Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries

 This week is Reconciliation Week and as such I have chosen to highlight the tragic life of a well-known Indigenous man, that resulted in a manhunt, a hanging and the subject of a novel and film. JIMMY GOVERNOR  Jimmy was born in 1875 on the Talbragar River in the central west of NSW, the son of Sam Governor (or Thomas Grosvenor as he could be known) who was a bullock driver and his wife Annie Fitzgerald. He was educated at a mission school and at Gulgong just north of Mudgee. Jimmy was small in stature, described as good looking and part indigenous with a shock of reddish hair. He became a Police tracker at Cassilis from 1896 for about 18 months. He returned to Gulgong and worked as a wood cutter and a wood roller; in 1898 he married Ethel Mary Jane Page, a young white woman at the Church of England rectory in Gulgong. In April 1990 after a variety of jobs, Jimmy secured a contract for fencing from John Mawbey near Gilgandra. He was eager to prove himself and was on good terms with hi

 People from all walks of life are buried or were cremated at Rookwood. I am afraid amongst the good souls there are those who chose a different path in life. Today's blog is about one "hard" man of an earlier dark time in Sydney. NORMAN BRUHN Norman Leslie Bruhn was born in June 1894 in Geelong, Victoria, the middle child of ten of Oscar Johann Bruhn and Mary Anne nee McFarlane. Oscar was a baker and it would appear the household was a volatile one made worse by his heavy drinking and short temper. Oscar was born in the Goldfields area of Victoria where his family had relocated no doubt seeking their fortune like so many from the mid 1850's. Norman was not a keen student and aged 14 went to work in a local woollen mill, where his lower arm was drawn into a loom and fractured. A few years later he started his criminal career starting with a charge of offensive behaviour in July 1914 whilst harassing people, leading a group of youths. In September that year he

  Today's blog is about a disaster that occurred almost 105 years ago in a faraway place that left a great impact on the world at the time and a local family greatly. RICHARD LIONEL PICKERING Richard was born in Newtown in March 1885, the third of six children of James Evers Pickering and Rosa Ellen (nee Sutton). Not much is known about Richard but what is available is that during WW1 he was a married man living in Liverpool England and in 1917 was an officer on board the Royal navy ship performing merchant duties, the HMS Curaca. In December of that year, he was in the wrong place at the worst possible time. Halifax during WW1 was (and still is) the primary port on the east coast of Canada in the province of Nova Scotia. It was an ice-free port and dock, and its waters did not freeze even during the harshest of Canadian winters making it an ideal port in the North Atlantic for year-round operations. By 1917 it had become a key base for Atlantic convoys. The population grew

  As we approach Mother's Day here in Australia, let's reflect upon a mother who fought to make every mother's life better. A woman, who in times where men would drink their weekly wages, leaving almost nothing for his family to be fed and clothed on, fought hard to make a difference. EUPHEMIA BRIDGES BOWES Euphemia was born in Edinburgh Scotland in 1816, the daughter of Joseph Allen and his wife Eliza. She was self-educated, an activity rare for a young girl at the time, teaching herself both to read and write. She arrived in Sydney in 1838, classified as a "house servant ” and on the 13th of September 1842 she married John Bowes, a baker, with Wesleyan Methodist rites at Parramatta. John had arrived in Sydney the previous year and moved to Parramatta, where besides his everyday position, he continued his work as a Wesleyan lay teacher. They resided in Sydney before making a move to Wollongong in 1848 when John was accepted into the Ministry. Euphemia bore elev