Pondering the fact that Mum’s side of the family had strong links to the Sunbury area in Victoria, I wondered if the original WINTER farm as detailed in my last blog post How I ‘met’ my great-grandfather William WINTER. Part 1. was anywhere near the Sunbury pop festivals of the 1970s. I did a bit READ MORE
Category: Winter
How I ‘met’ my great grandfather, William WINTER. Part 1
I didn’t ‘physically’ meet my great-grandfather, William WINTER (1845-1883), and neither did any of my mum’s generation; he died well before any of us were born. There are no photos of him and there’s no memorabilia—that I know of. And it seems that any stories about him have been lost in time. William became my READ MORE
Some ‘hard’ drinking in the WINTER line
James WINTER (c.1806-1882), a brother of my great-grandfather, Edward WINTER (c.1812-1869), emigrated to Australia from Ireland with his wife Tirzah (nee DELMEGE) in 1851. The couple headed for the goldfields. They found gold, made some money, spent it on drink. How do I know this? Here’s my trail… In my internet ramblings for WINTER clues READ MORE
Sights and Sounds of Ireland Part 2
RTE Lyric FM and Waiting for Cows After a short stop in Dublin in August 2014, I picked up a hire car and headed ‘for the hills’. As I crisscrossed central Ireland over the next two weeks, I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to stop for the cows. The READ MORE
There’s something about shuffling off this mortal coil
One of the greatest legacies my dad gave me was a sense of humour. Unfortunately, our time together was relatively short; he died in 1974 when I was 17. However, it was long enough to instil in me a love of the ridiculous and later, a realization of it’s ability to build resilience when faced READ MORE
Curiouser and Curiouser
When I was about 10 or 11 I had a growth spurt. My arms, hands, feet and legs telescoped out of their sockets. But unlike Alice, in Alice in Wonderland, I couldn’t blame my growth on a cake labelled EAT ME. Seemingly overnight, I became one of the tallest in my grade. My arms were READ MORE
Back to the Main Drain – Cora Lynn, Vervale and Iona
My cousin, Howard, and his mum, Muriel WINTER* (nee FALLON) kindly offered to take me on a tour of the old sites of my grandparents: For Mum’s side, the WINTER family—Cora Lynn, Vervale and Iona farms, and, for Dad’s side, the COGHLAN family—Cora Lynn General Store, all situated around the Main Drain on the Koo READ MORE
What’s in a name?
Early place names in Victoria can bamboozle you. In the 1840s, my maternal great great grandfather Edward WINTER, or Eddie, as I like to call him, lived in a couple of places that required a bit of lateral thinking to find out where they were today. The place names were Lucerne and The Springs. Eddie’s READ MORE
98 today…..well, she would have been
Mum would have been 98 today. To honour her memory I’ve dedicated my first post, in my first blog, to her, Teresa Bernadette WINTER (1917-2010). Mum, known as Berna, was born on the 28th October 1917 at 93 Station St., Fairfield, at the back of her father’s butcher’s shop… or so the story goes. It’s READ MORE