by Robyn Watters
Norma Madeline Watters Born: 7 June 1924, Albert Park (at home) Died: 23 April 2021, Brighton
We often imagine that women born a century ago saw their destiny only as wives and mothers fleshed out only by the necessity to bring in money if they were from the working class. My aunt Norma Madeline Watters born in 1924…
by Robyn Watters
Captain James Renton Watters Born: 14 October 1838, Longhope, Orkney, Scotland [1] Died: 4 February 1919, Prahran, Melbourne [2]
Captain James Renton Watters, master mariner, settled in Port Melbourne and surrounds in 1875, bringing his Cockney bride with him. Ancestral pride swelled his reputation as a capable and adventurous seafarer but The Truth newspaper filled me in on…
by Robyn Watters
Gertrude Brown (nee Duncan), Moorabbin, Victoria, c. 1964-68.
As a child I had a horrified fascination of a piece of metal lodged under one of my grandmother’s fingernails. I was told it was from an industrial accident when she was a jeweller’s assistant.
Years later when I investigated this claim, the electoral rolls for my grandmother Gertrude Duncan in…