West Hobart is an inner suburb west of the city of Hobart in Tasmania. Originally it was farming land like hops, orchards, market gardens as well as poultry and dairy. But being on the foothills of kunanyi (Mt Wellington), there was also coal mining, quarrying and a brick works.
Nowadays the suburb has many artists and musicians living there. It has changed from the working class suburb from the 1960’s.
How does West Hobart relate to my family?
My father lived in Goulburn Street and went to school at Lansdowne Primary School in West Hobart.
My grandmother lived in Warwick Street while married to my step grandfather. He was a keen gardener and as a family we would often go at Christmas where he decorated a huge tree in the backyard. They also had lots of small birds and a great vegetable garden.
Queenstown, like Lottah, is a mining town in Tasmania but it is on the west coast of the state.
Around 1862, alluvial gold was found nearby, and in 1881 the Mount Lyell Gold Mining Company was formed. About ten years later they started searching for copper.
In the mid 1890’s, the actual town began to develop – a post office and a general store. The population in 1900 was just over 5000 in the town of Queenstown but around 10,000 in the whole mining district. In the early part of the 20th century, the town had many hotels, theatres, churches and schools but many of these are beginning to disappear since the mining company went into care and maintenance in 2014.
Queenstown had a bad reputation because of the pollution occurring from the Mt Lyell smelting works. Visitors would say it was like a moonscape as the trees had been cut down to feed the smelters needed for melting the copper from the underground mine. The smelters also sent out sulphur dioxide fumes which fell to the ground when it rained and was eventually washed into the King and Queen River.
But the most fascinating fact I have read about is that the Queenstown football oval has been inducted into the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame. Why you might ask? Well the oval is gravel as grass was hard to grow due to the pollution and heavy rain.
Now to Queenstown’s link to my family history.
Firstly I thought it was through the Smith line – Robert Edward Smith was a sawyer on the west coast around Queenstown and Strahan. His wife, Irene Somers, was my great grandmother who was born in St Helens or Lottah area. But when my father had a DNA test, we found he wasn’t related directly in the Smith line. All his cousins from there were only half-cousins. They all had Samoan heritage but dad didn’t.
We found instead that my great grandmother had a child from another person Alexander Dawson who lived and worked as a miner in Queenstown. My dad’s mother was that child. She was brought up as a Smith and was known as the eldest child in the family.
We don’t think Alexander ever knew he had another child. But in 1912, Alexander and two of his brothers survived the North Mt Lyell mining disaster. I am presently researching the miners who died as well as those who survived and were rescued. This research is on WikiTree.
In my family, my mother’s side were the letter writers, while dad must have got his love of diaries from his birth mother.
The earliest letter I’ve found is a postcard with a photo of my maternal grandmother on the front and on the back she sent a short message to her future husband. This would have been in the early 1920’s as they married in 1922.
My mother and her sister always kept in touch with their cousins via letters. They lived in Hobart in southern Tasmania, but many of the relatives lived around Evandale and Longford in northern Tasmania.
Dad’s birth mother, Irene, wrote a diary about her trip on horseback along the track to Adamsfield to visit Ernie Bond in his home in the Rasselas Valley. It was while working at Heathorns Hotel that Irene met Ernie. Dad kept the diary and it is now in my possession.
Whenever mum and dad went off on a holiday together they would keep a diary. Then when they got home, dad would put together a folder of their holiday for them to remember what they did and where.
In 1965, our family and my mum’s sister’s family (8 of us) went on holiday together around Australia for three months. Dad kept a diary of this trip and whenever I have visited places mentioned in the diary, he would send me a photo of that page so I could compare what we saw 60 years ago on that long trip.
When mum passed away in September 2021, dad used his diary to write about what happened each day. There were always special mentions on mum’s birthday but also on their wedding anniversary date of 8 September.
On 8 September 2024, dad wrote the following:
Phyl and Bob’s Wedding 70
Today will be a day of wonderful memories
of our life time together. A perfect marriage and
two children, two grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Hymn: O Perfect Love
On 9 September, dad mentioned he was having trouble breathing, worse than normal, but decided he would go to bed early rather than get some medical help. He was 91 years old. The next day I found dad had passed away after he didn’t reply to any of my messages that morning.
Today we scattered mum and dad’s ashes down in the Hartz Mountains area as per their wishes in their wills, their final letter to us.
Readers: Who were the letter or diary writers in your family?
