The Tree of Me

During a recent tidy up of my filing cabinets I discovered 2 school books that had been placed in there for safe keeping many years ago. The first book was My Busy Book from 1965 when I was in Kindergarten at Jennings Public School. Perhaps some of you may remember the salmon coloured books from the 1960s. Fortunately it was a small school. The teacher traced many shapes each afternoon for us to fill in with various patterns the next day. She also wrote dotted words for us to trace the next day. It seems that jelly pads had yet to reach Jennings. Unfortunately the salmon colour didn't scan. The second of these exercise books belonged to my grandfather's brother, Matthew John Moore who attended Jennings Public School. I haven't always been in possession of this book. I attended the Jenning's centenary celebrations in 1990 and was excited to see that this book was part of the display. I asked the organisers who had donated the book for the display but was infor...

For at least 20 years I have always know that my great great grandmother, Sarah Jane Merchant nee Hooton was buried in an unmarked grave in the Church of England section of Tenterfield cemetery. I had never bothered to look for her specific resting place. Two weeks ago, I went to Tenterfield for a few days and decided to take some photos for Billion Graves. Instead of looking for family headstones in a methodical way I wandered around to the headstones I knew well. I took lots of photos and was content. Later I thought I should really check out other more distant family members in the cemetery. I searched my Reunion database for those who had died in Tenterfield. I already had the burial places noted so copied them down and went back for a more ordered search. Included on my list was Sarah Jane. Imagine my surprise when I compared her location to other family members. There she was, between her two eldest children, James Joseph Merchant and Harriet Baker. Joe Merchant died i...

Recently I have been scanning some photographs that my father had in his possession. Although I know what the following one is, I was wondering if any of my readers would like to take a guess. I'll post the answer in a couple of weeks.