Wedding Wednesday

Courtesy of the Tyrrell Collection, Powerhouse Museum, Nave St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney c. 1900

Beatrice Ellis?


Wedding Wednesday is a prompt suggested by Carol of Reflections from the Fence and in use by several genealogy bloggers.Here I go again...madly guessing and researching the Ellis family.

So, tonight I'm just going to summarise what I have found out about Beatrice Ellis born 1883 in Ararat Victoria.  Beatrice was my 2nd Great Aunt on my mother's side of the family.

I haven't been able to find out terribly much about Beatrice's short life.

I did find an article in Trove as per below.

Courtesy of National Library of Australia, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 February 1905

But then we find a day later the following notice in the Wagga Wagga Express...

I wonder what was going on???  Beatrice's older sister Kate Emilia Ellis was living in Newtown and had troubles of her own - four children aged 5 and under with another on the way.  Perhaps Beatrice decided to stick around and help her or was it something else?

I'm not sure if we will ever know.  1905 was not a good year for Beatrice's older sister Kate, Her baby Walter died and she lost her own life later that year.

Five years later and happier times are reported in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Courtesy of National Library of Australia, Sydney Morning Herald 22 October 1910




I'm assuming we're talking St Andrew's Cathedral in the heart of Sydney as pictured at the beginning of this post.

I'm fascinated that the bride had a black opal and diamond ring as my mother chose the same ring for her engagement and I wear it today.  Spooky.

Beatrice married Dr Hugh Poate eho was described in an article in the Moree Gwydir Examiner and General Advertiser in June of the previous year as 

"a lad having any quantity of grit, which had shown itself in later yearsby the way he had worked and the many examinations he had passed."  

Dr Poate had recently obtained the Diploma of FRCS, England.  He later went on to become first Director of Surgery at Prince Henry Hospital.  You can read more about him here.


Here's a little bit about Baumann's cafe courtesy of the National Library of Australia, printed in 
The Newsletter:an Australian Paper for Australian People, 
Saturday 16 April 1904

However poor Beatrice was not to witness this.

On 6 November 1911 Beatrice Amy was born to Beatrice and Hugh.

Ten days later Beatrice died at their home Ritalynd , 21 The Avenue, Glebe.

Here's a bit more about 21 The Avenue.

This is how close we used to live to Beatrice's house when I was just a bit younger than her and studying at Sydney Uni.
Crazy huh?

In Beatrice's obituary in the Moree and Gwydir Examiner and General Advertiser we find the following:

So she had been a nurse at Tamworth Hospital.  Dr Poate re-married and had five more children.