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Blog postI came across this item while looking for information about John Forrest and the mail shipping services in the 1890s. It appeared in the West Australian on 5 February 1895.
Sir John Forrest was both Premier and Treasurer of Western Australia at the time. He and his colleagues were in Hobart for the Postal Conference, after attending the Federal Council meeting.
No-one who had seen John Forrest in the flesh would doubt that he was a big man. He stood six feet tall. In his twent -
Blog postPoor Harriet! I've found more information about her recently, but everything I've discovered has been bad news. To recap on what I've already written about her, Harriet was David and Susan Whybrew's first child. She was born in Adelaide in 1868, before they were married. When David's regiment returned to England, Susan went too, taking their second daughter, Eliza, with them, but leaving Harriet
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Blog postAuthors are often asked to talk about their books. Sometimes that means doing an interview one-on-one for an article or podcast. But it might mean presenting an ‘author talk’ to a live audience.
Recently I spoke about my book, The Edward Street Baby Farm, at a local library. It was in a suburb where I once went to high school. As I sat waiting for the train on my way home, I wondered what my teenage self would have thought, if someone had told her that one day she would be giving a fo -
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Blog postThese days, if people don’t like something the government proposes, they take to social media to voice their objections. But in the 19th century, they would hold an ‘indignation meeting.’
I first came across this strange phrase while reading newspapers from the early 1890s. The engineer building the port at Fremantle, C. Y. O’Connor, advised the government that he needed the land occupied by the railway workshops in Fremantle for the new wharves. He suggested that it would be more eff -
Blog postHerbert & Alice Miller with baby Alice c1901(from a larger family photo)Having tracked down the story of what happened to Rose Whybrew after she arrived in Chicago in the United States, I hoped I might find out more about her sister Alice, who also migrated to Chicago. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find much to add to what I wrote about her in my post about the fourteen children of David
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Blog postThanks to an invitation from the City of Armadale Library, I’ll be speaking about my book on 6 August.
Click on the flyer or here to book tickets.
The post Coming up soon at Armadale Library appeared first on Stella Budrikis.
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Blog postI haven't written much about Benjamin John (Jack) Whybrew. For a long time there seemed little to add to what I said about him, when I wrote about the Whybrew's fourteen children. But recently I've come across some new information about his army career and his later life.To recap, Benjamin John (usually known as John or Jack) was born in Canterbury in July 1879, while his father David Whybrew was
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Blog postBook reviews and ratings, on sites such as Amazon and Goodreads, are essential to authors wanting to publicise their work. They help readers decide what books to read next. But the chances are that, sooner or later, someone is going to dislike a book and say so in a review. Even the best-loved authors have their fair share of one-star ratings.
I reminded myself of this a while ago, after getting my first one-star rating for a book I’d written. It was accompanied by a “this book is bor -
Blog postIt’s now official. I’m off to Geraldton at the end of September as a guest of the Big Sky Readers and Writers Festival. The programme hasn’t been finalised yet, so more about that later. But I’m very much looking forward to meeting the other guest writers and taking part in this four day event during the spring school holidays. Thanks to the City of Greater Geraldton Regional Library for inviting me.
The post Big Sky Readers and Writers Festival 2021 appeared first on Stella Budrikis. -
Blog postI wrote about Ada Whybrew when I listed the fourteen children of David and Susan Whybrew back in 2014. Ada was the youngest child in the family, of those who survived infancy. At that time I didn't know much about her. But thanks to the information sent to me by the same family member who provided the photo of Susan, I can now fill in some of the details.Ada with Joseph Metson, probably around
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Blog postWhen I wrote about Ellen Whybrew in November last year, my information was all based on official records. But now I've received new information, direct from descendants of the Whybrew family, which sheds new light on some of the things that seemed uncertain or odd.Just to recap, "Aunt Nell" as she was known to the family, was the daughter of David and Susan Whybrew. She was born in Colchester in
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Blog postThis may sound silly, but the first time I saw The Edward Street Baby Farm classified as ‘true crime’, it took me by surprise. Of course, a non-fictional story centred around a murder trial must involve a crime. But as I was writing the book I’d mostly thought of it as biography. I wanted to tell the stories of the three people whose lives intersected in the trial and the events leading up to it. I’d also thought of it as a social history of Perth in the early 1900s.
These days I’m mo -
Blog postLast week I had fun recording a podcast with Jessie Stephens from MamaMia, the online magazine. We covered the story behind the Alice Mitchell trial, which is at the heart of The Edward Street Baby Farm.
Listen to it now on True Crime Conversations. Or look for it in your favourite podcast directory.
The post New podcast – True Crime Conversations appeared first on Stella Budrikis.
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Blog postJohn Street, ColchesterI'd like to share some of the fascinating information that was sent to me recently with the photo of Susan Mason. It was recorded from a conversation with Susan's granddaughter, Violet, late in life. Violet had never met her grandparents, Susan and David. Her memories were based on recollections of what her mother, Ada, had told her, many years earlier. So the source is
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Blog postOne of the most frequent comments I hear about The Edward Street Baby Farm is ‘How come I’ve never heard about this before?’ That was my own reaction when I first came across the ‘baby farming case’ and the 1907 Alice Mitchell trial. It caused a sensation at the time, and had such a significant impact on Western Australia’s legal system. How could it have been forgotten?
The Old Courthouse Law Museum.
Image from Heritage Perth There is at least one place in Perth where the Alic -
Blog post(Click to enlarge)This stunning image was sent to me by a lady who had just read my book 'Susan'. The original belonged to her grandmother, Ada. When it arrived by email it felt like Christmas all over again. Have you guessed who it is?Yes, it's Susan Whybrew (nee Mason) the subject of the book. I understand the photo was taken in 1914, when Susan would have been in her sixties and living in
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Blog postThe fate of Rose Whybrew after 1918 has been one of those brick walls that has been a long time in coming down. But I think I've finally cracked it. And I had the evidence I needed all along, without realising it.To summarise what I already knew, Rose (born 1877) was the fifth daughter of David and Susan Whybrew (nee Mason). She and her husband, George Henry Anthony, migrated to Chicago in the
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Blog postKathleen O’Connor of Paris, by West Australian author Amanda Curtin, introduced me to a woman and an artist I’d heard about only vaguely before.
Kathleen, or ‘Kate’ as she preferred to be called, was born in New Zealand and grew up in Fremantle. Her father, C.Y. O’Connor, is well known in Western Australia for his role in building major infrastructure projects, such as Fremantle harbour and the Coolgardie pipeline. But Kate spent most of her adult life working among the artists in Par -
Blog postI was looking again recently at the records I have for the children of David and Susan Whybrew (nee Mason). Of the fourteen offspring born to Susan, I've found the date of death for all but two - Rose, who disappears without trace in America after 1918, and Ellen (known in childhood as Nellie). I've written about Rose several times. Here's what I know about Ellen, the Whybrew's eleventh child.
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Blog postA friend who is related to the Whybrews has sent me this photo of a family from Colchester. It was found among family photos, but neither of us know who they are. Does anyone recognise them? Here's another photo, also from Colchester. The reverse has the name of a photographic studio, Bradley and Blowers. If you can tell us anything about these photos, please leave a comment, or message me via
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Blog postWalter Lindrum, the champion billiards player, was born in Kalgoorlie in Western Australia in 1898. He was the son of Frederick Lindrum, another billiards great, and Harriet Mary Atkin, both from Adelaide. His grandmother, Mary Ann Atkin (nee Mason) was the sister of my great great grandmother, Susan Mason. I recently came across this video about him. It looks as if it was made in the 1970s and
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Blog postIn my post about Henry Hartland, I mentioned that I'd received an email from a descendant of Jane Mason. (Jane was a younger sister of my great great grandmother, Susan Mason). She has very kindly provided me with an outline of the story of Jane's daughter, Lizette. Here it is, with some additional information that I've found online.The Shamrock Hotel (since renamed several times) in 1927Lizette
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Blog postHere's a small milestone for this blog. According to Statcounter, posts on this site have been viewed 10,000 times. That's probably not an exact count, since all sorts of variables come into how visits are counted. And it has taken since April 2012 to get there. But it's good to know that what I'm writing is of continued interest to people. Thanks for your support, especially those of you who
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Blog postTwo years ago I wrote a post about Jane and Bridget Mason, the two youngest sisters of my great great grandmother, Susan Mason. I mentioned that I'd come across a child named Naomi, reportedly born in 1881 to a Jane Mason in the Adelaide Railway station. I wasn't sure if this was the same Jane Mason or not. A couple of weeks ago I was excited to receive an email from someone who is a descendant
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Blog postI've just discovered that the contact form on this blog isn't working, and may not have been working for some time. Apparently this is a problem affecting many blogs and Blogger is working on it. I don't know how many messages haven't been forwarded to me. If you've tried to contact me in the recent past and haven't received a reply, my apologies. Until the problem is fixed, please send messages
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Blog postSt Andrews Church, Wormingford, where most of James and Sarah Whybrew's family were baptised. After discovering that records for Sarah Baldwin's family are now available online, I decided to look again at the background for James Whybrew, Sarah's husband. Previously I'd come to a brick wall with his birth in about 1801 (a very rough date provided by the 1841 UK census). I didn't know where
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Blog postAre you afraid of letting God get a grip on you? Do you stand at a distance, too scared to let him get close? Do you fear what he might do with you, or ask you to do, if you handed over your life to him? In one sense, we should all be afraid of God. We should never underestimate his power and awesomeness. It is a dreadful thing to fall, unprepared, into the hands of the living God. But it's
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Blog postThis week I've been doing some digging into the history of Sarah Baldwin, my 3x great grandmother. Sarah was the mother of David Whybrew, who married Susan Mason in Adelaide in 1869. What I've found is a still a little speculative, but I thought I'd share it, along with an unusual story about dragons. (Scroll to the end of the post for the dragon story and a summary in tree form of the people
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Blog postAs I've mentioned before, one of the toughest brick walls in my family history research is the fate of Rose Whybrew. Rose, born in Kent, England, in 1877, married George Henry Anthony in Colchester in 1897. Their first child, Harriet, lived only a few months. Rose gave birth to a son, George William, in 1907, not long before the family migrated to the United States via Canada. They settled in
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Blog postI've recently put together some of the articles from this blog and my archives that seem relevant to the present times. They cover topics such as faith, trust, doubt, disasters and questions about God's goodness. The result is 'Faith in Crisis', a small eBook in PDF format that's free to download from my website. I hope and pray that it will be an encouragement to you. UPDATE I've now
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Blog postWhere do you go when life hurts? Who do you turn to when your health falters, when relationships sour, when things happen which leave you feeling sad, angry, weary or frightened? As Christians we know the answer: "Take it to the Lord in prayer." Unfortunately, despite the old song, many of us have learned that it's selfish to pray for ourselves. Ignoring the ache in our hearts, we methodically
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Blog postAs I mentioned at the end of my last post about Rose Davis, I came across a birth registration for Elizabeth Davis in New South Wales while I was looking for Rose, and wondered if she was also a child of George Davis and Catherine (nee Mason). Now that I've done a little research, I've confirmed that she was. Elizabeth's birth was registered in New South Wales in 1870. Her parents' names were
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Blog postIt's always exciting to receive a comment or a message from someone who has found a link to their own family history on my blog. This week I heard from a descendent of Susan Mason's sister Catherine, and discovered another Rose in the family that I hadn't come across before. Port Adelaide c 1870. Image from State Library of SA Catherine (sometimes spelled Katherine in records) was John and
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Blog postThere's a false understanding of the gospel which goes something like this: "Human beings are wretched, worthless creatures, quite useless and valueless to God. But because Jesus died for us, we have become precious to God." It's false because it begins the gospel in the middle of the story. Fallen human beings truly are wretched creatures. But that isn't how God created us. He made us in his
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Blog postI've mentioned before that one of my goals for this year is to bring this blog up to date. That means, amongst other things, updating the family trees (available in the top tabs) and making sure that the Index of Individuals has useful links to profiles and relevant posts. One difficulty with doing this is that often the most up-to-date information I have is stored online, on my family trees
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Blog postSometimes I wonder if God really is good. When I watch the news, or read a newspaper, I wonder how we can keep saying "God is in control". When I see the terrible pain and suffering that people inflict on each other, not just in the world, but even in the church, I sometimes begin to doubt that God is even real. Where is he? What is he doing? Are we just wasting our time in church on Sunday?
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Blog postThe Evil That Men Do, by Marcus K. Paul, (Sacristy Press, 2016) takes an unflinching look at some of the most shameful events in the history of the church, such as the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. It also examines periods in Christian history which are commonly held up to ridicule, such as 16th and 17th century Puritanism, and Victorian religiosity and "do-goodism".The book is well
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Blog postWhen I was a child, I went to church with my parents and attended Sunday school every week. By the time I turned fourteen, there were no other kids my age in the church. The Sunday school supervisor decided that, since he was short of teachers, I could take on a class. So I found myself teaching a class of ten and eleven-year-olds. It was daunting, but I enjoyed finding ways to bring the old
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Blog postOne of the main characters in my upcoming book, The Edward Street Baby Farm, was born in Limerick in 1855. Harriet Lenihan moved to Australia in the 1880s and eventually came to Perth. Her father, Maurice Lenihan, was owner and editor of the Limerick Reporter, and was Mayor of Limerick for several years. He had connections with many of the leading political figures in Ireland. Harriet was very
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Blog postWhen I was growing up, I associated the name 'Hebden Bridge' with romance. My parents had fond memories of taking long walks from Hebden Bridge to scenic Hardcastle Crags when they were courting. By the time I visited the town for the first time in the 1980s, it was an attractive and trendy tourist centre, full of craft shops, boutique food outlets and cafes. But back in the 1860s, when my
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Blog postHusbands Bosworth in Leicestershire is one of those places that I’ve never visited, though I would certainly like to see it one day. So what follows is what I can glean from the Internet. For several generations it was home to the Orton family, ancestors of my maternal grandfather, Albert Edwin Orton Farmland north west of Husbands Bosworth (1) It’s thought that the name was originally “
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Blog postBee mosaic in Manchester Town Hall Image from wikipedia. Everywhere you go in Manchester, you’ll find bees - carved into buildings, decorating bollards and fountains, printed on flags, bumper stickers and tee-shirts, even tattooed on people’s arms. Originally the worker bee symbolised the hard-working and productive labourers in the factories, those hives of activity during the industrial
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Blog post"May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." (2 Corinthians 13:14) I once attended a church where the minister would bow his head and intone "The grace of our Lord..." when anyone walked in late, as if the service was about to end. His congregation soon learned to turn up on time! Sometimes the words do seem barely more
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Blog postTrust is important in any relationship. But there are two levels of trust. The first involves our expectation that the other person will do us good rather than harm and will carry out what they say they will do. Over time we learn whether or not to believe the things they promise. The second, deeper, level of trust involves our sense of safety when we are with them, and our willingness to
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Blog postShe was a young, childless widow, an immigrant with no property and no income. He was a respectable land owner in a small town. Their story has a touch of romance, but it's hardly the stuff of history. Why is it included in the Bible? What distinguished Ruth and Boaz from those around them, who lived and died, then rested forgotten within a couple of generations? Why does Ruth´s story appear
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Blog postImagine that a friend gives you a present, rather clumsily wrapped. You know that your friend has very different tastes to yours, in fact, if you were quite truthful, you'd say that they have poor taste. So you unwrap the parcel with some trepidation. Inside you find a plain white candle in some sort of glass candle holder. You try to look impressed, but the thing is unattractive, hideously
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Blog postHere's a paradox - the longer we've been a Christian, the more we come to realise how sinful we really are. We discover that our antagonism towards God runs very deep. Does this sound familiar? Before I turned to Christ, I sometimes felt guilty about specific things I'd done, but I didn't know what to do with the guilt. It was a joy to discover that because of Jesus' death on the cross, I'm
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