Staring at screens, buying a small "Pay to View" account with Ancestry.com, writing to Port Adelaide-Enfield Council and SA Museum, Irwin District Historical Society in WA, tracking through Electoral rolls, a Google search, taking a punt on a name in Whitepages and Hey Presto!! On Thursday I talked to the Great-nephew of Ridley. His mother was the daughter of William James, Ridley's brother, and died only in 2008. She was herself very interested and, as I understand, active in family history researching. I will be ringing him again next Wednesday and will talk more - the hope is that he has a bit more in tangible evidence. No matter if he doesn't, the thrill of "closing a circle" extending over 125 years is worth it. Maybe too he will have information about Dora Reed, Ridley's older sister, and Mary Ridley Watson (nee Reed), his younger sister. Trove has produced articles listing Dora's Music Theory examination results and that she came second in the telegraph operators examination for the Commonwealth Public Service, through Muirden's College in Adelaide. From Trove also, descriptions of weddings and what the bride wore are entrancing. The Shell-pink georgette over silver tissue, the silver shoes, gold moracain, "autumn tints" bouquets and black velvet cloche hats of the 1920's seem so much more inventive and interesting than the current standard of strapless white!!
Recently spent two days in the War Museum in Canberra reading accounts of the experiences of civilians and soldiers in Rabaul after the invasion by the Japanese. Escapes and POW life - of course they are horrific but I have no means of deeply feeling what they were like - it is an intellectual exercise and how glad I am that is all it can be.
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