Rae's documents/AGNESH~1.doc

AGNES HAY WILSON 1878-1958

The first time I saw Agnes was when I came home from school one afternoon and she was visiting my mother, very much a flying visit, I think she was passing through on a ship. I still have a mind-picture of a tall, slight woman with reddish curly hair, very pretty hair, and a strong featured face with freckles, a happy face. And as I came to know her many years later, I knew that she was always a sociable sort of person, loved company, and lived most of her life in boarding houses or guest houses, never learning much about cooking or domestic chores.

She was the youngest in the family and I think the only one who went to Melbourne University. The others had all gone to a college in Melbourne after finishing their Government school education. She started a little school where a variety of subjects were taught, there is a brochure pasted in the scrap book I brought from Linlathen which gives the details.

Agnes at some time joined the Postal Service and before long was appointed Postmistress in various places, I know she spent years in Kiama on the New South Wales coast, and her last appointment was at Moree also in New South Wales. She never married. When she retired she still preferred to live in guesthouses and was happily settled in Queenscliff on the Victorian south coast when my brother Murray was killed and she was urgently needed with her family at Linlathen. And in the shocked state they were all in, Charlie, Maimie Margaret and Agnes, somehow Margaret had a fall in the dining room, fell forward on the unprotected fire and was badly burnt, face, hands and arms. Maimie sent a telegram to me in Perth to come to them urgently, I think it was the day after the funeral.

Agnes and Maimie were managing but Margaret refused to go to a hospital, when I arrived she was heavily bandaged but the doctor there was not able to persuade her, she had a nurse coming in but needed much more. It was only because I was able to tell her about the wonderful work Dr. Rank, a Melbourne doctor, had done with badly burnt airmen, that I was able to arrange for him to come and see her and treat her in hospital.