Rae's documents/WILSON FAMILY.doc

WILSON FAMILY

MARY AGNES (known as Maimie) 1868-1957 CHARLES WILLIAM McHARG 1873-1957 JESSIE SUSAN 1876-1889 AGNES HAY 1878-1958 MARGARET RAE 1880-1959

I first knew most of them when they lived at Barrhill in what was then known as Osborne Park, later Swanbourne, in the house that has since become a Nursing Home called I think Montrose. Uncle Andrew and his wife May lived nearby in Congdon Street in the house now occupied by Alan and his mother. It was then called Dunolly.I believe Auntie May looked after me as a small child when I had whooping cough. The Barrhill home had a lawn tennis court at the back where they often had friends in for an afternoon of tennis, I spent many weekends there and was always very properly dressed with hair-ribbons just right. I was sent there to amuse John, which meant to read to him, but the poor child was quite incapable of giving any sign of interest, being severely spastic, unable to do anything for himself and only able to make noises to indicate basic feelings or needs. It was a job I did not enjoy. Boys from the nearly Scotch College also were sometimes sent over to play which John seemed to enjoy watching but also became distressed at times when it seemed he had some realisation of his own situation. Particularly when my younger brothers grew from being as helpless as John was, to being toddlers and then able to walk.

The family moved to Melbourne in about 1920, first renting a house, then Charllie had Linlathen built, in Mont Albert Road, close to Balwyn Street. It was there that I really came to know them as I spent some time in Melbourne before the war, and also on occasions when in Melbourne during the war, and when we lived at Frankston and later in Kew.

Agnes was the only one who lived away, only making her home at Linlathen after Murray was killed in 1953. She had made a career for herself as a Postmistress, mainly in New South Wales, I know she spent a lot of time at Kiama on the coast, and later at Maree. So she was always independent and preferred living in Guest houses or hotels and had no liking for ordinary domestic duties. She was on her way I think to England for a holiday when she came to see our family in Herbert Road, I remember her as a very bright kind of person with curly reddish hair, tall, her shiip had called in at Fremantle and she took the opportunity to visit her relations as ships usually stayed a few days then. I was about eight at the time. She was living in a Guesthouse in Queenscliff, retired, when she became urgently needed at Linlathen in 1953, the whole family were in shock after Murray’s death and Margaret had collapsed and fallen in front of the open fire in the dining room and her face and arms had been badly burnt. Agnes at times told me quite a lot about the family, this was in later years.

My sister Adele had stayed with the family for quite a long time, she had contracted a form of typhoid fever when a young woman, had been very ill, had been looked after by a young doctor Gordon Hislop who later became a specialist and looked after my father, in fact gave him about five years of reasonably good life by putting him on insulin, this was after the previous doctor had told him that he must just concentrate of seeing that his affairs were in order as he had at most three months to live. That was when they remembered the clever young man who was now a specialist physician, Dr. Gordon Hislop. Adele had in fact contracted typhoid fever when a small child, our grandmother (Teesdale) had taken her then to her home in West Leederville and dnursed her to a full recovery, the only after effect being that all her pretty curls were cut off (routine then during fever) and when her hair grew again it was quite straight. About the only thing people could do in those days to prevent the spread of a fever throughout a family was to keep the sick person apart. Failing that, a sheet soaked in carbolic was hung over the door. I can remember that, it must have been when Gordon got diphtheria, and after recovery, sulphur was burnt in the sick-room by putting live coals in a dust-pan and sprinkling sulphur over it. (this same method was used when I was doing my nursing training at Perth Hospital, we did three months at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, during my time there it was mainly diphtheria, occasionally scarlet fever and whooping cough, then polio where the first of the iron lung equipment was used, I remember the night when the power was off, the doctor kept the machine operating manually until morning when power was restored, Roland Anderson, he had contracted polio as a child and had a withered arm. Later,during the war, in Greece, Tommy soldiers who came to us after escaping through Crete, told me of this Perth doctor Roland Anderson who had done such a lot to make sure they carried on when they would have given up, they had no idea of his disability.

When John was born, urgent telegrams were sent to Melbourne for Margaret to come and help her sister Maimie look after the motherless baby, Margaret was at the time working as a secretary where she was highly valued, and where she also had a very dear friend, Hugh Brown, and they would have married in time. But as the months went by it became obvious that the infant was not developing normally and Margaret became, with Maimie, a full-time carer for the disabled child. Their mother helped with some of the cooking, sometimes. Margaret was the far better organiser, but being the younger sister, was most of the time left to fix problems. I remember when staying weekends there, Maimie would hire, or dismiss, the housemaid, without consulting Margaret. This did not make for harmony, but as they had no alternative they just had to carry on. Maimie was a small woman, barely five feet, less as she became older, Margaret was fairly tall, as was Agnes, none of them ever overweight as I recall. Hugh Brown went to the war, was wounded, came to teach at Guildford Grammar School where Frank knew him as a housemaster, and we saw quite a slot of Hugh on Sunday afternoons at Linlathen when we lived in Kew. He wrote two books, mainly about reform for the Anglican Church, for which Margaret had typed the manuscript. Margaret was deeply affected when Hugh died, he had in his later years devoted himself to caring for his mother, had little money, and his bad leg gave him mores trouble. He was a nice man. I had a deep affection for Margaret, life was not kind to her and she was quite bedridden for about the last year of her life.