Thursday, September 16, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
10. Alice Christina Sheridan
Above: The birth certificate of Alice "Ali" Sheridan, tenth and final child born to Nicholas Sheridan and Bridget McGrath.
Alice Christina Sheridan was born on April 9, 1884, at Carisbrook, Victoria, the youngest of ten children born to Nicholas Sheridan and Bridget McGrath. She was only a baby when her parents made the move from Carisbrook to yarrawonga, and so grew up in the small town on the Murray River.
Poor "Ali", as she was known, was quite cross-eyed, as can be seen from the photograph above. She was also of a very highly-strung nature, and never married, spending her early adult years living with her parents in Yarrawonga, and then after their deaths residing with her sister Rose Annie Marshall and her family in Baxter.
Ali was once engaged to be married, but for reasons long forgotten the engagement ended and she never again formed a romantic attachment with a man. Her nephew Bill Marshall wrote of her:-
" Alice had a certain talent for music and in our childhood days she used to play us to sleep on the violin, or her little accordian. She was of a highly nervous temperament, and lived on a pension for many years because of that. She used to pay frequent visits to her dear friend at the Yarrawonga Convent, Sister Mary Cathleen.
Alice met a tragic end when a close friend of ours at Baxter hit her with his car on July 10, 1958. She died immediately, and we buried her at Frankston with Mum and dad, in their grave. Alice lived with Kathleen and me for eight years after our marriage, until her tragic death."
My father also remembers visits from his Aunty Ali and her sister Mary Hampton from Yarrawonga when he was a child. The sisters would catch the little train from Yarrawonga to Tungamah and spend the day with their sister-in-law, Bridget Bourke Sheridan, who lived with the family of her son Patrick 'Bob' Sheridan in Barr Street, Tungamah. Dad remembers sharing meals with his great-aunts around the big Sheridan family table, and how Ali would devise a series of distractions for her sister Mary so she could pilfer morsels of food from her plate whilst she was looking away.
Alice Christina Sheridan was born on April 9, 1884, at Carisbrook, Victoria, the youngest of ten children born to Nicholas Sheridan and Bridget McGrath. She was only a baby when her parents made the move from Carisbrook to yarrawonga, and so grew up in the small town on the Murray River.
Poor "Ali", as she was known, was quite cross-eyed, as can be seen from the photograph above. She was also of a very highly-strung nature, and never married, spending her early adult years living with her parents in Yarrawonga, and then after their deaths residing with her sister Rose Annie Marshall and her family in Baxter.
Ali was once engaged to be married, but for reasons long forgotten the engagement ended and she never again formed a romantic attachment with a man. Her nephew Bill Marshall wrote of her:-
" Alice had a certain talent for music and in our childhood days she used to play us to sleep on the violin, or her little accordian. She was of a highly nervous temperament, and lived on a pension for many years because of that. She used to pay frequent visits to her dear friend at the Yarrawonga Convent, Sister Mary Cathleen.
Alice met a tragic end when a close friend of ours at Baxter hit her with his car on July 10, 1958. She died immediately, and we buried her at Frankston with Mum and dad, in their grave. Alice lived with Kathleen and me for eight years after our marriage, until her tragic death."
My father also remembers visits from his Aunty Ali and her sister Mary Hampton from Yarrawonga when he was a child. The sisters would catch the little train from Yarrawonga to Tungamah and spend the day with their sister-in-law, Bridget Bourke Sheridan, who lived with the family of her son Patrick 'Bob' Sheridan in Barr Street, Tungamah. Dad remembers sharing meals with his great-aunts around the big Sheridan family table, and how Ali would devise a series of distractions for her sister Mary so she could pilfer morsels of food from her plate whilst she was looking away.
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Tuesday, September 14, 2010
9. Nicholas Henry Sheridan
Above: Nicholas Sheridan's birth certificate. Note that he was officially named Nicholas FRANCIS, but known always as Nicholas HENRY.
Above: This photo of Nicholas Henry Sheridan was sent to his sister Rose Annie Marshall on April 29, 1917.
Nicholas Henry Sheridan was born on February 27, 1882, at Carisbrook, the seventh son and ninth child born to Nicholas Sheridan and Bridget McGrath. Only a small child when his family moved to Yarrawonga, all of Nicholas's education was conducted at the Sisters of Mercy Convent. After his schooling was completed, Nick was apprenticed as a sawyer at a local sawmill for 7 years. Nicholas then moved to NSW where he became a telegraph linesman.
One year later he joined the 4th Battalion in Kensington, NSW, on September 20, 1914. He fought at Gallipoli, and was in the firing line until he fell very ill with severe diarrhoea and other health issues which eventually led to him being transported back to Australia, where he was discharged in June of 1916.
Like his brother Tom, Nick sent post cards from abroad to his nieces back in Yarrawonga...one such card was written to nine year old Bridget Sheridan, daughter of his brother Paddy. It was written on March 9, 1915, in Egypt, and reads as follows:
" Mena Camp, Cairo. A card for little Bridge, she was a good girl for sending me a card for my birthday. Peter, Hughie and me are all well, trusting you are all the same. We were sorry to hear of your grandfather's death, may his soul R.I.P., also Mother and Father and Jack. Goodbye and God bless you all. From Uncle Nick XXXXXXXXXX"
A post card showing a scene from Gallipoli and sent in the years just after the War was sent by Nick to his brother Paddy in Berrigan. Written in pencil, it reads:
" Dear Brother, This is the real picture of the landing Place of the Australian and New Zealand troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula, April 25, 1915. The point that you can see out in the water was where the Turks had barbed wire entanglements in the water 6 feet high and land mines so were were lucky in not striking that place for our landing. From N.H.S."
After the War, Nicholas Sheridan continued to work in the Post Office system until his health began to fail due to the family curse, tuberculosis. He retired to become a patient in the Lady Davidson Home at Turramurra, near Sydney. During this time he was almost completely bedridden.
Bill Marshall, Nick's nephew,wrote the following about his Uncle:
" His was a very different nature from his brother Peter's, and we Marshall kids found him a bit grumpy when he came over from Sydney every year for his annual holidays. Late in his life he developed an attachment to a very nice girl in Sydney, but his failing health due to tuberculosis prevented him from marrying her."
Nicholas Henry Sheridan died in the Caulfield Military Hospital on October 1, 1940, aged 58 years. He was buried in the Frankston Cemetery with his brother Peter and sisters Rose Annie Marshall and Alice Sheridan.
Above: Teresa Emma Sheridan, wife of Thomas Francis Sheridan, and their son, John.
Above: Thomas Sheridan's only daughter, Alison Sheridan. Father and daughter never met, as Alison was born in April 1916 after her father had left Australia to serve in France. He was killed in action at Fromelles only three month's after her birth.
This photo was held for years by the family of Jock Marshall, whose mother Rose Annie was Tom Sheridan's sister. It is identified as being "Uncle Tom Sheridan", but appears to me to be dissimilar to Tom as he appears in other photos. He is wearing the uniform of the Yarrawonga Fire Brigade, similar to that worn by his brother John Sheridan in a photo posted in a previous blog entry.
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