My mate Shelley over at TwigsofYore has issued a challenge for Australia Day 2012.
Australia Day 2012: Wealth for Toil
To participate, choose someone who lived in Australia (preferably one of your ancestors) and tell us how they toiled. Your post should include:
- What was their occupation?
- What information do you have about the individual’s work, or about the occupation in general?
- The story of the person, focussing on their occupation; or
The story of the occupation, using the person as an example.
Responses may be as long or short as you like, and as narrow or broad as you wish.
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| Frank Duncan - Soldier |
Unfortunately in spite of all of their toil none of my ancestors was rewarded with wealth in the monetary sense. Rewards came in the form of happy lives and healthy families.
My grandfather, Frank Duncan, seemed to move from job to job in the country town of Cobar. As a young man he worked as a miner in Cobar's copper mines. After returning from World War 1 he purchased a station (very large farm) of 32,000 acres, Elsinore, outside of Cobar. He walked off this farm sometime during the Great Depression.
From that time on he tried a few jobs. He had a catering truck that he drove around the countryside to feed the crowds at race meetings and other gatherings. From this van he sold his home made pies and the ginger beer he brewed.
Together with my grandmother, Ethel Jane Pusell, Frank ran a cafe in Cobar. I am not sure how long this venture lasted. Frank eventually went to work at the Post Office. He rejoined the Australian Army in 1940 but did not see active duty. When the family moved to Sydney in the 1940s Frank worked at the Kensington Post Office. I am not sure what work he did there but I think he may have driven a van.
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| Frank Duncan's Catering Van |
Frank was a proud man, the major source of his pride was his five daughters "The Duncan Girls" who were very fond of their "Dadda". What they lacked in material wealth was made up by the richness of the happy family life that they enjoyed up until Frank's early death at age 53.
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| Frank, Ethel and The Duncan Girls, members of the Junior Red Cross c 1936 |
