#52 ANCESTORS WEEK 18 - CLOSE UP

The prompt for Week 18 is "Close Up." 

Some possible ways to interpret the prompt:

an ancestor who lived closed to where you live now or where you grew up;

an ancestor that you have a portrait of;

an ancestor who you have more information about and you feel like you know them "close up."

Remember — there's no right or wrong way to approach any of the prompts!




I once again had to ponder hard and long for what to write for this prompt.

I have a couple of photos in my possession of Garvice Galvin Brandt, so I decided that I will pen a few words on him. Although there is a lot that I have found that I don’t know about him, as he is my father I have decided that I would indulge myself with a few personal memories of the man I called Dad.

Garvice was born on 16th April 1914 a son to George and Isabella and a brother to Valma and Lorna.⁠[1]

He was born into the WWI era of uncertainty, in a little town in New South Wales, called Gunnedah. His father was a ganger on the railway.

After the war I have found evidence of this little family in Wyong, New South Wales, in 1923. Why they moved there is uncertain. I found an article online through the wonderful Trove website, reporting on the activities of the children and their mother participating in the local Church fete.⁠[2]  I have posted previously elsewhere on this blog a short creative non-fiction story about this event.(St Cecelia's Bazaar - Flash Story)  

I then tracked my Dad’s family through Ancestry, via the Electoral Rolls, finding they eventually settled in Thornleigh New South Wales.[⁠3]  I presume that Garvice had a relatively uneventful childhood. But alas as was the custom of my family, my parents did not share stories about their life and so I have no stories of their early life. 

It has been passed down that Garvice succumbed to Tuberculosis in his early twenties and spent some time in a sanatorium called Bodington.⁠[4]  

Sometime around this time he met my mother Ruby Florence Briggs and they married in June 1941.[5] 

Four children were welcomed by my parents, my three elder sisters and myself.

I also remember my Dad being sick in my early childhood when I was about nine years of age. I can remember him in hospital in Manly for many months. I was not allowed to visit him, but I was taken to the window outside the hospital where I could wave to him. I remember this time vividly, with a sense of dread as I did not know what was really happening. It wasn’t until much later that I found out that he had been treated for TB again. When he came home he was frail and very thin. 

Dad was a Smallgoods Salesman. He sold smallgoods to various corner stores and butchers. It was through this trade that he acquired his lack of enthusiasm for cheaper cuts of meat! But he sold knobs of devon, strassberg etc. without any hesitation. But I remember there was always a big leg of ham at Christmas time! 

Dad was a man of faith. 

As I was seven years younger than my closest sister, it meant that I was the last one to leave home and I spent most of my teenage years with just my parents. Although we weren’t well off, I never remember wanting for anything or at least anything that I needed! Through all the times of sickness and uncertainty he still managed to provide for his family. How I am not sure, as he would not have had any savings or health insurance! 

I remember he and I leaving early in the mornings for the drive to his work and my school. As we moved regularly with rental accommodation, we often were not close to my school. We would set off in the smallgoods van and talk all the way. I missed these times when it was no longer possible for me to travel with him and I had to use public transport. 

I have fond memories of a teenage birthday sleepover, with about six girlfriends. We were going to the movies in the city in the afternoon. Once dressed in all our finery Dad loaded us into the back of the smallgoods van and drove us to George Street in the middle of Sydney. There were no seats or windows in the back of the van, we just stood up and held on! At least, being the weekend, it had been washed and we didn’t share the journey with knobs of meat, thank heaven! He drove back after the movie and picked us up. It must have been a funny sight for the busy metropolis crowd, to see us pile back into the van, that Saturday afternoon in the 1970’s! 

But I thought he was just wonderful and he was! 

He was my Dad!
______

1 Birth Certificate Transcription of Garvice Galvin Brandt, 16 April 1914, NSW Birth Registration Transcription, #1914/19533

2 Wyong (1923, September 6). Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), p. 19. Retrieved May 7, 2018, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article116797727

3 Ancestry.com. Sands Directories: Sydney and New South Wales, Australia, 1858-1933 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.

4 http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=1170826, Bodington Hospital, accessed 4 June 2018.

5 Marriage Certificate Transcription of Garvice Galvin Brandt and Ruby Florence Briggs, 14 June 1941, NSW Marriage Registration Transcription, # 1941/14530