The following family story is submitted by Harry Firns and was written by George Charles Douglas about his father Charles William Douglas.
Born Inglewood 1871 died Adelaide 1916
My father Charles William Douglas married Annie May Bowen in 1900 in Melbourne and they sailed shortly afterwards to Western Australia. They lived in Boulder City where father had employment at the Boulder Perseverance Mine; one of the deep mines operating on the Golden Mile reefs. He drove the main winding gear and worked with this company for about 12 years. He then worked for the Electric Company having changed his place of employment for health reasons.
My recollections of my father are from my early childhood to the age of about 8, when he died. My thoughts are that he was a very good man of good standing in the neighborhood. He was employed on the mines and this entailed shift work and if he was on a night shift we would not see much of him. Also in those days work was a 6 day week; therefore we children would not have had much of his company.
Sarah Ann Bowen nee Firns in Kalgoorlie 1900-1915
It is hard to know just where memories begin and what is hearsay. I know I was born in a different house to that which our father built for the family. I was two or three when we moved into the new house. I have a memory of being in a pram whilst father was flooring the front veranda. He must have been a capable man. I remember the kerosene lamps and candles and the bicycle he traveled to and from work on.
Saturday night was late night shopping and we as a family used to go to the main Boulder Shopping area where there were crowds of people and it was a meeting place for friends. Mother and father had a host of friends. Brass bands were quite numerous and attended these nights playing in the nearby park, and entertaining a great throng of people. Saturday night was a real social occasion. The two cities were connected by electric trams and sometimes we would go to Kalgoorlie. Sunday, I think, was not a workday and with father at home we used to go for walks with him in the nearby bush where he would tell us of the birds, the trees and the lizards. I don’t think there were many animals left in the immediate area. Father belonged to several lodges. It was the “in thing”. He was a mason and he also belonged to the Australian Natives Association and to the Oddfellows.
Annie May Douglas (nee Bowen)
There were a good few processions in those days and the lodges and Unions all had many members whom marched under big banners. They marched to the music of Brass Bands and Pipers, and, I think, one Silver Band. The Lodges sometimes had train trips and picnics with games and sporting events. On one occasion at least, the aboriginals feasted and showed their prowess with boomerangs and spears and danced a corroboree. This display was held on a sports ground and we white people watched. The aborigines were a depressed people mostly dressed in old remnants and castoffs.
I must relate one story about the aboriginals which concerns my father and which may show that he was a caring man. It was the native’s habit to struggle around in groups of 10 to 20, probably family groups with the buck in front holding their spears and weapons followed by the lubras and piccaninys. The lubras would visit the houses asking for or cadging anything and were usually given some small item and sent on their way. One-day father came home from work and found, sitting on the woodheap, a very old Lubra clad in rags and wailing dismally. She had a very nasty wound on her foot and it seems she had asked mother to do something for it, however, mother had told her that father would be home soon and might help. When father arrived home he bathed the wounded foot in condy’s crystals, put iodine on it and bandaged it. The Lubra came back several times for treatment.
I must tell you that mother had a revolver given to her by father to protect the family while was at work. I do not know if she ever used it. I think not! The last I remember it was in Keith’s possession. He perhaps would know what calibre it was and how many notches were on the handle. We had visitors from Victoria on several occasions. I think mother’s brother Charlie and his wife Jinny visited, also her brother George. On one such visit father organised a visit to the mine, and we all went down the mine shaft.
A lot of travelling shows came to the Goldfields and these were the main entertainment as moving pictures were in their infancy. I think there was an open-air picture show occasionally but I do not remember seeing one. Mostly shows were of oddities such as “Tom Thumb” or “William Cody” or a not so good singer or magician. I do not remember seeing “The Tattooed Lady”. We went to motor shows. Cars were “in” but there were not many on the Goldfields. I recall several visits to the racecourse, local sports meetings were popular.
Lucy Douglas
I think we attended church and I know I went to Sunday School. When father was out he was very well dressed. I recall in winter he wore a brown velour coat that reached below his knees, and a bowler hat and gloves. I also remember a black Homberg hat that I guess was for lodge and I expect he had a dress suit also. The summer days were extremely hot and dusty but mostly by 4 or 5 o’clock a cool breeze arrived called, “The Albany Doctor”, and we had relief from the heat. There were a lot of flies, mosquitoes, ants and bugs to make life miserable. At night we slept under mosquito nets and I seem to remember some kind of incense sticks burning to keep the insects away.
I had a trip to Victoria with Gran Bowen and after this father’s health had become worse and we had to leave the Goldfields. We traveled to Perth, then by ship from Fremantle to Adelaide. We children saw very little of father on the trip as he had started to hemorrhage and was in the care of the ship’s doctor. I remember we sailed from Fremantle on Guy Fawke’s day, November 5th 1915. Father was to join an engineering firm, Mephen Ferguson at Largs Bay, where housing was found for us. We children of school age started at the Ferves Peninsula School for a few weeks until Christmas and also had a few weeks there in the new year of 1916.
Father was a very sick man and was in bed over Xmas and he tried to go to work early in 1916, however he only worked a few days and had to go back to bed. Early in February it was apparent he would not survive with home nursing and was taken to the Adelaide General Hospital. His mother and some of his sisters came over to visit him and stayed a short time. When they returned to Stawell in Victoria they took me with them. Shortly after I was told my father had died. I do not recall what my immediate reaction was. Has a boy just turned nine any realization of what death is, and its inevitability to all? One thing I do remember that worried me a lot, was, I wanted to know “what were his last words” but no one could tell me.
“Vale my father”, I feel sure I loved him. His death made me the eldest male of the Douglas family. When Charles William Douglas died 1916 he was 44 years old. Annie May his wife was 40. Lucy May was 13, George 9, Keith 7, Alan 5, Nancy 3 and Walter was 11 months.”
George Charles Douglas b. 20.1.1907 Boulder W.A. died – 16.10.1993 Mannum, South Australia.
He was buried on 20.10.1993 in Mannum Cemetery, Mannum, S.A. Australia.
Moya Sharp
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