The one moment that stands out for me this year happened about four months ago.   I was browsing Ancestry and typed in my great grandfather's name, ‘Percy Watkinson'. This man has been my “brickwall” over many years.  Initially he seemed to disappear in the late 1890's, with no death certificate to validate his death.  
 
Eventually, this problem was solved by a small personal announcement in Trove stating Percy Watkinson had died in Paris, France on January 7, 1907. 
 
So now I just needed to get a death certificate to authenticate it was the man I was seeking.  I assumed this would just be a matter of contacting the French Births, Deaths and Marriages, paying some money and “Voila”, there it would be.
 
The discovery of Percy’s death whereabouts occurred in 2013. The intervening years have been an education as well as a test of patience. When a person dies in Paris the death is registered at the City Hall of the Arrondissement where the death occurs. I had no way of finding out this information as all the people who may have known were deceased.  
 
So, once again, I put Percy to one side and tried to forget about him.
 
However, from time to time I would type Percy’s name and search in Ancestry or Trove. It seemed to be a hopeless task until this last year, when someone else's family tree popped up and there he was.  But was it him?
 
There were the same parents, but his birthplace was a different country, even though his siblings were born in Germany.  I followed it up and there was a place of death. The date of death was the same and the address was in the Tenth Arrondissement.
 
Armed with this information, I wrote a letter to the City Hall and requested a death certificate, including a stamped self-addressed envelope.  Please note that there was no cost involved.
 
I waited for between six to eight weeks, with frequent trips to our mail box, much to the amusement of my husband. Eventually the envelope arrived and there it was. Now I had positive proof that the certificate was for my man. To add to my joy, one of my fellow classmates in Family Research had found the cemetery where he is buried. 
 
My next trip to Paris will involve a visit to Percy’s grave, but also a visit to the City Hall with a packet of Tim Tams to show my gratitude.
 
Which do you think is my “One Moment This Year”?
 
I chose the finding of his place of death, as the rest was the result of that lucky browse.
 
 
Marg McCrohan
November 2022

It was an early Sunday morning and I was head down in the rose bushes, methodically deadheading spent flowers.

She made a bee line for me from the other side of the road where she had been taking photos of our silo art.

She said, “I have just heard on the radio that if you trim them back you will get more flowers.” From my muffled, bent over position I said “That’s what I’m doing.” and emerged to see a smiling, very well dressed woman beaming at me from the deserted street. Our conversation started with my rose garden. Then we discussed many things, life in general, the Covid 19 pandemic in depth, anti vaxxers, demonstrations, and the fact that people hadn’t really had anything to demonstrate against since our involvement in the Vietnam War.

She said we had been privileged to be comfortable during lockdown but it must have been so hard for people in poorer circumstances who only spoke English as a second language and couldn’t understand.

There is something special about communication with a stranger who you will never meet again; the ‘ships that pass in the night.’  We could exchange our opinions honestly and be listened to without prejudice.

She quietly asked the leading question. “Did you work here in this small town?”  “No, I was a nurse.” She gave a delighted shriek and also pointing to herself, said “I knew it!  I knew as soon as you spoke

Our conversation switched to nursing and back to Covid again. I said the conditions of home schooling were not as bad for children as they were for us in the Second World War. I spoke of silent school children being marched into the trenches. We sat quietly in the dirt in air raid shelters with wooden clothes pegs in our mouths for an hour during Melbourne’s weekly air raid practise. Of fathers being away for years and of not knowing when we left home each morning if we would see our Mother again that day. Plans were in place for the school to be evacuated at a moment’s notice if there was an air raid. Life was very uncertain for us, but we were happy and resilient and accepted it without question because it was all we had.
​
She asked where this was. When I said the Melbourne suburb of Black Rock, there was another delighted shriek. She had also been a child at Black Rock. We knew where each other had lived. We lived in Middleton St which is off Bluff Rd. Her great grandparents had settled in Black Rock when Bluff Rd was just a dirt track.

She had lived in Red Buff St. I laughed and said “I nearly drowned off the Red Bluff when I was seven. We had been told not to swim there because it was dangerous, so of course we never told our parents what had happened!”

In an instant we were transported back to our childhood days. She was younger than me and we were there at different times. Now for both of us we were young friends in a meeting of childhood minds.  We had swum at Half Moon Bay. We went to school at Black Rock and Sandringham
 
It was a case of do you remember. Do you remember the chook farm?  Yes, it was in Tulip St.  Her daughter trained as a nurse at the hospital in Sandringham where she had also worked. My mother worked as a volunteer at a small stall at Sandringham station to raise money to build that hospital.

She told me how happy she felt whenever she thought of her childhood at Black Rock. Her husband approached looking a bit bewildered. When he heard that we both spent our early years at Black Rock he understood.

Reluctantly she left, exclaiming at our chance meeting and I smiled for the rest of the day. I have no idea who she was.   

​Life is like a jigsaw puzzle and the older we get the more pieces fall happily into place.


Bev Morton
November 2022

2021 will be remembered as COVID 19 “year two”. However, like any other year it has had its ups and downs. The moment that stands out for me was when I got a phone call from our son, Declan, to say he was safely in Sydney. He had been given a seat on a repatriation flight from Bangkok. The relief and joy of knowing he was now in the same country was unbelievable. He still had two weeks of quarantine in Sydney to face before we could catch up, but that was just a blip when compared with the months he had spent trying to get back to Australia.

His original flight in May 2020 was cancelled and so began the tortuous process of  booking flights and then being notified of cancellations. In fact, he was about to give up trying to get to Australia and was in the process of returning to Dubai when he was informed about the possibility of repatriation flights being commenced from Bangkok.  He informed his father but suggested it be a secret from me for the time being. He was hoping to arrive back, do his quarantine and turn up as my birthday surprise. Unfortunately, he missed out on the first flight but was in quarantine in Sydney for my birthday- the best present possible.

Declan has spent the last sixteen years working in the Middle East as a University lecturer. When he's not working, he spends time in Thailand and visits us regularly, but Covid19 restrictions impacted his ability to visit us and of course, we could not leave Australia. Normally I am not worried about his wellbeing, but these last two years have put a different slant on things. Prior to this pandemic I was confident that we could visit him if needed and vice versa.

Declan is remaining in Australia at present.  I am enjoying the fact that all our children are presently in the same state and just a two to three hour drive away.

I know this will not last as he will return to Dubai to work when Universities resume face to face teaching.

Whether life will ever return to normal remains to be seen, but at the moment I am 
                    
"Carpe Diem".



​Marg McCrohan
​February 2022

Looking over the last year, COVID dominated our lives.  There were a lot of lows - not being able to visit family, my orphan calf dying after spending months caring for her.  The grandchildren missed having graduation ceremonies, presentation balls and birthday parties, not forgetting the little ones unable to socialise or play in the park after enduring months of home schooling.

However, the highs were numerous too.  We did spend Christmas in 2020 and 2021 together, having a brief break in lockdowns.  We did manage short trips between lockdowns to see friends.

It was a wetter than usual spring and summer, so we planted a vast vegetable garden.  It was a huge success and we picked peas and beans, tomatoes and cucumbers, squash and zucchini, and gave lots away.  The corn was amazing and parsnips, which are notoriously hard to germinate, thrived.

The spring flower garden was our best ever, the bottlebrushes were weighed down with red brushes, and the camellias flourished in the wetter, cooler conditions.  The iris garden which we had worked on for years was an amazing rainbow of pink, blue, purple, yellow and white.  I waited with interest to see how my newly purchased bi-color irises would grow.   Lots of photos were taken to remember this special season.

The pair of thrushes who have nested in a flower pot on top of the hot water service on the back verandah, hatched three chicks.  I was lucky enough to be watching the day they hopped on the lip of the pot and took their first precarious flight.  One made it to the garden shed roof, another got as far as the tree line beyond the back fence, but the third only made it to a bush close by.  It paused, recovered, and followed its mates.  Rain was threatening.  I worried about them out on their own.

The biggest high was at the end of lockdown when our two grandchildren from Melbourne arrived for a visit.  A five and seven year old who love the farm.  From the moment they walked in the door they were at home. 

Thomas had missed his birthday party and I had promised to make a birthday cake on their next visit.  On the way up his mother phoned to remind me, so I hastily made a marble cake, iced it with lashings of chocolate icing and sprinkles.  The cake blowing ceremony was held, seven candles on a separate cake (due to COVID rules), and a huge amount of cake devoured. 

The calves were inspected and the chook house visited in search of eggs.  Peas were ready to pick and pod.  They learned this quickly and were a great help.   

It was a lovely visit.  Caitlin summed it up beautifully by announcing that she was lucky because she had a home in Melbourne and a home in Benalla.


Margaret Nelson
February 2022

The one moment that stood out for me in 2020 was in fact one day. That day was Tuesday 6th October.

Early in the year I had embarked on a project to investigate in more detail, the history of both my maternal and paternal family trees. Part of the process was to locate the resting place of my Australian ancestors. On my paternal family branch of the tree, I located three ancestors who were in unmarked graves. My Great Grandmother, my Grandmother and my Grandfather were all in unmarked graves.

The initial search did locate the grave of my Great Grandfather, James O’Connor in Swan Hill, who died on his property at Ultima in 1903 aged 62, however his wife Janet Margaret, or Jessie as she was known, lived on for many years. She died in 1940 at the age of 92. It appears that she was buried with James, but there was no reference to this on the grave stone. It is somewhat puzzling that her burial place is not marked. She had three daughters and two sons living at the time of her death.  It may have been due to the size of the gravestone and the cost of having it transported to Bendigo and engraved again.

​Further investigation revealed that the cemetery records were incorrect in relation to Great Grandmother’s resting place. The O’Connor family that she was shown as being buried with, were no direct relation to my family. When I presented my evidence to the Swan Hill Cemetery Trust, the records were amended.

In June 2020, suitable plinths were purchased from Benalla Vibrated Concrete Products, and three stainless steel plates were laser engraved by Benalla Trophy Centre. My brother Ken, myself, and two friends made plans to travel to Swan Hill to mark the graves and call on the only surviving auntie from my maternal family, who still lives in the Swan Hill township. The timing of the travel was postponed a number of times due to the Covid restrictions, however on Monday 5th October we travelled to Swan Hill. The region was experiencing some much needed rain, however Tuesday 6th dawned fine, so it was decided to proceed with the plan to clean the existing grave and place the two markers in the region.

My Grandfather, Michael O’Connor died in September 1948, just three months after I was born. He was living in Flemington at the time. The marker for his grave is still in the garage, as his resting place is in the Fawkner Cemetery.  I have been in contact with the Cemetery Trust, however we will wait for a suitable time to travel to Fawkner to place the marker.


Barry O’Connor.
20th February 2021.
 
PS: Anybody planning on a similar exercise should be aware that some cemeteries do charge you for the approval to place grave stones or markers. Fawkner and Manangatang did not charge, however Swan Hill charged $90, and I had to lodge a detailed submission prior to placing the marker. If the application is declined, they keep the $90. ​

Two positive moments stand out in 2020,  although one of them was a few days long.

Our son lives in Tasmania but works in Port Hedland in the Pilbara.  This means firstly that we do not see him very often.  It means travelling to Tasmania during the times that he is home.  And during COVID, we could not visit at all.  At the end of June, he flew back to work from Tasmania, stopping overnight in Melbourne.  This was during the time when travel within Victoria was slightly eased, and shortly before complete shutdown.  It was too good an opportunity.  We drove into Melbourne to join him for dinner.  While we did not see the rest of his family, it was a special moment in a year of restrictions.  It was the first time we had seen him since the previous October…and the last time until exactly now.  The date of the first “As Time Goes by” class coincides with our trip to Launceston to catch up with the family at our grandson’s 18th birthday!  The first time we will have seen them all for nearly 18 months.

Our daughter and her family live in Queensland.  No, we could not visit her either.  A planned trip in May was cancelled.  But that period of eased restrictions at the end of June coincided with the Queensland school holidays.  People from Queensland were able to travel to NSW, and with a permit, able to return home without restrictions.  Two road trips were quickly planned.  Our daughter and family travelled to Byron Bay for a short holiday; we jumped in our car and joined them in Byron Bay for a few days.  A special time spent with family, the first time since Christmas 2019 that we had seen them.  We managed to catch up with other friends on our way back to Victoria, crossing the border just hours before NSW closed its border to Victorians.  We could have stayed on the other side of the border, and not been in lockdown!

And our daughter and granddaughter will be in Tasmania with us.  The boys will stay in Queensland as they had a trip south before Christmas to visit the other grandparents.  So while this is being written before our trip to Tasmania, perhaps this will be a third special moment.
 
Joy Shirley,
February 2021

For me 2020 has been a wasted year. It was the year of my eightieth birthday. I was looking forward to a very special birthday and it didn’t happen. A trip to Queensland to visit my two sons and their families in March had to be cancelled. A last journey back to the land of my birth was out of the question. My daughter and her family had booked a holiday in Iluka, NSW for October and invited me to accompany them. The so-called second wave of Covid-19 in Victoria caused the cancellation of that event.

My family and family celebrations are very important to me. My eight-year-old grandson had his First Holy Communion in Albury, but the border between Victoria and NSW was closed. I missed that special occasion. His older sister had her Confirmation in November. Because of social distancing rules, only her parents and a sponsor was allowed to attend.  Another missed celebration.

This same granddaughter graduated from primary school last night. Only parents and two guests were allowed. After lots of debate her paternal grandfather and me, her maternal grandmother were the chosen candidates. The other two grandparents and her siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins missed out. The whole evening was greatly deflated.

I could go on and on about important events and special occasions that have been sacrificed because of this pandemic. Those special times can never be reclaimed. Younger people may be able to pick up the pieces of their lives but older people like me, can never get back this lost year. We don’t have an excess of years left that we can be complacent about the loss of time.
​
The prompt for this December writing is ‘One Moment, This Year’. All I can focus on are the lost moments that would have been precious to me. The only positive for the whole year was that instead of our Writing Group’s stories being read at meeting sessions, they were printed on line. I have hearing loss and by reading them at my leisure I was able to understand the full content of every story.

I detest the phrase ‘the new normal’ I want the original normal. Let’s not settle for anything else.

Update.

I was awakened by Claudia, our dog barking. I sleepily scrambled from bed to answer the door. It was 7.30am on the 17 December 2020. My daughter was outside the door with a large cardboard box. I opened the door, then went into the lounge and sat down until the sleepiness seeped from my head and my brain began to function. By then my husband had the box. Giving it to me he said “Your Christmas present. I have to give it to you now instead of on Christmas day.” Inside was a beautiful tortoiseshell kitten. She was a cheeky, friendly little animal, immediately making herself at home with our dog, our house, and me.

I have wanted a cat since my last cat died of old age five years ago but my husband thought one pet animal was sufficient at our advanced ages. I never expected such a gift. Being given the sweet little kitten over-rides all the disappointments caused by Covid-19. This was my very special moment. ☺
​
 
Elizabeth Kearns
December 2020