My grandmother, Lucretia

 

My grandmother, Lucretia

 

There has always been an air of mystery, of incomplete information, around my mum’s family. We knew her parents were divorced, and knew nothing about her father, Herbert Adams. We knew her own mother had been orphaned as a child – or, at least, that’s somehow the story we picked up. We knew there was another cousin of ours somewhere, a child of her older sister Phyl and therefore a half-brother to our Sandford cousins Barry and David, but we had never met him and knew nothing of his life or his own family circumstances. Parts of this particular picture are now a lot clearer, parts are as obscured as ever.

 

One of the difficulties in researching my Nan’s life  -  as we called our grandmother, our mother’s mother – is the inconsistency in her birth names and surnames on official records. Sometimes she is Lucretia Roberts, other times she is Lucretia Robertson. The full birth names she used, Lucretia Lillian, do not appear on her birth certificate. The first time she herself offers a surname on an official document – her wedding certificate – she identifies herself as Lucretia Robertson. But the first official document on her life, her birth certificate, lists her simply as Lucretia Roberts.

 

Nan’s birth certificate states that Lucretia Roberts was born in Sydney on 8 January 1898, at 37 Duke Street. No suburb is mentioned. A likely candidate for this Duke St is in Balmain, in what would have been at that time a working class area, and close to the wharves. Her father, who provided the information to register this birth, identifies himself as James Roberts, 30 years old, an Able Bodied Seaman, born in  “Baltimore, America”. This would be the city of Baltimore in the state of Maryland, in the USA. This was completely new information, never having been suggested by my mother, who knew little – or said little - of her own mother’s family history. The birth certificate also identifies Lucretia’s mother as Mary Rowland, 36 years old, and born in Pembrokeshire, Wales. This tallied with what I had heard, that my grandmother’s mother was Welsh. In fact we had been unsure whether Nan herself had been born in Wales. The birth certificate at least confirms that she was born in Australia, of a Welsh mother.

 

The final bit of information on the birth certificate states that Lucretia’s parents had been married a year previously, 12 January 1897, in Adelaide, South Australia. Knowing this certificate could open up promising lines of further enquiry, I applied to South Australian authorities for this wedding certificate. The answer, when it came back, initially shocked me : “no such record exists”. The implications were quickly obvious : Lucretia’s parents had never been married, and she was technically “illegitimate”. Therefore some of the information provided by James Roberts in registering his daughter’s birth, was incorrect. In fact, it was a lie – a deliberate falsehood. Further research into South Australian records has consistently failed to find any mention of Mary Rowland or James Roberts.

 

We can only speculate about the reasons for this. Assuming that James is Lucretia’s biological father – and I think this is the case - surely it would have been possible for a marriage to be arranged once it was clear that Mary was pregnant. That this did not occur, suggests that James never intended to stay around. He was an “able bodied seaman”, an American, and the research to be done is to find the ship on which he came to Australia, when that was, and see if he can be found on a ship leaving Australia within a year or so of Lucretia’s birth. If there is such a ship, did James sail away on it from Sydney, or from Newcastle? Nan would later say, on her marriage certificate, that she was born in Newcastle, which suggests she was living there from an early age. Why did she move there? Was it just her and her mother? Or was James still a part of this little family? I suspect that however many of this family of 3 moved to Newcastle, it was very quickly a family of 2 only – Lucretia and her mother, Mary.

 

The next thing that we know about Lucretia’s early life, comes from an account by my mother, Lucretia’s second daughter. Mum told me many years ago that Nan had been raised by a “Mrs Reid, the mother of Mrs Ivy Chapman”.  Research has established that an Ivy Emily Reid, born in West Wallsend (Newcastle) on 25 May 1897, the daughter of William Gault Reid and Sarah Ann Mitchell, later married (18 December 1915) a Charles R Chapman, in Hamilton (Newcastle). These are surely the people my mum was referring to – it is the right parts of Newcastle, and the right names.  Effectively, the Reid family was Lucretia’s foster family. Ivy Reid would have been around the same age as Lucretia Roberts (Robertson), perhaps they lived close to one another when Lucretia’s mother was still alive, and Ivy’s mother then took the orphaned Lucretia into the Reid family and cared for and raised her there. There are no records yet discovered which indicate a formal guardianship or any such arrangement, and there may well have been no such formal or official arrangement.

 

Family lore says that Nan was orphaned at an early age. We can’t be sure, now, if this refers to the death of both parents, or, the death of her mother and the disappearance (return to USA?) of her father. There is no conclusive record of the death of a Mary Roberts, or a Mary Robertson, which fits the picture of “our” Mary, in any of the years 1898 – 1915. The closest possibility is a Mary H Roberts who died 10 May 1900, and was buried at Sandgate cemetery in Newcastle. It is a humble grave, with no headstone, no covering, just a cement edging. However, the parents of this Mary are listed as John and Maud, which doesn’t fit.

 

Lucretia’s birth certificate says her mother’s name was Mary Rowland, 36 years old, born herself in Pembrokeshire, Wales. On this basis, there is a birth record which fits : of a Mary Rowland, born 20 April 1862, at Treginydd, Brawdy, which is in the county of Pembrokeshire. It was a poor farming area, and this Mary’s father, William Rowland, is described as a “farm servant”, and her mother is “Martha Rowland, formerly Griffith”. Martha was illiterate and her signature is marked with an “X”. I have accepted this William and Martha as the likely parents of “our” Mary, and on this basis have traced back one further generation to William’s parents, John and Elizabeth Rowland.

 

But why did Mary come to Australia? And when? Was she alone, or with family? Was she in fact married at the time of emigration? And if so, was she subsequently widowed? Was indeed James Roberts a seaman on the ship which brought her to Australia?  Given the untruth on Lucretia’s birth certificate about her parents’ marriage, the most likely scenario, I believe, is that Lucretia was indeed the biological child of James Roberts and Mary Rowland, who were unmarried. The research continues!!

 

James Roberts, on the other hand, can possibly be further identified. The 1870 United States Federal Census, lists a 2 years old James Roberts living in Maryland. This would make James 30 at the time of Lucretia’s birth, which fits. James was the youngest of 6 children, of Frank and Ellen Roberts. The family lived at Dames Quarter, a poverty-stricken area in Maryland, across the bay from Baltimore, and are described as unable to read or write. Frank’s occupation is a “waterman” – someone who ferries paying passengers across waterways.

 

One fact about this family stood out. Under the heading “Race”, on this census they are described as “black”. I am not aware of any black heritage, so my initial thoughts were that this could not possibly be our James. But I think we have to suspend judgement on this matter, for the following reasons.

1.   My DNA analysis mostly tells me what I know – that my heritage is predominantly derived from English and Irish ancestors.  However, this same analysis also says that I have ancestry derived from the Indian sub-continent, somewhere between 6 – 13%. This ancestry is said to be from the Pakistan / Afghanistan region. My paternal ancestry is clearly established as English and Irish, and this other line of descent is now established through updated Ancestry algorithyms as maternal – through my mother.  My mother’s father, Herbert Adams, has a clearly established line of English descent, which means that this Indian sub-continent descent can only be through my mother’s mother – Lucretia.

2.   The USA Census categories for “Race” in 1870 were : white, black, mulatto (mixed race), Chinese, Indian (native American). Here I am speculating, that “black” in 1870 did not have the specific reference which we use today to indicate “African-American” ethnicity. It was used in more of a descriptive sense, referring to a person’s skin colour. It is quite common for a person from the Indian sub-continent to have a dark skin colour. On this basis, the Roberts family in the 1870 census, described as “black”, could have been of Pakistani / Afghan origin, as there was no other race category with which to classify them.

3.   In photographs, my Nan, Lucretia, at times looks Pakistani / Indian / Afghan. There is no more subtle way of putting this. I am referring to her darker, olive complexion, and her dark eyes, in particular a type of different skin colouring around her eyes that is hard to define ……..just her “look”, in which I can now see clear Indian / Pakistani characteristics. Clearly I never thought this when Nan was alive, and there is a lot of reading backwards into history now………..but………having got that idea I now find it hard to let go.

 

Is that convincing??  Let’s just say it provides a good hypothesis for further research. Perhaps one of the best possibilities for getting more certainty in this, will come from DNA matches. At this stage, the hundreds and hundreds of DNA matches I have are all on my paternal side, as far as I can see. At some stage there will surely be some DNA matches on my maternal side, and then we should get more insight into the strength or otherwise of the above proposition. I will keep you informed !!!

  

Lucretia marries

 Nan was below the then “marriageable age” of 21 when she married Herbert Adams, on 2 October 1915. Her marriage certificate says she was18 years old, but according to her birth certificate, she would have still been  17 years (and 9 months). Nan signed her Marriage Certificate as “Lucretia Lillian Robertson”. In fact there are four discrepancies between her birth and marriage certificates :

1. “Roberts” on birth certificate,  “Robertson” on marriage certificate;

2. 17 years old in 1915 according to birth certificate, 18 years old  according to marriage certificate

3. “Sydney” as the place of birth on birth certificate, “Newcastle” as the place of birth on the marriage certificate;

4. Second name of “Lillian” not registered on birth certificate, but used on marriage certificate.

 

These discrepancies mean there has to be some measure of doubt that I have found the correct birth certificate. However, there is enough on the birth certificate that is correct, for me to accept that that certificate is itself Nan’s correct birth certificate : we always celebrated her birthday on 8 January, a Welsh mother named Mary, her father’s surname of “Roberts” was also used on some other certificates (eg Nan’s death certificate, with information supplied by her daughter, Madge, my mother). And, there is no other birth record in NSW at this time, that comes anywhere close to fitting the known “facts”.  No other Lucretia Roberts or Robertson is registered. So I am sticking with the information on the birth certificate, and assuming that Nan gave incorrect information on her marriage certificate about her age, her surname, and place of birth. Whether this misinformation was intentional or her “best guess”, we don’t know. My belief is that she would have given the information she believed correct. Who knows when and how “Roberts” morphed into “Robertson”? Nor do we know why and how "Lillian" came to be part of the given names she used. And given the circumstances of her early life and “orphan” status, to be only 1 year out in knowing her birth year, and incorrect birth city, is easy to understand.

 

Herbert Adams was 22 years old, and a “Carter”. He was the oldest of 7 (known) children, of Herbert Thomas Adams (1864 – 1940) and Sarah Dorothy Proctor, although nothing more is known of his mother. There is also scant evidence about the Adams family at this stage, although we can trace young Herbert’s family back through 3 generations : his own father Herbert, his grandfather James (born in England in 1844), and his great grandfather Thomas, presumably also born in England. In Australia, the Adams ancestors settled in Maitland, close to Newcastle in New South Wales, which is where Herbert Thomas was born. Lucretia’s husband Herbert was born in Newcastle.

 

Approval for Lucretia to marry was given by Edward Scott Holland, the “Guardian of Minors”. I can find no official records of this guardianship, or of Nan being in the care of any of the organisations who looked after orphans. As already mentioned, it appears she was cared for and brought up in the Reid family. Edward Scott Holland was the Town Clerk of Newcastle, with a reputation as a charitable and caring public official.  Lucretia was already pregnant, and we can suppose that his approval was readily given to the young couple to marry, and so it happened on 2 October 1915, in St. John’s (Anglican) Church in Newcastle.

 

Three daughters were born to this marriage, Phyllis Mary on 12 April 1916, Madge Iris (my mother) on 24 January 1918, and Dorothy Isobel on 11 January  1922. We know little of the early years of the three sisters, beyond  that they lived in the Tighe’s Hill and Cooks Hill suburbs of Newcastle, working class areas.  We knew that Herbert's and Lucretia’s marriage faltered and eventually failed, and somehow the assumption took root that Herbert became a violent and abusive drunkard. My mum never said anything explicit about this and it is not clear to me why we came to believe this. This picture can now be sketched with more detail, through the research tool of “Trove”, the National Library of Australia’s digitisation of an enormous store of records, including newspapers from all around the nation.

 

On 15 May 1937, the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate carried the following report from its court reporter :

 

THREATENING WORDS.

On a charge of having used  threatening words to Lucretia Adams on May 8, Herbert Adams of Gibson Avenue, Cooks Hill was ordered to enter into a bond of £30 to keep the peace for six months.  He was also ordered  to pay 8/- costs,  in default  24 hours imprisonment.

Clearly by 1937, there were significant storm clouds in the Adams family. Phyl would have been 21, Madge 19 and Dorothy 15 years old.  Whatever the source of the souring of the relationship between Lucretia and Herbert, the Court’s judgement of 1937 did not have an enduring effect, and the same newspaper carried the following report on 14 January 1939 :

SUMMONS DIVISION BOUND OVER.

"All I ask is to be left alone," said Lucretia Adams, of Union Street, Tighe's Hill, in asking the Magistrate to bind over Herbert Adams, of Jubilee Lane, Newcastle, against whom she proceeded on an information that  he had used insulting words to her in the Trades Hall on December 10. Adams pleaded "Guilty" and was  bound over in £20 to be of good behaviour for 12 months, in default a month's imprisonment.

This is a serious fine, and suggests a level of harassment by Herbert that had reached a serious level. The marriage was, to all intents, over. And two years later, the full story emerges, this time courtesy of The Newcastle Sun, Thursday 22 May 1941. By now the newspaper is reporting on the proceedings of the Divorce Court :

 

Adams  v  Adams

Her husband walked out on her and their three daughters six years ago, said Mrs Lucretia Lillian Adams (formerly Robertson), of Dawson Street, Cooks Hill, who sought a divorce from Herbert Adams, on the grounds of desertion.

Mrs Adams said that she was married on October 2, 1915, at the Church of England, Newcastle. She last lived with her husband in 1935. At Christmas, 1934, their married life was unhappy. Adams told her to leave the house as he was sick of her and the three daughters. She left, but returned to the house a few days later to find the gate nailed and the doors locked. She sued him for support and got an order.

They later had a reconciliation and lived in Hamilton for six weeks. One day in August, 1935, Adams walked out on her. She got another order against him and they had lived apart ever since. Adams had not paid her maintenance for three years. He owed her hundreds of pounds.

A decree nisi was granted.

Mr AA Johnson (Messrs Johnson and McDonald) appeared for Mrs Adams.

 

As an aside, the “decree nisi” was the order that a Judge would issue if s/he was satisfied that grounds for a divorce had been established. After one month, this decree nisi automatically became a decree absolute, which finalised the divorce, and meant both parties were free to legally remarry. This is very different, of course, to the system of “no fault divorce” which applies today, and which does not require a Judge to adjudicate reasons to approve or not approve a divorce.

 

The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate also carried a report – with additional information - in its edition of Friday 23 May 1941 :

Eleven undefended suits were heard by Mr. Justice Bonney at the sitting of the Matrimonial Causes Court which began at Newcastle Courthouse yesterday.

ADAMS v. ADAMS.

Desertion was the ground on which Lucretia Lillian Adams, formerly Robertson, of Dawson Street, Cook's Hill, sought divorce from Herbert Adams. The parties were married in Newcastle in October 1915, according to the rites of the Church of England. There were three children. Mrs. Adams said that while they lived at King Street, Newcastle, her husband often came home drunk, and abused her. Following a reconciliation, they moved to Veda Street, Hamilton. Six weeks later her husband came home drunk, packed his clothes, and left. That was in 1935. He had not lived with her since, and owed a large amount on a maintenance order. A decree nisi was pronounced. Respondent won ordered to pay the costs. Mr. A. A. Johnson (Messrs. Johnson and McDonald) appeared for petitioner

 

So, the story we had somehow gleaned over the years, of a drunken and abusive husband, was correct. But the fact that Herbert’s abandoning of his family was not mentioned leads me to speculate that it may have been less painful for mum or whoever sowed the seeds of doubt about Herbert’s character, to leave that impression -  is it somehow more shameful to admit that your own father just walked out on you, disowned you, had no interest in or love for you? If not more shameful, certainly a greater wound.

 

In fact it would take another 8 years for Lucretia to apply for the decree absolute, and the court papers make for sad reading. In her written application of 17 January 1949 to the Registrar in Divorce, Supreme Court, Sydney, Lucretia pleads that she was not financially able to apply for the Decree Absolute, having been for the last 6 years “in receipt of Social Services benefits only, and recently was granted a pension in lieu thereof”. In addition, she said, “for a period of 4 years my daughter was in ill health and finally died. Over this time I incurred considerable medical expenses and lacked the means to make application for my Decree Absolute prior to this date”.

 

Supporting evidence that there was no connivance with Herbert Adams in these matters of financial hardship, was provided by Madge Iris Adams. I’m not sure why my mother would not have been identified by her married name, Cleary, in the Court documents. She had been married by now for 7 years, and in fact I was then 2 years old. The Court accepted the Petitioner’s (Nan’s) claim, the Decree Absolute was granted, and the Respondent (Herbert Adams) – who was not represented – was ordered to pay the Petitioner’s costs. Justice was done, and seen to be done.

 

After this, Herbert Adams recedes from sight and family memory.  I have seen no evidence that in subsequent years he either reached out to his daughters, or they contacted him. It seems that he never remarried, and at the time of his death in 1955 was living at 30 Jubilee Lane, Newcastle. It’s an address which no longer exists and suggests it was somewhere in the older, dilapidated parts of working class Newcastle subsequently demolished in an urban renewal project. At the age of 61, he died from a ‘cerebral haemorrhage’ (a stroke), surviving only 6 hours in Royal Newcastle Hospital. Interestingly, the details for his death certificate were provided by his daughter Phyl, which suggests she had some sort of contact with her father, however minimal. As much as the Court records of his abusive behaviour and the facts around the divorce, stand as condemnation of my grandfather’s behaviour, and perhaps of his character, I do feel a residue of compassion for this man. This could be quite mistaken, of course, but I can’t help wondering if the marriage of Herbert and Lucretia was always likely to run onto rocky ground as its young protagonists matured. At her marriage, Lucretia was an orphaned girl of 17, pregnant, not aware that the surname she used was incorrect, with no knowledge at all of her own father and scant information on her mother beyond she was ‘Mary’ from Wales. Several years later, the ‘Great Depression’ of the early 1930’s, put enormous stresses on families across Australia, and across the world. Madge was a young teenager when she had to leave school to find work and help support the family. Was Herbert one of the army of itinerant men who travelled far from home in search of whatever scraps of work they could find? At the end, we have to come back to what is known, and the Court records over a period spanning 12 years (1937 – 1949) tell a consistent story of an abusive man, who deserted his family. We just don’t know why.

 

If the 1930’s and 1940’s were years of great financial and emotional hardship for Nan, the 1950’s were better. On 9 April 1949, in St Andrew’s Manse, Hamilton, she married Thomas Frederick Leis, under the rites of the Presbyterian church. Fred Leis was a widower, a Toolmaker by trade, and aged 55 at the time. Fred had adult children from his first marriage, but I can’t recall ever meeting them. Lucretia was herself now 51 years old and it is reasonable to assume that the desire to marry ‘Uncle Fred’ – as his step grandchildren called him – also contributed to the urge to achieve the divorce Decree Absolute, granted  earlier that year.

 

Prior to marriage to Uncle Fred, it seems Nan was living at 20 Dawson Street, Cooks Hill, an interesting place as it’s also the address for my mum, dad and me, and for my Sandford aunt, uncle and cousin. It wasn’t a big house, so I can’t imagine how we all fitted. 

The enormous benefit for Nan was that Fred owned his own house, at 154 Christo Road, Waratah. For my brother, sister and me, and our cousins, we would get to know this home well indeed over many years to come, on holidays to visit Nan in Newcastle. It’s a solid double brick bungalow, and still stands on the site. This photo is a recent one.

 

I never knew Uncle Fred well, but instinctively liked him – a kindly man, ordered and methodical, quietly spoken. Riding in his car was a treat,  a “Lincoln Continental” (according to my cousin Barry), a “luxury car” produced by the Ford Motor Company. I’ve always assumed he was well off, and although after his death my Nan had to be careful with money it was also clear that the days of struggle had gone.  Fred died on 24 April 1958, and I remember the sadness I experienced when mum told me. It was my first experience of the death of someone I knew, and perhaps it is a common thing for each of us to remember clearly this “first time”. The terms of his Will were that after his death, Nan would live in the house as long as she wanted, but on her death or leaving the house, it would revert to his own family, who had inherited the ownership of the house. It always struck me as a fair arrangement, although I detected some irritation or brittleness on my Nan’s and mum’s behalf, which I never explored or thought much about, but which I have subsequently found was very likely because the Leis family gave very little, or no, financial or other assistance to Nan in the maintenance of the house.

The steps at Nan's front gate. Barry, Ross and David. 1951

This piano has a special place in our family. It's now in the care of Nan's great grandson Leigh Gotch. Before that, from 1974 to 2018, it was in the various houses I lived in over those years. But it was Nan's piano, and came to me after she died in 1973.

I can't imagine that she would have or could have owned a piano before coming to live at 154 Christo Road, Waratah. Surely life was too much of a struggle to afford such a luxury?  But at some stage she learnt or was taught to play the piano. She could read music, which suggests formal lessons. Perhaps she learnt as a child, while being cared for by the Reid family. We will never know the answers to these questions. All we know is that she loved her piano, and played it beautifully. As children, there were clear rules around what we were allowed to do on her piano, and no banging of the keys in childish enthusiasm was permitted.

At the time we became aware of this piano, Nan was also the pianist for a social group somewhere in Newcastle. My recollection is of a seniors group, I don't think in residential care, but more of a group which came together for dancing and sing-a-longs. The music Nan would play for them was a range of popular tunes from the early years of the 1900s through to the 1950s. I have a collection of around 330 sheet music pieces from this period, and a further collection of 60 albums, each containing multiple songs.  Many of the music sheets are waltzes, and Nan has also identified others as "very good barn dance", or "fox trot". It's an extraordinary collection of original music through the early years of the 20th century, and a privileged insight into popular culture of those years. While some of the more recent music, from the 1950s and perhaps 1940s, is in good condition, most of the older pieces are clearly showing their age and usage. That's hardly surprising - some of these pieces are over 100 years old!! An extraordinary collection.