Grace Goodfellow and Frederick Murphy

 

Grace Goodfellow was born on 12 September 1879 in South Brisbane, Queensland.  Her parents were George Goodfellow and Margaret Johnston.  Frederick was born on 9 September 1881 in Concord, Sydney, New South Wales.  His parents were John Murphy and Bridget Lynch.

Two grandmothers, Jane McConnell and Grace Murphy with baby Diana.  It is 1946.  Both grandmothers are formally dressed and look very serious.  Grace’s husband Fred Murphy had died in April 1946, just four weeks after Diana was born.  Grace and Jane are standing in the front garden of 19 Marion Street, Strathfield, a western suburb of Sydney.  Grace and Fred’s son Vincent built the house in 1935 before he married Frances McConnell, Jane’s daughter.

Glenroyal, Tavistock Road, Flemington 1920

Grace died in 1948, leaving her estate - including Fred’s timber mill and the house he built in 1908 on the corner of Tavistock Road and Hornsey Road, Flemington - to their three sons.  Here is “Glenroyal” in 1920.  Vin set up his builder’s yard on the former tennis court; Neville and Harold continued with the mill.

Grace’s marriage and death certificates give her name as Daisy Grace, although she was called Grace by her family and named Grace on her birth certificate and her son Vincent’s death certificate.  Maybe Daisy, as a diminutive of Margaret/ Marguerite, was after her mother, Margaret Rebecca, who was born in Paris, France.

During the Second World War, Grace volunteered at the canteen at Central Railway Station, busy with armed services personnel.  Vin was constructing “temporary” houses for munitions factory workers at Lithgow small arms factory.  Neville’s family moved from their house in Collaroy to live with Grace and Fred while Neville was in the Navy.  Harold was at the Air Force base at Fisherman’s Bend near Melbourne.

Grace was quite artistic with her embroidery, plate painting and picture painting, according to her sister Olive’s grand-daughter, Joanne, who “created a mental picture of her as being quite strict and “proper” but very family orientated.”  Grace maintained her household, ironing 28 shirts every week for her husband Fred and three sons.

After breakfast, Grace used to push the breakfast dishes aside and paint.  Members of her family have kept beautifully embroidered table mats and tablecloths.

Sometimes Grace’s sisters would visit, although one day when one arrived unexpectedly – having walked from the train at Flemington – Grace announced she was not at home for visitors and shut the front door.

Grace would have cooked a midday meal for Fred, who could walk across from the timber yard to the house.

While writing about my father Vincent, I had written to his younger brother Neville, asking about their childhood in Flemington, schools, sport, other recreations, friends, pets, holidays, weekend activities, work, family, World War, Depression.  Neville replied in a typed story describing people, activities and work in Flemington and his, Vin’s and their younger brother Harold’s work.  Neville also included descriptions about his parents, Frederick and Daisy Grace.  It is these memories which give an insight into Daisy’s life, character, interests and love of reading and books.  Neville's letter, written pm 26 January 2001, was his 93rd birthday. 

We made good friends with the other kids … they loved to come and play in the mill that my father was setting up.  Two … children … were Bill Ikin and Alfred Roger.  Alf lived in a house … occupied a whole block of land enclosed by Richmond Road, Eastbourne Road, Tavistock Road and Arthur Street.  It was built for and occupied by the Maidens.  Alf and his father and his three sisters were dark skinned.  It was not unusual for some of the other children at school to use nicknames for Alf that could be quite insulting.  My mother regarded him as a real gentleman and instructed us that we were never to call him by one of other of the nicknames. 

When [Vincent] came home [from school] he would tell his mother about the books that they were studying.  As our mother was a keen reader she showed a lot of interest in those books.  The only name I remember was a book or a story entitled “The Lady in the Lake”. 

We were the first family in Flemington to own a motorcar.  It was a Pullman car … four cylinder, five seater with a canvas hood.  It took us every [where] we wanted to go: To Melbourne, to Brisbane to Coonabarabran to Mount Kosciusko and countless trips to the south coast and over the mountains to Bathurst and Orange and Dubbo.  

… we had built our own tennis court. … Harold and I played tennis at the weekends. 
My mother ordered and received a couple of English books which were delivered by the paperman.  Later on we ordered a couple more periodicals.  These were Boys’s books.  All featured stories set in the English towns or countryside.  
We played all those games such as Snakes and ladders and then chess.  We had no musical instruments, but my father and mother bought a phonograph, so that we could dance when we had parties.
Holidays.  Before we got the car we rented a cottage at Bulli one year.  Our father hired a horse and sulky and we drove up Bulli Pass.  We didn’t get to the top. 
After our father [Frederick] died our mother asked [Harold} to come back to the mill and take over the management of it.  He came back to the mill and had no trouble managing it. 

Recreation.  We three boys learned to read as far back as I can remember.  Our interest in reading was kindled at an early age by our mother.  Whenever she would go to Sydney, she would bring home a book.  One of them was Sherlock Holmes Hounds of the Baskerville by Conan Doyle.  That was typical of them.  Then of an evening after the washing up was done, we would troop into the dining room, sit in a semicircle around the fireplace and she would read to us.  I don’t know who enjoyed it most.  It was obvious that she loved reading and that we loved listening.  She read so expressively.  The only hardship was when, after about an hour or so she would stop and say “That’s all for [to]night.  We’ll all have to wait until tomorrow night to find out what happens next.” 

Radio.  [Neville] built our first radio set.  [Later], when I had saved up, I built a five valve set with a big loud speaker.  Then we could sit around and listen to the news and on Sunday night there would be the Palmolive Show and the like.

Weekend Activities.  Before we got the Pullman car, weather permitting we would harness the horse, Jimmy to the sulky and drive to Auburn to visit some of our relations.  There was the Yanz’s in Adderley Street … On another occasion we might go to Aunty Mary Happ in Mary Street near Happ Street.  On another occasion we could go to see mum’s mother at Lantre [sic] Avenue. 

When the Pullman car came along, we’ pack up the victuals and be off to picnic at Echo Point at Katoomba or to Leura or perhaps to Bulli Pass and Wollongong.  Mostly, on Saturday nights we would drive to the pictures or cinema, anywhere from Parramatta to Burwood. 

My family were never involved in politics.  We went to Sunday school at St Columba’s. [The Anglican Church on the corner of Hornsey and Exeter Roads]

[Neville] mowed the lawn and dug up the beds when my mother had flowers to plant.  She paid me, often in advance when I was saving up to buy parts for radios that I was making.  The fernery played an important part in our lives.  On Fridays, generally, Harold and I would bring in potted plants and put them on stands along each wide of the hall.  On Monday morning we would return them to the fernery.  We never grew any vegetables. 

My mother would often take us to Auburn in the train and we would walk around to Langtry Avenue and visit my grandmother.  I was too young to enter into a conversation with my grandmother which I regretted later on when I learned about her French origin and her years at the lighthouse. 

Depression.  My father and mother didn’t do too badly because there were the rents coming in though some tenants got behind and never were able to catch up.

My mother ordered and received a couple of English books which were delivered by the paperman.  Later on we ordered a couple more periodicals.  These the Boy’s books.  All featured stories set in the English towns or countryside.

Fred worked as a carpenter and builder, building houses around Flemington.  His mother, Bridget (Lynch) Murphy, had bought one of the first two blocks when Flemington, between Sydney City and Parramatta, was subdivided in 1882.  Fred was the 14th of Bridget and John’s 15 children; several of whom lived and worked in and around Flemington.

Milton Kent, part of air photo of Homebush West (Flemington) 1920

  

This air photo was taken in 1938 by Milton Kent. Courtesy State Library of NSW, from Strathfield Council website, https://www.strathfield.nsw.gov.au/blog-post/minding-our-business-in-homebush-west/

 

Grace and Fred joined the McConnell family on holidays at Ettalong in 1933.

In this Ettalong photo are (left to right) Grace Murphy, Frederick Murphy, Frances McConnell (married Vincent Murphy in 1935), Harold Murphy, Tom McConnell (Frances’ brother), Jane (Edwards) McConnell (mother of Frances, Tom and Bob), Dorothy Watkins (family friend), Bob McConnell (Frances’ brother).

There were adventures with long car trips.  Fred bought one of the earliest cars in Flemington, driving to Mt. Hotham and in about 1920 to the top of Mount Kosciusko.  Here they are, Fred in his white coat, the boys in what looks like their school uniforms and Grace in her hat.  

During the 1930s Depression there was little work; Fred did not collect rent on some of his houses.  Their son Vin was only doing odd carpentry jobs for neighbours and extended family.  Between 1927 and 1930, Vin built houses in the country: Coolah, Whale Beach, Wellington and Wollar.  

Vin’s brother Neville had met Frances’ brother Tom at evening tech courses studying electrical engineering.  In 1934 Vin built a house at Byrock – and drove back to Sydney to meet Frances to play tennis on the courts at the back of the timber mill.  

“Yours sincerely Grace & Fred.”  This wedding photograph is the only image of young Grace and Fred.   It was sent from the family of Fred and Phil’s eldest sister Ellen Dalton in Queensland, during correspondence for the 1996 Murphy family history. 

In 1903, Frederick Murphy and Grace Goodfellow signed their names as witnesses at the marriage of Frederick’s older brother Philip Murphy and Elizabeth Ellen Walker at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Concord.  Perhaps Elizabeth was a friend of Grace.  Phil and Elizabeth’s son, Len, wrote stories about the Murphy family for the family history.  

When Grace and Fred were married in 1905, the witnesses were Philip Murphy and Grace’s sister, Olive (Goodfellow) Thomas.  The wedding was in St. Philip’s Anglican Church on the corner of Macquarie and Hall Streets, Auburn; Grace’s mother lived at Langtry Avenue, south of the Auburn railway station and near Murphy residences in Happ and Mary Street.  Fred’s family were committed Catholics, attending St Mary’s Church in Concord.  

Grace’s family had moved from Queensland to Auburn in the 1890s.