The Fabulous Buscombe Sisters

The story of the Buscombe sisters in the Goldfields is one of resourcefulness, resilience, and ugly men. Amy, the eldest of the three, would go on to become the first female journalist at the Kalgoorlie Miner Newspaper writing the ‘Ladies Letter’ column for many years. You can read about her life in an earlier post at ‘Amy Argyle’ but this is her younger sister Alicia’s story.

Alicia Buscombe aged 27yrs with Amy Argyle (nee Buscombe) aged 36yrs and a cameleer in 1900

The sisters Amy, Alicia, and Lillian travelled from Victoria to Kalgoorlie after the family lost their fortune in the Victorian bank crashes of the early 1890s. Amy’s Great Granddaughter, Susan Clarke said that the three traveled by train to Coolgardie and then on to Kalgoorlie by coach in about 1896. Having gone from riches to rags the women got by in their new town by taking in laundry and opening a tea room called the Mia Mia (aboriginal word for temporary bush shelter) and later a typewriting business. The Mia Mia Café was on the corner of Maritana and Bourke Streets, Lamington where the Puma garage now stands.

The sisters taking tea outside the Mia Mia Cafe!

It must have been very hard for them to come from an affluent style of living to suddenly having to turn out and do for themselves. They believed in themselves when everything was going wrong. They had to work very hard for the varying degrees of prosperity they achieved.

During the First World War Alicia ran popular girl and beautiful baby competitions to raise funds for the Red Cross in the Goldfields. She then started a competition for the ‘Ugliest Man’. Apparently the crowds loved it and the idea travelled around WA. There was to be an ‘Ugly Man’s’ organisation formed in Perth to run lotteries for charities which was eventually to become the Lotteries Commission.

The Uglies

Uglies Wedding !!

Alicia was to write the following recollections of her time on the Goldfields when she gave a talk to the ‘Woman’s Session’ of the ABC in the 1940’s.“Kalgoorlie surpasses the stories I had heard of ‘sand, sin and sorrow’, sin and sorrow being well represented but no sand, just red, red cracked earth. My heart sank when I first beheld the house (so-called) that was to be my home in Western Australia. It was exactly as a child would draw on its first attempt at a house. The rent was 35/- (shillings) and it was said we were lucky to get it. It was of galvanised iron about two feet from the ground, two small rooms, and a lean-to kitchen with two very small windows.
How we cooked in it with the temperature sometimes 120 degrees I don’t know. To enter you had to climb onto a box. The inside was atrocious with a passage covered with yellow linoleum surmounted by a hideous cretonne which was bright red with huge yellow chrysanthemums.  For miles around the town, the trees had been cut down causing severe dust storms which obliterated everything including any pattern on table cloths and bed covers. It was like a suffocating red cloud you couldn’t see through.

Hannan Street, Kalgoorlie 1894

On moonlight nights we would go outside to eat our supper and play on the piano. Mother insisted that we bring it with us. It became quite a magnet as it was one of the few privately owned pianos in town. We would often be lucky to get some really good theatrical companies in town. They would play in the large canvas and iron hall which unfortunately wasn’t weatherproof. The thing to do after the theater was to go to ‘Epstein’s Restaurant’ (In Egan Street) for supper. Champagne was always served though some of us would have preferred a long cool glass of squash. This doesn’t sound like roughing it I know but that was the extraordinary thing on the Goldfields almost any luxury procurable but nothing of the stuff of daily life.

Alicia Mary Buscombe went on to marry Harry Duncan Pell in Kalgoorlie in 1902. Her sister, Lillian Marie Buscombe, married James Kennedy Brougham in Kalgoorlie the previous year. Later life Alicia was to retire to Darlington near Perth where she died in 1940. She had four children.

22 Jan 1898 The Kalgoorlie Miner:- Advertisement

Tomorrow the new public dining rooms in the residence area in Bourke street will be opened for breakfast by Mrs Argyle (nee Buscombe). The building, known as (The Mia Mia), has been erected for the purpose of a boarding house and everything has been studied to make it cool, attractive, and comfortable. The position is central, being only one block off Maritana street and it should prove a great convenience to the young men in the locality who go out for their meals.

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Moya Sharp

Owner at Outback Family History

My name is Moya Sharp, I live in Kalgoorlie Western Australia and have worked most of my adult life in the history/museum industry. I have been passionate about history for as long as I can remember and in particular the history of my adopted home the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. Through my website I am committed to providing as many records and photographs free to any one who is interested in the family and local history of the region.

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