Honouring our “Diggers”… can you help?

A request has come in which I’m most happy to pass on. Good luck with your research Tony Wege and I look forward to reading your book.

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2/4th RESERVE MOTOR TRANSPORT COMPANY

Is there anyone in Victoria, SA and WA who has any connection with the 2/AIF unit, the 2/4th Reserve Motor Transport Company?

This unit served in Malaya and Singapore from April 1941 until the fall of Singapore. Then most of its members became PoWs  (Prisoners of War). Some returned to Australia.

I am researching and writing the unit’s history. It was raised in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia in the period late February and March 1941. The whole unit left Fremantle on the 19th April 1941 for Singapore.

I am anxious to talk with anyone who has a connection with any member of the unit.

I can be contacted on 08 85622257 or email: wege@internode.on.net.
If anyone would care to write, please send your letter to Tony Wege. PO Box 408 Nuriootpa SA 5355

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Thankyou to the Australian War Memorial for the photo of surviving 2/4th Reserve Motor Transport Company PoWs returning to Australia….
http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/117866/

Cousins cousins everywhere…

Something rather strange, and amazing, is happening in my life right now. Sadly since mum’s death, a couple of years ago, I’ve become alienated from my three siblings and some of their children, for reasons which are too complex to even think about… nor would I discuss such private matters publicly.

However, it seems that maybe this was meant to be because the vacuum created has been filled with an endless flow of “cousins” from all corners of the earth.  Some are living just “down the track”, others in nearby Australian states after emigrating from Britain… the “mother country”.  Then there are my amazing Canadian cousins who hail from different/ similar parts of the family tree.  Am still waiting to hear from Keith, in London, as to where he fits into our family.

Then there are the connections with my former husband’s cousins who are “blood” rellies of my own dear children/ grandchildren. Not to mention communication with my much loved deceased sister-in-law’s cousin and re-connecting their children who were childhood friends but have lost contact over time…

PHEW!!!

It’s such a joy and my life is enriched beyond measure. The best of all has to be the happiness which much of my research has brought to others re: the replacing of family myths with well researched and verifiable information.  e.g. The story about the only son of  my Great Great Grandmother Susan has become a bit mis-construed over the years and he is a man to be truly honoured which I wrote about HERE and has now been passed onto his descendants.

… and so it continues.

Next on my Agenda MUST be clarifying the story as to why my dad was initially charged with “attempted murder” and then incarcerated in an “Insane Asylum”.  It was horrifying to hear of how this truly tragic period in my dad’s life has been mis-construed and this false/ biased information had been passed onto some of his descendants.

Cousins cousins everywhere… what a joy!!!  Thanks for your love, sharing and continuing support as we work together to reconstruct our shattered families.

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Copyright © 2013. Catherine Ann Crout-Habel

The Change-Worker…

by Edgar A. Guest

A feller don’t start in to think of himself, an’
the part that he’s playin’ down here,
When there’s nobody lookin’ to him fer support,
an’ he don’t give a thought to next year.
His faults don’t seem big an’ his habits no worse
than a whole lot of others he knows,
An’ he don’t seem to care what his neighbors may
say, as heedlessly forward he goes.
He don’t stop to think if it’s wrong or it’s right;
with his speech he is careless or glib,
Till the minute the nurse lets him into the room
to see what’s asleep in the crib.

An’ then as he looks at that bundle o’ red, an’ the
wee little fingers an’ toes,
An’ he knows it’s his flesh an’ his blood that is there,
an’ will be just like him when it grows,
It comes in a flash to a feller right then, there is
more here than pleasure or self,
An’ the sort of a man his baby will be is the sort
of a man he’s himself.
Then he kisses the mother an’ kisses the child, an’
goes out determined that he
Will endeavor to be just the sort of a man that
he’s wantin’ his baby to be.

A feller don’t think that it matters so much what
he does till a baby arrives;
He sows his wild oats an’ he has his gay fling an’
headlong in pleasure he dives;
An’ a drink more or less doesn’t matter much
then, for life is a comedy gay,
But the moment a crib is put in the home, an’ a
baby has come there to stay,
He thinks of the things he has done in the past,
an’ it strikes him as hard as a blow,
That the path he has trod in the past is a path
that he don’t want his baby to go.

I ain’t much to preach, an’ I can’t just express
in the way that your clever men can
The thoughts that I think, but it seems to me now
that when God wants to rescue a man
From himself an’ the follies that harmless appear,
but which, under the surface, are grim,
He summons the angel of infancy sweet, an’ sends
down a baby to him.
For in that way He opens his eyes to himself, and
He gives him the vision to see
That his duty’s to be just the sort of a man that
he’s wantin’ his baby to be.

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A blue duck and little brown shoes

A SILVER VOICE FROM IRELAND

It is a Tuesday afternoon, just after 3 o’clock.  For some reason not at school on that day, the 11 year-old girl is  in the kitchen with her mother who is  preparing dinner for brothers who are about to return home from school. Suddenly there are shrieks from children leaving another school across the road, and looking out the window they see  children covering their faces and running. Her mother runs out  to see what  is going on. Within seconds there is a chilling scream that causes her to run  to the front door too. There she meets her mother coming in, carrying her baby brother, blood pouring from the side of  his little blonde head. Her mother is screaming : ”The baby is dead; the baby is dead; the baby is dead , the baby is dead.” Frozen together in the hallway, she touches the limp body in her mothers arms…

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