table.  I remember bringing in the champagne in an old aluminium bucket - they had the grace to laugh and I got away with it, even after the guests had departed!

Her brothers and sisters and nieces seemed to look to her, for support: she seemed to be the centre of the family.  She could wring out sheets for Jacqueline if her wrists were too weak to manage, she would encourage Clarry to have a twenty-first birthday for his daughter; she would make cups of tea for Jack Cant when he arrived somewhat the worse for drink.  Her own daughter felt she took second place to these people when their needs seemed greater.  That was Gladys - if other needed it, she gave, and we gave too, not because she did not care for us, but because that was simply the right thing to do.  When I went to Bowral and Mittagong to join the Marist Brothers, the family, having been to early Mass at Sacred Heart, would arrive six or seven  times a year by train or bus, laden with food and cakes and gifts, and spend the day with this youngster who wanted to be a Brother.  Gladys was always there with the support of her love and prayer and cooking.

She was a holy woman, not in any showy way but with a quiet, humble, almost puritanical, piety.  She was a devoted Catholic and brought up her children to be the same, while her husband could not be said to be a religious man.  Sunday Mass was a happy obligation which she would neglect at the peril of her soul, yet she never went to Holy Communion - some Jansenistic streak in her which would not allow her to approach the Blessed Sacrament until very late in her life.  She was always devoted to the novena to our Lady on Saturday nights: we all went, whether we liked it or not, though sometimes our father would put his foot down and say we weren’t to go - but he would soften and we would rush off to church.

In the early 'fifties, Gladys and Honor bought two pieces of land at Elanora Heights.  We had been living in 41 and 43 Boundary Street, Gladys having moved back into 43 when our family moved into 41 in 1946: there was news that a freeway would go through the property so we sold and moved to Elanora Heights.  The Kings, the Golds and the Restuccias stayed; the houses are still there, the freeway yet to come.  I do not know when Gladys first moved from 43 to 41 Boundary Street or whether she owned both places.

The new house at 33 Coolena Road was one I never liked: single storey, stained weather-board, and open spaces inside.  I felt ill-at-ease in it.  I was there only during occasional holidays, but the family was there from 1957 to 1967.  Gladys, again, held the family together: our father never moved, and died three years later in Darlinghurst; Jack Whittaker pottered around, gave up his pipe and tried all manner of things to ward off the intruding breezes till he died in 1964; Paul moved away to sea; Adele went to Adelaide to study midwifery in January 1965.  In 1967, after managing for a few years on their own, Gladys and Honor called it quits at Elanora and bought a unit in Neutral Bay: Unit 8, Gladstone Court, 10 Lindsay Street.

At Easter in 1972 Gladys, Honor and I took a nostalgic trip to Condobolin.  We stayed in a motel, walked the town, visited Aunty Mag, the pisé house (occupied by Bill Oppy, son of Jack Whittaker’s sister Doll) and the cemetery, as well as spending time with Ted and Doll Oppy.  It was wonderful time for us.

In 1974 Gladys began to deteriorate.  She had been a strong woman and a powerful personality, and did not give way to the flesh.  The flesh itself began to give way: she had always suffered from headaches; she had a hernia operation in 1963; in 1964 she lost the sight of one eye because of a detached retina.  In 1974 she broke her hip and that was the beginning of the end: some time later in the Mater Misericordiae Hospital at Crow's Nest, the onset of senility; into a Nursing Home at Cremorne; then a few years in the Loreto Nursing Home at Strathfield.  Honor visited her regularly and seemed to communicate with her; I could get no response.  On Adele's one visit from Perth, after an hour of conversational chatter she said "I’ve got four children.  I've been a busy girl, haven’t I!" and Gladys responded "You certainly have".  That is the last thing I know she said.

They were fitting words for Gladys.  She was not afraid of hard work - she enjoyed being busy and approved of others being busy: the notion of four children to be reared and educated and cultivated would have appealed to her.  And she was always wonderful in support.  It is no wonder that Adele's statement elicited the approving words of this woman: "You certainly have".

Gladys was a peacemaker and did much to heal the rifts in family relationships: she could keep in touch with Uncle Bill when his marriage may not have been popular; she could support and encourage Stella's children, the outsider Jack and the fondly-regarded Jacqueline; she could push Clarry into doing something for Von; she made contact with Molly after a rift of many years; and she wished at the last to be buried with her beloved Frank.  Von and Jacqueline still glow when they talk of "Aunty Glad" - nobody else in the family elicits such a response.

So the valiant woman went peacefully after lunch one day, 20 July 1979, "in my ninetieth year" she would have said.  She was buried from the Sacred Heart Church, Darlinghurst, where she had faithfully worshipped for so many years, her lamp finally gone out in the night.  She had opened her mouth to wisdom; the law of clemency was on her tongue.  She had looked well to the paths of her house and had not eaten her bread idle.  Her children rose up and called her blessed and in his own way her husband probably praised her.  Many women have gathered together riches, but she surpassed them all: may she have the fruit of her hands, and may her works praise her in the gates.