Geelong to Goulburn

June’s mother’s side of the family was a little bit of a mystery to even June. Her mother Elsie May Guest lived in Geelong, Victoria when she married Warren Furner. Then she moved to Goulburn, New South Wales where the extended Furner family lived. Goulburn is where June was born and based on stories she told; her early childhood revolved around Goulburn and the Furners.

*This is June with her father, Warren Furner. 1936 means she was 10 years old at the time of this photo*

I took a road trip last October down from Sydney to go see some of the locations of June’s ancestry. And yes I spent a night in Goulburn. I always wanted to take Mom back there but depending on the time of year of my visit to Sydney, it would always be “way too cold to go to Goulburn” or “it is way too hot in Goulburn”. It was quite windy the day I was there and much chillier than Sydney so I thought, Okay Mom you may have had a point. Since I had been looking at old pictures, I took a drive up to the Rocky Hill War Memorial.

*Based on the information on the placard – the War Memorial was opened in 1925 so still kind of a new thing at the time of the photo above.*

*And there is Goulburn in all its glory (wink) June Wayne’s home town. Picture taken from up at the Rocky Hill War Memorial*

In Mom’s old photos was this faded and blurry image of her childhood home. 23 Hurst Street

Of course I drove around to find the house! Changes had been made but the bones of it were the same.

*The back yard wasn’t visible but this lower separate garage fit perfectly with a story from Mom’s recollections:*

June:

My father kept hens and ducks and pigeons. We didn’t eat the hens and ducks, but they provided us with eggs. The pigeons were just a hobby. Occasionally, my father would hear about an animal that was being cruelly treated and he would buy it. He bought a kangaroo that was being mistreated by some boys. This kangaroo had been taught to box. It was mischievous and loved to get out of the bottom yard when Dad drove the car through the gate into the lower back yard. It was such fun for my brother and me when we got in the car with Dad, chasing the kangaroo. It always headed for the main street in Goulburn and the traffic stopped while we went after the kangaroo and chased it back home.

I found this photo on a real estate website – the house sold in 2015 and some pictures were still available. If you look at the brick work and compare to previous picture – it looks like the back porch was filled in and turned into a room.

June:

I distinctly remember one day when my mother and father and I were in our back yard and my grandfather’s brother, Uncle Charles Furner, visited us and asked my parents to send my brother and me to Sunday School. I was 4 years of age. The Methodist Sunday School was about a mile away from our house, but my parents agreed to send us. My brother was 9 years of age and he escorted me to the Methodist Church Sunday School each Sunday.

*If you zoom in you can read the details but basically this church was build in 1871.* Also side note that grand uncle “Charles” had been the mayor of Goulburn for a few years and according to his obituary had been superintendent of the Sunday School at this church for 41 years. No wonder he encouraged Geoff and June to go.

And here’s my sneaky picture snapped from my rental car – this is the Faithful Street house where Warren Furner grew up.

In a previous post ages ago I mentioned that June’s maternal grandfather, John Guest who she never knew (he died the year she was born) had been a railroad engineer in Victoria. I may have already copied what my cousin told me but now that I have some pictures to add here again

“John’s railway work required him to move around a bit. Elsie’s childhood was spent in, first Melbourne, then Sale, followed by Benalla, then – in about 1906 – the family finally settled back in Geelong. Geelong felt like home for John, where he’d spent most of his childhood. And it provided an opportunity for the extended family to live close to one another for support.“

Here is Geelong’s railway station. If you ignore the modern billboards on the opposite wall, I think it looked much like this when June’s grandfather John Guest would have been engineering trains through here.

And of course I stopped in Benalla to see family 🙂 but couldn’t resist swinging by the railway station where Elsie May Guest could have visited her father at work. Other than the electronic clock it feels very old timey.

I am not sure how much Elsie shared with Mom but it seems that Elsie did keep in touch with her family. Elsie had a brother Frank (born in Benalla) who left her his personal estate when he died in 1963. His wife had died years before in 1946 and they had no children. He was a retired store manager.

Picture thanks to Victoria – Frank and his wife who died in 1946 so this long before then.

Here is a mystery photo (above) On the back in June’s handwriting she identifies Geoff (her brother) and Elsie May Furner (nee Guest) But no mention of the man on the right. My theory on why June didn’t know is that while June and Milton lived in Japan, her brother Geoff probably became the keeper of old family photos – especially while Elsie was in a nursing home. Then when Geoff died in 1990, his wife Joy must have given all the Furner/Guest photos to Mom. At this point Milton & June were living in Haberfield. She probably had no idea who the man was so didn’t try to identify. The picture was probably taken during the Japan years based on how young Geoff looks.
Also in those things, there are of a lot of postcards and snapshots of churches in Australia. I think one of Elsie’s hobbies was collecting postcards and “snaps” of churches. So friends and family must have sent pictures to her and/or in her own travels she may have taken them too.

One of those pictures has an funny twist because I did not notice it until after I had visited Victoria in Geelong

This is Newtown Methodist Church Pakington Street, Newtown Geelong (Google tells me it is now Christian Reformed)

The next image is the text on the back – but to save you time, I have transcribed it here: Then comes the ironically funny part.

“Newtown Methodist Church
Pakington Street Newtown. Geelong
Taken by the wedding photographers on Audrey Hewit’s Wedding Day 4 October 1952 (Especially to send to you Elsie)
Isn’t it a pretty little church. You ought to send one of these to June to let her see the Church where you sang in the choir many years ago. And your father was Treasurer of this Church for over 20 years and a Trustee for the same number of years. “

So much information in those words. I learned that June’s mother sang in the choir in her youth! Elsie’s father John Guest was a Treasurer at the church. I felt like Audrey Hewit (actually Hewat) sounded familiar but wasn’t looking at my Ancestry tree when I sent a copy off to Victoria (in Geelong) just because it was from her town. And here is her reply

“Wow! That’s the church where my parents married. Audrey Hewit (sic) is Mum – she and Dad married on 4 October 1952. I’m pretty sure the writer & sender was Rachel Guest (née Woods, Elsie’s stepmother). “

It hadn’t dawned on me that I was sending her a picture taken at the church on Victoria’s parent’s wedding day! Audrey Hewat and father Darrell Spicer!

This further shows that the Guest family kept in touch with Elsie. They knew her daughter June was living in Japan as in the “send one to June” – I am just wondering if Mom knew that all these relatives in Geelong knew about her.

Some family connections were stretched or broken I guess after spending nearly 40 years in Japan and before the Internet.

That’s it for this post. If you enjoy trying to read cursive writing from days of yore – I leave you with two more front & back images please feel free to let me know what they say. (One is easy – the other is impossible!)