Sepia Saturday 248: 4 October 2014

Marilyn aka Little Nell from Sepia Saturday says:

The 4th October is the date in 1941 that Norman Rockwell launched a series of Saturday Evening Post covers depicting Willie Gillis. Rockwell described Gillis as “an inoffensive ordinary little guy thrown into the chaos of war”. Willie made his debut carrying a food parcel and suddenly everyone wanted to be his friend.
No chaos here this week; Alan is on holiday and I’m reasonably organised. All you have to do is choose a theme suggested by the prompt picture: the little guy, parcel from home, food package, followers, magazine covers or whatever else you see. Post your own old images, sometime around Saturday 4th October, with a link back to Sepia Saturday.

I seem to be finding it increasingly difficult to match the Sepia Saturday prompts of late, so I do apologise for my absence.  

Gladys and Cecil Maloney with small girl carrying basket of flowers on board ship c. 1960s

Okay, so this is a picture of Gladys and Cecil Maloney with an unknown little girl carrying a basket of flowers.  I think this is a gift to my grandmother who is going on a trip overseas.  At least I think it is.  Maybe the Maloneys are going overseas.  I know my grandmother used to go overseas with Gladys from time to time.  It may have been the trip my grandmother took in 1964 to come and see us when we were in Scotland.  At any rate, it used to be the "done thing" to give people baskets of fruit and flowers when they were going on long trips abroad.  See the big basket of fruit on top of the bunk on the right?

According to my father, my grandmother's older sister Millie married a station master Frank Andrews who was posted to Lue near Mudgee.  





The Conners met the Maloneys through Millie and Frank and they all played tennis together. 

Tennis with the Maloneys - L to R Cecil, Joyce Muir, Gladys, Ethel, Millie and Frank

Cecil Maloney would sell his wool in Sydney at the Show and every year he would come and see the Conners.  The story went that he wasn't too keen on driving in Sydney and that Ted Conner would do the driving from the Blue Mountains down to Sydney.

Ossie, my grandmother's brother and Ted my grandfather on bales of wool

My father was evacuated to the Maloneys during WW2 after the Japanese sub got into Sydney Harbour.  The Maloneys were Catholics and the Conners were Anglicans.  The joke was that by the time my father came home he was very much a Catholic.  

Maloneys place with Holden in Driveway

Cecil's full name was Cecil Stanislaus Maloney.  Stanislaus seems to be a name used as a middle name for a couple of the Maloney clan e.g. his brother James.  Maybe it is a surname of an ancestor.  Maybe it's after Saint Stanislaus.  I wonder if this is him with my grandfather.  This photo just has the caption Stan and Laurel (an oblique reference I think to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy).

Stan and Laurel

Cecil was the youngest of a big Catholic family - 13 children that I have been able to find.  His parents Michael and Maria/Mary Eves/son married in 1866 and then had Patrick, Robert, John, Mary (Polly), Florence Margaret, Ellen Beatrice, Alice Maude, Daisy, James, Richard, Clarence (who died as an infant) and lastly Cecil.

Cecil applied to enlist 17 January 1916 and then completed his Attestation papers at the Royal Agricultural Showground 20 March 1916.  He was described as an unmarried farmer aged 22 years and 2 months born Bara near Lue, New South Wales.  He joined the 9th Machine Gun Battalion as a Driver and was later transferred to the 3rd Machine Gun Battalion.  He was described as 5 foot 8 inches with blue eyes and brown hair weighing 138 pounds.  He embarked 1 May 1916 on the HMAT Benalla A24.

He is mentioned in an article entitled South African Impressions in the Mudgee Guardian 31 August 1916.  Lieut. Dunn said:

Our journey has taken ten weeks, and it was hot and unpleasant in the tropics all the time.  Measles were very prevalent on board, but luckily we had no fatal cases....The following Mudgee district boys with us are now all well: Ken Pyne (Eurunderee), Cecil Maloney (Bara), J. Ward (Mullamuddy), Sgt. Young (Mudgee), Jack Cox (Mudgee), C. Cozier (Cudgegong).  

According to the Rylstone District Historical Society Wiki, Cecil met Gladys while he was in England during the war.  

There is an intriguing entry on Page 16 of his army record which you can view here.  He was granted leave from 9 July to 9 September 1919 Reason Stock ID2 (whatever that means) Attending Drage A Farmer Chapel Brampton Northampton.  I can only guess that he was looking for horse stock or selling horse stock back to the farmer.  I found an article online - reminiscences of Bert Drage from the area who talks about selling his horses to the war effort.  Maybe that is where Cecil met Gladys.  I can't be sure of Gladys' birth but I have found a Gladys Eliza in Northampton at about the right time c. 1902.

Cecil's father, Michael, died while he was overseas in July 1918 and his magnificent obituary gave me much insight into Cecil's family. You can read it here.

Cecil embarked for Australia after the war finished on 18 December 1919 on the Konigen Luise and arrived 7 February 1920.  There is a newspaper article describing his welcome home.

Courtesy of National Library of Australia Mudgee Guardian, 26 February 1920, page 17

Cecil and Gladys married that same year.  To my knowledge they didn't have any children.  Cecil was also successful in winning a block of land in the Returned Soldiers Settlement Ballot - part of the Havilah Estate.

Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, Mudgee Guardian, 1 April 1920, page 20

Cecil and Gladys seem to have been popular residents in the District.  Gladys won Belle of the Ball one year:

Courtesy of the National Library of Australia,  Mudgee Guardian, 5 November 1931, page 13

One year Cecil was runner-up in the Popular Man contest:

Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, Catholic Press, 14 February 1935, page 33

Cecil died 1974 aged 80 - you can see his gravestone here.  Gladys followed him six years later in 1980.  My grandmother outlived them both.

The Maloneys weren't family but they may as well have been.  They took my father in during the war.  Gladys was my grandmother's best friend.  Cecil and my grandfather helped each other.  I still find it amusing that Cecil wasn't confident driving in Sydney traffic and yet he drove around the battlefields of WW1 for four years.  That gives you an idea of what Sydney traffic is like!