Jacob Scheef - Letters to Home

Jacob Scheef - Letters to Home - 14 May 1885

My husband's family are very fortunate as his great grandfather travelled back to Germany from Armidale, NSW from May to September 1885. While visiting family he sent many letters back to Australia and kept a diary of his time overseas. I'll post his letters on the day they were written. This is his second letter home. These letters can be seen at the University of New England (UNE) Archive in Armidale, NSW, Australia. Biographical Entry

John Elder

Melbourne

the 14 May 1885

Dear Wife and Children!

I am in receipt of your letter which I received in Sydney just half an hour before we started from which I see that you are all well except David and I trust you will take good care of him with his cold and am glad that you had some rain the white bullock you can either kill or sell him if you can get £5 10s for him and break the Strawberry or roan bullock in with Glover.

We left Sydney on the 12 this month at 1 1/2 o'clock and the Sydney Harbour I can give you no idea for his beauty and grandeur every half hour of steaming it presents a fresh Panorama after coming outside on the open sea my shipmates began the work of sea sickness although we had a smooth sea We steamed all along the coast and were never out of sight from the land yesterday morning it commenced to blow a pretty hard breeze and the sea became lumpy and shortly after it showed plenty of waves and began to work pretty lively with some rain and cold wind but it only proved to me that my sea legs are well established for it made no impression on me and I feel very good health and can eat well our meals are cooked and we go to work each as he thinks is best for him there is no sharing of the meals the cook brings it to the table and each one helps himself, so far as we went the meals are very good I wish no better every day fresh bread not biscuit and also fresh meat and potatoes.

You never mentioned that you paid some money for me in the Lodge perhaps you got no word of it. I could write a lot more but the ship will not be steady and it is no use grumbling it takes no notice of it we are close to Melbourne now and I must stop hoping to receive another letter from you.

Your loving Husband

and Father

Jacob F ScheefJ

Caroline Chisholm

I am currently in England visiting my daughter who is working in London. Naturally I decided I would have to spend some time on genealogical pursuits. The problem was where would I choose for a few day's retreat from London? In the end I decided to go to Northampton to visit the grave of Caroline Chisholm. Caroline is known as the immigrant's friend. She was a well known social reformer of her day. Why is Caroline significant to me and my family? You may recall that Caroline Chisholm was on the original $5 note in Australia. As well as her image there was a picture of a ship. That ship was the Waverley . Caroline agitated at the Home Office to reunite the wives and families of convicts with their husbands and fathers. On 22 June 1847 she wrote that she ‘had just left the Home Office and had obtained a passage per Waverley for forty-nine souls.’ SMH 9 August 1847, extract from letter 30 March 1847. My great great grandmother Matilda Agnew, her older siblings James, Joh...

Family Homes - No 3 - Moolan Downs, Queensland

My previous Family Home post showed the childhood home of Catherine Ellen Dawson . After leaving Tasmania Catherine moved to Melbourne with her mother and siblings after the death of her father Dr William Lee Dawson. Catherine married Gustav Baumgarten in Melbourne on 30th November 1876. They lived at Pleasant Bank Vineyard at Barnawatha. According to the Cyclopedia of Victoria they had 180 acres of vines, 465 acres of agricultural and grazing land and a further 300 acres under cultivation. During 1908 the Baumgarten family moved from Barnawatha to Moolan Downs, near Meandarra west of Dalby. They left a thriving business with an established homestead and moved to western Queensland. One of their first tasks when they arrived was to build the dwelling shown below. Original dwelling at Moolan Downs - c1908 The second house at Moolan Downs The final homestead at Moolan Downs One can only admire our early pioneering families. Gustav died at Moolan Downs...

The Tree of Me

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