Hannagan Family

Clearing the attic

2011-12-19T13:48:00.000+13:00

The other day we were looking for something in one of our two attics and came across a box of photos and memorabilia that had belonged, Celia tells me, to my mother. I've scanned some of the photos: they're a random mix, so you'll just have to take them as they come. (And there'll be more.)

The first group were photographed at the family reunion in 1976: from the left we have three sisters: Anne and Tess Hannagan, Rose (Gallagher) and their cousin Mona. (I have three Mona Hannagans listed on the family tree, so I'm not quite sure which one this is, though my bet is on Mona Thomas.)

The next picture comes from four years later: the three sisters have not aged well, although it must be admitted they weren't young ladies either (Anne was 84, Tess, 81 and Rose, 88). Rose is in the middle, and died a year later.

In this photo we have cousins of a different generation. I think it's Denise Hannagan on the left, with Kathleen Ryan behind her; Anne (?) Ryan in the front, and Mary Stokes at the right.

By way of contrast, to the left we have a group of boy cousins: Paul Stokes, myself, John Ryan and Raymond Hannagan.

On the right is Terry Hannagan in his final illness - taken at Mercy Hospital in Dunedin (this was the old Mercy Hospital, as far as I recall, not the large one now up in Maori Hill).

The photo below is of Des and Monica at their wedding - the quality isn't so good because this is already a copy of an original.

And the photo above was taken at Brian O'Flaherty's wedding to Jean. Brian's parents, Des and Joyce O'Flaherty (nee Hannagan) at to the left, with Terry, their other son beside them. On the other side of the couple is Pat O'Flaherty, and presumably Jean's parents.

Finally we have a photo of Jack Hannagan as a boy - I have no idea who the Bishop is, or the other two boys. [Wikipedia tells us that James Whyte was Bishop of Dunedin from 1920 to 1957, but there was also a coadjutor Bishop, Hugh O'Neill, from 1943-1946. My guess is that it's more likely Whyte.]

Durants, Tunnellers, and what connections?

2011-10-21T11:57:00.000+13:00

I've had a phone call and a couple of emails from Sue Baker Wilson, who is doing some research on a group called the New Zealand Engineers Tunnelling Company. These men were often engineers who were used in the First World War to undermine the enemy lines and other subversive jobs.

She rang because there seems to be a connection with one of the Tunnellers to people connected to our family, the Durants. Emily Durant married Arthur Joyce, and was thus my grandmother's sister-in-law. Her sister was Alice Durant. You can see a very small amount about them here.

Sue wrote:

I have been searching for information. A Paperspast article, refs below, refers to Mrs Durant, Leeston, who was a widow of W Harding and who married Thomas W. Durant. A 1917 In Memoriam inserted by ‘her loving daughters, Ada and Nellie’ refers to her as Alice Durant. It would appear that Alice was stepmother to the tunneller I am researching, W M Durant and possibly the person shown on your website.

Tunneller officer William Durant’s family are linked to Leeston & Christchurch. A Star, 12 Feb 1907 article notes that The mining scholarship for the West Coast has been won this year by Mr W M Durant, eldest son of Mr T W Durant, formerly of Leeston and Christchurch.

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XXII, Issue 3838, 4 October 1916, Page 2

This article tells us that The death occurred at the residence of her son in-law, Mr G, H. Jones, Selwyn Street, Leeston, on Sunday night, of Mrs Durant, relict of tbe late Mr Thomas Durant, formerly of Sumner and St. Albans, and for many years a prominent Leeston business man.
There is no mention in the obituary of Durant senior's first family, if this is the same Thomas Durant, father to Lieut Durant. I cannot find any obituary to a Thomas Durant. Mrs Alice Durant, was remembered by her daughters Ada Jones (Mrs George Henry Jones) of Leeston and Nellie (Rackely). G H Jones died in England 1931. He had had a carrying business operating between Leeston and ChCh before going back to settle in England. A report says he was twice married and at the time of his death a couple of sons were still in Leeston. One of these son’s, Albert Edward died in 1945. At that time, some of his son’s still resided in Leeston.

W M Durant’s name does not appear on the Leeston war memorial.

Lieut Durant’s wife and children are buried together in Arundel cemetery, Strathalian County, Canterbury. Robert died 22 Dec 1968. According to the Timaru District Council cemetery database Jessie died after her son 15 Dec 1977, which differs from the 1975 info you have found. Margaret Ralston (Audrey) Durant died 10 August 2006. Attached grave pic.

It doesn’t look like there were any offspring for any of William Durant’s children.

If you find any family links to either Durant or Jones, I would be interested in knowing more.

I haven't had time so far to dig into this further, but if any other member of the family knows something about them, I'd be interested to hear.

Kathleen and Bill Wilson

2011-10-21T11:46:00.002+13:00

Kathleen Wilson (a cousin of my mother) died during the week. Her funeral was held at St
Andrews Rest Home on the 20th Oct, 2011. It was the second funeral in about six weeks for the family as Kathleen's husband, Bill, died recently. Bill was buried from St Andrews as well.

Kathleen and Bill used to live in Barr St and she was a St Francis Xavier parishioner for many years. She and Monica Stokes were the same age and great friends in their younger days. She has been at St Andrews suffering with Alzheimers for the last four years. Bill, who had broken his hip, spent the last few months of
his life there also.

My aunt, Daphne Hannagan, spoke to two of the family: Pauline, with whom she had worked briefly years ago. Pauline now lives in Australia. She also spoke to Stephen and his wife who live in Cargill St. Marie
and Ann are the other two members of the family.

Rose Gallagher (nee Hannagan) was Kathleen's mother. Rose was one of my grandfather's sisters (Charles Hannagan), which means, of course, that she was my great-aunt. I can remember her name, and I know I met her when I was very young, but I don't remember much more about her. I'd like to fit Kathleen into the family tree, but I need to be clear as to whether I've got her relationship with Rose correct.

New arrivals

2011-10-06T13:05:00.002+13:00

Just a short note from Bernadette Hannagan to say that:

Taran Broc Hannagan was born on Saturday October 1 to Andrew and Sian Hannagan. He is a beautiful little boy 9 lbs 7oz safely delivered at home (by choice)

(Andrew is Raymond and Bernadette's son).

And an equally short note from Bex Dixon (Hannagan - Mark and Debbie's daughter)

Anthony and I have also had our second child, Theodore Clayton Dixon born 8th September 2011 weighing 8lb 14oz :)

New grandchild, and Jack Scragg

2011-09-07T09:46:00.001+12:00

Margaret Irvine (Tess' eldest daughter) has just written to say that she has another grandson (Tess' fourth great-grandchild.)

She wrote:
Rhonda Irvine and her partner Damian had their second son on September 1.
His name is Charlie Ismael De La O (somewhat exotic for this Pacific Celt family) and he is, of course, just wonderful.

And news on another front: several months ago I received an email from Jack (John) Scragg. This was a name I remembered from my childhood - he had been (unofficially?) adopted by one of my grandfather's sisters and her husband. Jack had lived through the Napier earthquake, and subsequently had come south because his mother and my great aunt were friends. How things worked out from there, I'm not entirely sure.

I spoke to Jack on the phone several times: we were going to meet up (he lived in Waikouaiti - in Otago) but there was often a health issue on his side (he had cancer) or some complication on ours. Regrettably we never got to meet face to face and late last month we saw his death notice in the paper. He sounded like a great bloke, and was very friendly. RIP, John....

Alice Durant

2011-04-29T10:27:00.003+12:00

Another in the recent series of photos I've been scanning. This is a photo of Alice Durant and Flora Joyce (my maternal grandmother). Alice was a sister of Emily Durant. Emily married Arthur Thomas (?) Joyce, one of the sons of Milliman Thomas Joyce (my maternal great-grandfather).
The back of the photo has some words written in a somewhat childish hand - not one I recognise. It says Alice Durant No Relation to us sister of Emily Durant. As far as I can work out she's the one sitting. My grandmother is standing.

Digging deeper

2011-04-28T08:46:00.004+12:00

After my last post I heard from John DeCourcy who gave me some updates on the information I'd supplied and added some further details - plus an interesting picture.

Firstly he added some clarity to the story of Francis Hannagan. We've mentioned this before, some time ago. He writes:

Are you aware of this particular skeleton in the family cupboard.? How Francis had a wife in Dunedin (Catherine Comer) then went off to the Victorian goldfields, claimed Mary Ann Cairns/Kearns as his wife there, had 4 children with her, came back to Dunedin, had Charles with Catherine, Catherine then dies a few months later (no cause of death on the death certificate), and he then officially marries Mary Ann Cairns in Dunedin? No wonder our very proper grandparents thought there was no point at all in pursuing Hannagan genealogy! I have much of the official documentation around this, which I un-earthed by a chance encounter with a Marnie Hannagan in Melbourne who is a descendant of Mary Ann.

Well, that certainly adds a bit of colour to the family tree!

He also pointed out that the copy of John and Bridget's family picture that I posted is actually a reverse version of the original:

The other day I wrote that there were two girls in the photo. There aren't. One of the girls is actually John Hannagan....it wasn't uncommon to dress boys in what we would now regard as a girlish fashion, especially on formal occasions like having a photo taken. John DeCourcy thinks he would have been 3-4 years old at this point.

And now to the 'interesting' picture.

John writes about this photo: The Hannagan photo I am really interested in is attached. The version I have looks like a copy of a copy of a copy, and is a generation earlier than the one you have. I would dearly love to know where the original of this set of photos is, and would be happy to pay to have a good-quality reproduction done. Brian Hannagan?? [He's wondering if Brian Hannagan, my mother's cousin, has a copy. I haven't checked yet.]

It shows Family of Francis Hannagan, b 1825, at top. Clockwise from him, deduced by age: John H b 1844; Brigid H, b 1842; wife Catherine Connor, b 1824; Francis jnr, b 1845; Margaret, b 1848; at centre Charles, b 1867.

If you click on the photo, you'll get a larger version, which may be easier to see. If anyone knows any more about this photo, send me an email.

Hannagan family

2011-04-24T17:36:00.004+12:00

A photo of some of the Hannagan family as adults...Charles, Catherine, Albert Powell (probably a fiance of Anne), Rose, Frank, Tess. Front row: Mary, Bridget (their mother), Anne and Dan.

My mother has written that it's Dan on the very right of the picture, though he looks a little older than some of the others. According to my family tree he was only 44 when he died. I don't know a lot about him at all. Presumably he was married, but the family tree doesn't have any record of this at this point.

This other photo of Charles is in a heavy frame and the photo is very faded. However, I'm including it for posterity's sake....

Frank Hannagan

2011-04-24T17:12:00.003+12:00

This following three links are to pdfs on Scrib.com relating to the Debt of Honour Register in which the details of where Frank Hannagan is buried in the Tyne Cot Memorial Cemetery in Belgium.

Page 1.

Page 2.

Page 3.

Hannagan family photos

2011-04-24T16:07:00.012+12:00

While sorting out something or other recently we came across a photo album in which someone had put some very old family photos. I've been trying to scan them onto the computer this afternoon, but the programme my printer insists on using is not easy to use, and it's taken me a lot longer than I anticipated.

However, here are the first batch:

This is Tess and Frank Hannagan (two of my grandfather's siblings) - Frank was killed at Paschendale. The top of the photo has been torn badly.

This next photo includes some of John and Bridget Hannagan's family:

According to some notes my mother has made on the back, the boys are Frank, Dan and Charles (he's the baby). The girls are Catherine (Kit) and Rose - she thinks.

This next photo came from a newspaper cutting dated 1993 - the For Sale sign on the right has been partly cut off in this scan.

This is the first house Charles and Flora Hannagan owned and lived in. It's still standing, and has been restored to a degree in the last few years. The next photo is 7 Stanley St, which many readers of this blog will remember. It's no longer standing, and was replaced almost 25 years ago by a bland house and an even blander garden.

The last two photos are of Nan (Flora) and Pop - she leaning out the window at the Elgin Rd house (I'm guessing) and he at a picnic.

Two weddings

2011-01-20T08:30:00.002+13:00

Rebecca Hannagan, now Dixon, has just let me know that she and Anthony celebrated their marriage on the 2nd January this year.

And Peter Kellet (one of Jane Hannagan's sons) also got married, but that's all I know at this point. Further info to come!

A couple of catch-ups

2011-01-19T19:53:00.002+13:00

Max Allen was born on December 21 in Paraparaumu to Marie and Roy Allen, Margaret and Frank Irvine's second daughter, and her husband.

Margaret reports that: Max weighed 8lb 3ozs and is a great sleeper and eater.

Celia and I won a mystery trip that turned out to be to Wellington, and we went there a couple of weekends ago. While we were there we took the train out to Paraparaumu and caught up with Tess. (I got a free ride, now being the owner of a Gold Card.)

We almost didn't see Tess as she'd gone out shopping with Frank, one of her son-in-laws (the husband of Margaret). However, just as we were leaving, thinking we'd missed her completely, she came round the corner in the car with Frank, and we went back to the house and spent some time with her, including looking at some old photos of the family. Some were familiar to me from another photo album of the period, but others were totally new.

Mini-reunion, and Frank Crowl

2010-12-26T06:52:00.004+13:00

There hasn't been much happening on this blog recently, nevertheless I haven't forgotten about it!

We had a mini-family reunion in Mosgiel for Paul Stokes' 60th birthday some months after the actual event: it was to have been in September (which was still late) but the Christchurch earthquake interrupted Mary Fraher's preparations, as well as the fact that she got swine flu in that month. It finally took place in November, with a smaller number of people than originally intended. It was still a good catch-up, and invariably on these occasions bits and pieces of family history and small events from our various lives are shared.

On another tack, I received an email the other day from the Canadian, Alan McGowan, a chess player and chess historian who writes for a magazine called Chess Scotland. Alan and I had had some conversation on an earlier occasion about my father and chess, but this time he was alerting me to an online article that Edward Winter, a chess historian, had uploaded. It included the myth that Frank Crowl had been born in Melborne and brought up in Shanghai - where he learnt chess. There was a statement towards the end saying that he hadn't been born in Melborne, but Surrey, England.

I wrote to Edward and told him about the fact that my father had grown up in London, attested to by his brother, Reg. Edward came back wondering if I knew my father's birth date, (he knew the year, 1902) as it wasn't mentioned in any of the information he had. I discovered it wasn't on the family tree, which surprised me, and I thought I didn't have it.

This morning I woke up and thought: I've got my parents' marriage certificate; the birthdate will be on there. Nope, it wasn't, only the fact that my father was 40 when he married, in 1942. Searched through the various papers in the old tin box that such stuff has been kept in for as long as I can remember, and found...my father's birth certificate. Born on the 24th August, 1902, in the registration district of St Pancras, with the sub-district of Kentish Town. I have no idea why I haven't put this information on the family tree before....just one of those things!

Furthermore, on the birth certificate, it says that his name is Frank, rather than Francis, which I'd assumed.

My Memories of Mum

2010-09-02T22:05:00.001+12:00

The following is a tribute to Monica Stokes from her daughter, Mary (Fraher). It was read at the funeral by Mary's daughter, Deborah.

One of my earliest childhood memories is sitting with Mum while she read me a book about an adopted baby. I think the book was called Chosen Baby and it was a story about Mr and Mrs Brown who had chosen a special baby. I can still vividly see in my mind the pictures in this book and how proud and special I felt to be a ‘chosen’ baby.

I can’t remember how old I was when Mum gave me her autograph book. In the front cover she had written:

Not flesh of my flesh
Nor bone of my bone
But still miraculously my own
Never forget for a single minute
You didn’t grow under my heart
But in it.

I have never thought of Mum as anything else but Mum. She was not my adopted mother. She was Mum. I never felt anything other than flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood.

Mum provided us all with a warm and happy home. She was always there when I got home from school. Friends were always made to feel welcome and there was always plenty of food to be shared around. In fact I’m quite sure that a lot of friends just showed up for the home baking, which never seemed to run out.

Mum was always willing to help out others where ever and when ever there was a need. It wasn’t at all unusual for us to have extra kids staying. She helped out when other mums needed a break, or were unwell, or were having more babies. We didn’t have a large home but there was always room for one or two more.

Mum loved going on our annual two-week holiday, especially to a small crib at Millers Flat. The little Morris 8 would be loaded up to the gunnels, Paul and I sitting on a pile of bedding so high that our heads almost touched the roof. Mum just loved those holidays at Millers Flat – the sunshine, the fresh air, the daily trips to the swimming pool, the little creek where we spent a lot of time, the hammock, the safe hanging in the willow tree, the rainwater tank which supplied us with water for cooking, washing and cleaning teeth. They were great holidays. Not even the long drop detracted from those holidays. We went to different places from time to time, but Millers Flat was always Mum’s favourite place.

For as long as I can remember Mum was involved in church and Parish activities. For many years she was an active member of the Women’s League. She would bake, bake and bake some more for school fetes. The Catholic Church was very special to her. She wasn’t simply a Catholic. She lived her faith day in and day out and was a great example to everyone who she came in touch with.

She was a people person. She loved talking to people and could while away the hours quite happily chatting to friends and family. When Aunty Flo came to stay with us I’m sure she would be creeping into bed not long before us kids were up and about. The two of them would sit in the kitchen and talk the night away. I also have very fond memories of Mum and her good friend Kathryn Waddell together. There was always so much laughter when those two got together.

Mum, you were the best mother a child could wish for. You were the best wife a husband could wish for. Rest in peace.

More tributes to Monica Stokes

2010-08-30T21:49:00.002+12:00

John Stokes wrote the following paragraphs, and is happy for me to put them on the blog. I read them out on his behalf at the funeral today.

1. As teenagers, Mark Anngow and I were best mates and we used to gather at our place to do teenage boy things with other boys. On this particular day were playing 3 card brag in my room when Mum walked past, saw what we were doing, and went away to get the paper money to join us. Which she did. With her quiet spoken, gentle way she proceeded to give the know-all boys a valuable, and valued, lesson in not taking anyone for granted - she cleaned us out in very short order!! I had, of course, forgotten that Mum was a very skilled card player who had a killer instinct; she taught me how to play, and to win with a self effacing good humour. More importantly, she could lose with a dignity that eludes me to this day - at Euchre, 500 and crib. Crib became a favourite while I was still living at home. I also recollect that, by and large, it was our place my friends and I would repair to after a hard day at school... until Mark got his driver’s license and an old Austin Cambridge, and school became something to avoid....

2. Just to hark back to the quiet, gentle spoken woman everyone remembers, I can remember a time when she was, in fact, neither....

I had drunk a little more than was good for me at a work 'do' on a weeknight in Dunedin and was - not to put too fine a point on it – paralytic. Dad had to drive into Dunedin to pick me up and take me home with inevitable stops on the way. I can't remember too much about the evening but I do recall the morning after when I was going to call in sick - well, I was!! - and Mum came through the door of the sleepout like the sergeant-major of every soldier’s nightmares and read me the Riot Act. Rather sheepishly - with head hung low, I went to work that morning on the same train as Dad - I think!! - who I'm sure looked remarkably smug as he didn't have to say a word about my immature behaviour. It had all been said with an eloquence, brevity and volume that he would never be able to match!

There are many, many more such examples - and I'm sure the girls and Paul have their own particular twists to add, but these two sum up, for me, what Mum was all about; quietly able to work some kind of magic on a teenage boy/young man; providing a stability that was needed and a love that was overt without being cloying. I would not be who I am now without her guiding hand. There were many times when the world’s problems were solved at the sink doing the evening dishes, when teenage heartache became a life lesson without judgment and, later on, during one or two events in my life I could have done without, such support as I was never able to get anywhere else... Mum, you will live in my heart forever and your quiet smile will forever brighten my days....

Monica Stokes

2010-08-30T18:07:00.000+12:00

Most of you will know that Monica Stokes (nee Hannagan) died around three in the morning of Thursday the 26th August, 2010. She would have been 87 in November this year. Her funeral was held at the Mosgiel Catholic Parish Church (in the old Holy Cross college) today.

The following is a tribute that Mike Crowl gave during the Requiem Mass. Two other tributes were given and will be posted here when and if permission is given.

One of my earliest memories as a child – it must have been between the age of 3 and 4 - is of an evening at Stanley St, in the house where the Hannagan family grew up. Monica and Des lived there for the first year of their marriage [and I grew up there]. They were getting ready for what I guess must have been a fancy dress ball. Monica was dressed up like one of the ‘three little maids from school’ in The Mikado, and having a great time getting ready and putting on special make up. Monica did quite a bit of performing when she was young.

Another early memory is of the third-storey flat in High St that Monica and Des moved into. It was (in fact, still is) a narrow brick building with a fire escape all down the front, where I lost a favourite toy under their couch, and couldn’t seem to get anyone to find it for me (!)

I used to stay with the family sometimes once they moved to Mosgiel, or go away with them on holiday. They often went to the De Courcy’s crib [also known as a 'bach' or holiday home] in Miller’s Flat, or to a crib in Warrington. This was when I was quite young and only Paul and Mary were on the scene. Monica and Des were always great to be with, and were warm and friendly to this odd little boy they were looking after.

One of the lovely things about Monica was her laugh. It was highly infectious. Sometimes even as adults we’d all just sit there laughing uncontrollably because of it. Even when she was lying in the rest home after she’d got Alzheimer’s, when all the talking she could do was a strange little language that she seemed to make up as she went along, or she’d sing odd little snatches of songs (I think to entertain us), that smile would suddenly light up her face, and there’d be a moment when the laugh would bubble up. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t any particular joke, it was as endearing as ever.

Last Saturday Celia and I spent a bit of time with Des, Mary and Barbara [two of Monica's children]. They told us some stories we’d never heard. We found out that when Monica was young she and Flo, Des’s sister, had been very good friends. It was Flo who made sure Monica got introduced to Des - even though she was at that time going out with another young man.

They also told us about a time when Monica was at school, at St Philomena’s. In one sewing class she was with a group of girls who were chatting and not getting on with their work, and the nun came passed, looked at their work, and said, ‘That’s terrible. Do it again!’ The girls carried on talking, didn’t do anything else, and some time later the nun came back, took another look, and said: ‘That’s much better!’

And talking of sewing, we found out that Monica and a group of other ladies used to darn the socks for the seminarians at Holy Cross College. Some years later, Des, Monica and the family were heading north for a wedding, and stopped off near Kaikoura. They were going to stay in a motel, but the local parish priest insisted they stay with him at the Presbytery. Next morning, to Monica’s embarrassment, he just happened to mention during the sermon that there was ‘someone’ in the congregation who used to darn his socks.

We only just found out on Saturday that Monica had had asthma very badly as a child, often to the point where the doctor would be called in the middle of the night to attend to her. She was thought of as a fragile and unwell child, and there were times they thought they might lose her. Apparently Pat or Tess would wheel her around in a wheelchair. All the problems with asthma disappeared when she came to live in Mosgiel.

When I heard last week that Monica had died, the first picture that came to mind was that she would now be running through Heaven looking for her family. I could see her racing straight through Mumma’s extensive garden plots – and laughing, of course – and shouting to Mumma to come and find everyone! There’d be Esther and Raymond*, her big sister and brother whom she never even known in this life; there’d be Joyce and Charlie and Doreen, and Terry and Jack; and Des Ryan and Des O’Flaherty – she’d be laughing at the fact that three sisters out of four married men with the same Christian name [Des]. She’d be looking for her mother and father (Nan and Pop as they were to us grandchildren), and suddenly there they’d all be, laughing uncontrollably and shouting and hugging and kissing each other. And standing to one side would be Jesus, with a big grin on his face....and when he finally gets a word in, he embraces her and says, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. Come and share the joy that I’ve been preparing for you forever.'

*Esther, the first-born child, died within a few months; Raymond, the third child (after Joyce) died in his fourth year.

The photos come from the front and back covers of the song sheet provided for the funeral.

The Goodson siblings

2010-08-10T21:01:00.000+12:00

Back in February I posted a picture of the Goodson brothers and sisters which wasn't quite what it seemed. Here's one of them taken when they were actually all together in the same room rather than in different hemispheres.

This one was taken at Peter's 70th birthday, in Wicklewood, Norfolk, at my niece and nephew's house.

The siblings are, from left to right: Celia, Pat, Barbara (they're twins), Richard, Peter, Janet and Mick. They're in order from the youngest to the oldest.

Ray De Courcy

2010-08-10T20:28:00.001+12:00

On the 27th July, Celia and I went to Ray De Courcy's funeral.   It was held at St Patrick's Basilica in South Dunedin, a church I hadn't been in for many years.   I'd forgotten how lovely it is, and how Italian in style.

Ray was born in 1923, and was the brother of Tony (also deceased) and Kevin, who was our family's lawyer for many years.    These three brothers were my mother's cousins.   The De Courcy's have their own distinctive version of the Hannagan face - there are similarities to my grandfather and his siblings, just to show that we all came from the same stock, but there's no mistaking the De Courcy side of the family tree.   Check out my grandfather, Charlie, in this photo, and compare it with the one below of Ray. I'm sorry there's a crease in these two photos; I folded up the hymn sheet before I thought about including the photos here.   If someone can supply me with better ones, all to the good.

The second photo is of Ray's wedding.    Just at the moment, I can't remember his wife's name.

All the Goodsons

2010-02-24T08:23:00.002+13:00

This is a remarkable photo. It's the first time all the Goodson brothers and sisters have been together in one place, for forty years.

Except that it's not quite what it looks like. The five brothers and sisters in the middle - Barbara, Pat, Peter, Mick and Janet, were photographed in England (either in Norfolk or Northampton - I can't remember which at the moment) in the middle of last year sometime.

Celia on the far left, and Richard on the far right, were photographed in New Zealand just before Christmas. Celia took the photo of Richard inside our house. Celia was also photographed inside, but at a different time.

My brother-in-law Peter put all the photos together and the picture above is the result. Ain't technology amazing?

Danny Crowl

2010-01-01T15:20:00.003+13:00

The latest arrival in the ever-expanding Hannagan clan - this time another addition to the Crowl wing...and this time another one with the actual surname of Crowl! (His big brother is the only other one.)

The delightful photo shows the two boys: Jacob holding Danny. Their father and mother are Ben (my older son) and Louise.

Hannagan Family Reunion 1976

2009-11-28T12:56:00.006+13:00

The whole kit and caboodle...all those who attended. Brian Hannagan and his family were also involved - in fact I think he organised it.

The Charles and Flora Hannagan descendents. Probably the last time all this group were ever gathered together in one place. Missing are all the Des and Joyce O'Flaherty family.

Three of the Aunts (Charles Hannagan's sisters): Annie, Tess and Rose. I think the fourth lady - on the right - is a relative of Brian's.

The picnic/reunion took place at Chingford Park (not Woodhaugh Gardens, as I said in the original email about this! - Thanks, John Stokes, for keeping me accurate!!)

A Swathe of Hannagans

2009-09-26T11:50:00.004+12:00

It's taken me a while to work out how I can get this photo onto here - apart from other interruptions. Daphne sent it as a word document, rather than a jpg, and initially I couldn't work out how to get it into a photo format. However I had to do the same thing at work a couple of times recently and that's helped.

This is a gathering of (Jack and Daphne) Hannagans. Daphne wrote at the time: A Daphne Hannagan family photo, the only ones missing being the Millers. There's actually an addition of 2 mother-in-laws - Bob's mum and Ross' mum. T'was taken on Mothers' Day. I haven't yet seen any of the photos from the combined birthday party. [The combined birthday party was Denise's 50th and Peter's 40th].

Probably best to click on this to view it clearly.

But wait! There's more...

2009-09-01T21:41:00.007+12:00

Sorry, found another three...

Dad on the right, and Max Green, the chess player on the left. Note on the back says, 'taken at Bot[anical] Gardens Lake, 30 Dec, '34, by Bobbie. {Another chess player.]

My mother and father on their wedding day. This appears to be the full photo of the one that is in an earlier post. It was taken by Artophot, 276 Lonsdale St, Melbourne. The woman in the background would have been the bridesmaid, most likely. If my memory serves me rightly, her name was Molly, and she and my mother wrote to each other for years.

This is also a wedding day photo. Even though Mum appears to be wearing different clothes - at first glance - she is, in fact, in the same dress and hat as in the previous photo. There's no indication what studio this was taken in.

A couple more...

2009-09-01T21:30:00.004+12:00

Last for tonight, a couple more photos.

This is Reg(gie), my uncle, at 8 years of age, but you'll notice someone (possibly Reg himself, at a later point) has put a query as to whether it might actually be his brother, Frank. This was taken by the USA Studios, who had branches all over London, and out in the 'provinces.'

My grandfather again, this time with a fancy hat. This is also on a postcard, and was produced by Hayne, The Broadway Studios (Next to the Bethel, Tooting, SW17). Phone Streatham 3498. (Celia and I lived in Tooting Bec when we were first married.)

Crowl Family Photos (again)

2009-09-01T21:06:00.005+12:00

I'm posting these photos in order, partly, to protect them. I feel they're fairly vulnerable to damage, so want to preserve them as best I can.

This photo is either of Reg or Frank (my uncle and father respectively). It was taken at the [J.W.] Gorsuch studio, 48 Junction Rd, Upper Holloway. A note on Flickr.com says: John Willliam Gorsuch was based at 48 Junction Road, Holloway, Islington from 1891 - 1911. He apparently gambled away earnings from studios at horse races around the country.

This is my grandmother, Karolina Brock again - or, as my uncle (or father) has written on the back: Mother (Mrs K.T.Crowl)

Frank and Reg again; probably Frank is the one on the right.

This is Uncle Will, according to the back of the photo. Presumably that means this is the gent with the extravagant name of William Thackeray Brock. The written 'signature' at the bottom says, Wykeham - the studio was The Wykeham Studios Ltd, 165 Victoria Street, SW1, and also at 133 Streatham High Road, SW161, and 67 Balham High Road, SW12. (The link to Wykeham Studios may only be temporary - it goes to a eBay page where someone is selling an old photo also produced by Wykeham.)

Okay, once upon a time I was good looking!

2009-09-01T20:54:00.003+12:00

As a one-year old. Note the handwritten 'Artgraf' below the photo, and the fact that this is probably hand-coloured. Certainly, if it is, it's very well done.

As a schoolboy. This photo would have been taken in Dunedin. The firm was Polyphoto.

More Crowl Photos

2009-09-01T20:23:00.007+12:00

More Crowl family members - or at least more photos of them...

My father, Frank Crowl, taken in Melbourne. The photo was reproduced on a post card with the stamp: Artophot, 276 Lonsdale St, Melb. C.I. Phone C 4123. It looks as though he's dressed up for something; perhaps his wedding day.

My paternal grandfather, Arthur Crowl and his wife, Karolina (nee Brock) with her parents, Francis William Brock and his wife (whose name I don't know). Karolina, my grandmother, (spelt Karolena on my father's death certificate) was born in Germany in 1873, and died in England in 1962. Occasionally I received letters from her. I don't know anything about her parents, except that two of their boys had interesting names: George Washington Brock and William Thackeray Brock. The two boys are my father and my uncle, but I'm not sure which is which.

This is 'loving sister Milly' according to the back of the photo. She was my great aunt, and the sister of Karolena. She died aged 21, but I don't know anything more about her. On the back of her photo it says: Chaffin & Sons, Photographers, Cheap Street, Sherborne, Dorset.

This photo is a mystery. I don't know who it is, and there's nothing on the back to give any indication. Perhaps it's Milly again. The photographers were Bender & Lewis, 126 George St, Croydon - facing East Croydon Station. The had a 'Day and Electric Light Studio' and were 'Patronized by H.M the King, the King of the Belgians, the King of Portugal, etc, etc.' If there was an English King patronizing them, then this must have been at the beginning of the 20th century, I suspect, since Victoria would have been on the throne before that.

Some more Crowl portraits

2009-08-19T21:01:00.007+12:00

My uncle Reg in boy scout uniform - and in the bath.

Reg as a young man with his Grandfather Brock.

My father on a horse? Bet it was just a pose. I've never heard of him riding a horse...
Though when you blow up the picture, he looks perfectly at ease, and even has the trademark cigarette holder in his mouth.

My father as a youngish man.

Translation of the notes - an attempt!

2009-08-19T20:14:00.004+12:00

I make no apologies for the following. It's a first attempt to get some sense out of the scrawl on the back of the photo in the last post. The notes began with the centre section in which my father names the various people on the front of the photo. Then he makes notes about those people (and doesn't quite seem to line up his alphabetical system) and then shifts to the top of the page when he runs out of space.

Cecil Purdy was one of his best and closest friends, someone who cared for him in spite of his errant ways and difficult behaviour. Koch is another name familiar to me; it's short for Kochnitsky. He'd won back in Sydney in 1939 and 1933. Purdy senior had won the championship four times, on previous occasions. His son, John, would win it in 1963.

It looks as though the Championships were held in Adelaide that year and Lucius Endzelins won. There's a note about him - (d).

Soviet Ch [champion], 2nd in this, lost to Koch in 1st rd [round]; Soviet Ch. 1954, won this tournament? ..beaten and with two ….?, to Koch and Vier? only; (i) Aust. Ch. ’34, ’36, ’48, ’51, Aust. ref? in …..?? as ??? can’t make it; (j) Aust. Ch. ’32, ’38. = Which explains ?? round ?? neck, Br?? ’51 at every opportunity, Love from Frank

Left to Right:

Extreme back – (a) Stalley ? NSW, Miller, SA
Next row, all heads approx. level –
(b) John Purdy NSW, Crowl NSW, (c) Bacta? NSW
Zeters ? Vic, Hanks Vic, Lafin? Q[ueensland], Genes? Vic, ?? SA;
Next, ?? – (d) Endzelins, SA, (e) Orols? Vic, Sarafin? NZ, Purkalitis SA, (g) Viner NSW;
Next, ?? – (g) Bagirov USSR, (h) Averbakl USSR, (i) Cecil Purdy NSW, Harkin (non-player), SACA Secty, and Tourney Director of Play), Kochnitsky, NSW, Lidmus? (non-player, SACA President & fruitful? financier of tourney), Gondala? SA, MacAuliffe (non-player, SACA treasurer).

Notes by Crowl - ?? ?? Pin Up Boy, Aust Ch, Perth ’54 when aged 19;
© 1960 Vic Cham ?? ?? play off not yet complete – also ?? 1958 ??, when latter’s junior? won ?? for him, Brek? ;
(d) Aust champ 1960, as highest placed resident player – first title holder from a minor state;
(e) Aust Champ 1956, ’60 on ?? and above for state title;
(f) conveyor of Crowl from Griffith to Adelaide and back – only Aust born player to beat ??
(g) 4th in 1960 (above)

I'm sure this is all very obscure stuff, but it would be interesting if someone could sort some of it out!

Some Crowl relatives

2009-08-19T18:19:00.007+12:00

Some Crowl relatives:

Grandfather Brock - my great grandfather on my grandmother's side, about whom I know very little.

My grandfather, Arthur Charles Crowl.

As you can see from the scribble at the bottom, this could be either my Uncle Reg, or my father, Frank.

This photo has my father, Frank, in it. He's up the very back on the left, with glasses and a cigarette holder (his trademark). He's beside the fellow with the big grin. This set of men were amongst the best chess players around, in their day. They were attending the Australian Chess Championships, in 1960; this was five years before his death, so he would have been around 58 at the time. The next picture shows what's on the back of the photo (in my father's virtually illegible handwriting). Unfortunately it's not as clear as I'd like, but there were definitely some Russians amongst this group. If I can get the time, I'll type out what I can make out of it in due course. One person is described as someone's Pin Up Boy

Another twig on the tree (!)

2009-07-23T08:25:00.003+12:00

My cousin, Margaret Irvine, wrote this morning:

I have been very remiss in writing information for the blog, but today I have something to write about - a new twig for the tree.
At 3.28 this morning my youngest daughter Rhonda gave birth to a son, Jordan Edward Delao. His father is Damian Delao, an American of Mexican extraction and a super guy. His mum writes the name "De La O" so I think he has simplified it for we Kiwis. I haven't met Jordan yet and will go into the hospital later this morning but I understand he was a bonny babe at 3.89 kg.

And regarding the previous 'twig', Leo Baker - he's doing well, has been at home for at least three weeks, and is coping with his older brother and sister.

Leo Baker sitting up

2009-07-02T19:49:00.001+12:00

A slightly more recent photo of Leo Baker, who's doing very well, and is now at home. (Sorry about the quality: it was taken on a cellphone.)

Leo Baker

2009-06-18T22:03:00.007+12:00

The latest Crowl family member has arrived.

On 16th July, (four months after his mother's birthday), Leo te Paenga Baker came into the world - a bit early: he was supposed to cook for another six weeks originally. He's doing fine, however, and was hopefully going to be getting out of the incubator today. He was born by caesarian section after nothing would induce him to move...

Libby's waters broke at 32 weeks, but the doctors managed to maintain things for another ten days or so.

His father is Nathan Baker, and his mother is our third daughter, Libby. They live in Auckland these days, so we won't be catching up with him for a few weeks yet.

Sorry about the fuzzy photo - it was taken on a cellphone.

3.6.09 - it now turns out that the spelling of Leo's name should be: te Painga. This is the original spelling of the family name, so it's been corrected.

The emails keep coming

2009-06-07T16:47:00.002+12:00

Even though this blog may have had a bit of a hiatus, the emails from people connected to the family keep coming. I received one from Mark Hannagan's daughter, Rebecca, back in February, and one from Adele McKersey in late May.
Adele wrote:
I have been in contact with Colleen O'Rourke who I discovered had a match to my Grandfather Charles John Francis Hannagan. Today I received an impressive lot of certificates from which she kindly sent to me in the UK related to relevant marriages of my family and also the address of your blogspot.

I was looking at the family tree as there is a lot I don't know about my my Mother's family.I noticed you don't have my brother Kevin who is two years younger than me on your tree and also a lot of the next generation. If you are interested I can send you the missing names .. just let me know.

I've written to Adele to say Yes, I'd love to hear some more about this part of the family. Her mother was a Hazel Hannagan, who was the daughter of Charles Hannagan Snr (as opposed to my grandfather, who was also a Charles Hannagan). Her grandfather was Francis Hannagan, who was born in Ireland, in 1825. And he's the son of a William Hannagan, whose birth year we're not sure of, but it must be sometime around the late 1700s and early 1800s.

The family on this side is rather complicated - Francis had two wives, and Charles appears to have had three - with children all over the place from these unions. No wonder there are so many Hannagans!

Getting up and running again

2009-06-07T16:34:00.003+12:00

It's been a very long time since I added anything on here - things have been rather busy around here, alongside some health issues - see below.

Last night I went to a family gathering, so I thought it was time to get the emails and the blog up and running again.

The gathering was a double birthday celebration: Peter Hannagan is forty, and his big sister, Denise, is fifty in about three weeks. All the Jack and Daphne Hannagan family were there, along with some of the teenage and older kids, and a bunch of friends. Great meal at the Etrusco (the former Savoy Restaurant, for those who might remember it). Instead of taking individual orders, they did it in the same way that Chinese restaurants do: bringing out platter after platter until everyone was well and truly full.

Peter doesn't at all look like a 40-year-old...mid-twenties, perhaps, but certainly not 40. And neither does Denise look her age. It's a strange world where people don't look old anymore when they should. It's the last week Peter and Rachel and their family will be in Dunedin. They've been back home for some six months, and believe it or not, this is the first time I've managed to catch up with them.

The first months of this year were unusual: I had a prostate op in late February after a very unpleasant time running up to it. Thankfully, I've come through this very well, and am feeling much more like my usual self. Right on top of this, almost, I began doing a paper at Varsity while (almost) simultaneously taking part in a play which, due to its short rehearsal period, required me to be out at least three nights a week and often one afternoon on the weekend. Juggling Varsity and the play proved to be a bit of an exercise, but turned out to be doable!

And, for those who haven't heard, Celia got knocked off her motor scooter about three weeks ago. It was a dark, rainy night; she was riding along fairly slowly because of the conditions, and a car came out of nowhere, it seemed, and apparently turned into her. She was somersaulted off her bike, and slid along the road some way. Thank God there were no broken bones, and she's healing up well (there were lots of bruises, of course, and her right knee is still very sore). She's more niggled that the demolition job she'd started on the kitchen the weekend before has had to be put on slow...

Strangely, I was driving to rehearsal that evening, and passed a police car, ambulance and tow truck. As you do, I wondered what had happened, and who might be the 'victim,' never guessing that it was Celia. It was only when I got further down the hill that I got a cellphone call from my son to say that Celia had had an accident...and of course, it all lined up.

Celia wasn't able to be at the dinner last night: my number three daughter is expecting her number three, and is at 32 weeks. However, the waters broke yesterday, and so she's in hospital while they play a wait and see game. The baby's okay, but obviously they have to be cautious about what happens next. Appreciate your prayers!

Mark Hannagan turns 50

2008-10-28T20:08:00.002+13:00

His sister, Jane, has written:
We have just come back from Cambridge, having gathered all my siblings to celebrate Mark's 50th, or, as he says, Chris' 52nd. Great catch up with all.

Well, there you go. These people who were toddlers only a little while ago are now turning 50 and 52. Scary.

I've sent an email to all those on my address list to see if there's any interest in another family reunion. A small amount of response so far, but some response at least!

Ben Nicholas Allen

2008-08-28T19:12:00.002+12:00

Well, it's been a bit of time since we last put any news on here, but at least the news that's just come is very exciting. Margaret Irvine wrote to me today:

Yesterday, August 27 , saw another addition to the family tree. Ben Nicholas Allen, son of Marie and Roy Allen and first great-grandchild of Tess Ryan was born in Wellington, weight 6 lb 15 ounces, aspect simply beautiful. The photo was taken when he was eight minutes old. The wee boy is a special gift and we are thrilled he is safe and well. Named in part for his great granddad (dec) Desmond Nicholas Ryan.
Michael, can you see that this wee chap takes his rightful (if,so far, very small place, on the family tree?
If his proud Dad has his way expect to see Ben playing for the Wellington Phoenix in 2028.

A New Hannagan

2008-06-25T20:16:00.006+12:00

We've been a bit remiss in adding news on here recently, so it's great to have a good excuse for a post.

Yesterday, Bernadette Hannagan wrote and told us that:

Cael Jacob Hannagan was born at 8.00 pm on June 23 to Andrew and Sian Hannagan. All are well and Ray and I are relishing the grandparent role.

The name is Gaelic from Irish mythology.

(If any of you are unsure who Bernadette is, she's Raymond Hannagan's wife - Ray is one of Charlie Hannagan's two sons.)

This is a bit strange...

2008-05-03T22:35:00.003+12:00

Still catching up on emails that have information in them that I haven't yet posted here.
Nola Marshall wrote to me back in March about this rather strange situation in the family.

I am fascinated by the thought that Francis Hannagan had two families at the same time. Do you know if Catherine was in Melbourne with him in the 1850s? I have found him on the 1856 Electoral Roll living in a house off Little Lonsdale Street. Occupation Tailor. As you are aware three children were born in Australia, the mother being Mary Ann Kearns (Cairns). Another daughter was born in NZ just prior to Catherine having her last child. It begs belief that the women did not know of each others existence. Do you have any family knowledge of how this arrangement worked?

There are several photos of Martin John and Frank Hannagan and the tailoring business in Mt Gambier at the following sight.

Google Mt Gambier Library and Click on Photographic section. Type in Hannagan and the relevant photos should come up. [The first time I tried this I got two pages of photos; today I can only get four.]

My mother was Nola Rita Hannagan, youngest daughter of William Francis Hannagan, born 17th Feb 1883 and Aileen Todd.

William Francis Hannagan (1860) and Frances Hargreaves settled in Victoria.

William had a tailoring business in Brighton and his son William took over the business after his fathers' death in 1918.

I've been somewhat remiss

2008-05-03T22:19:00.003+12:00

...though not today, when I'm finally catching up on all sorts of things.

Back in March I received the first of some emails from Anne Heafeild. Here's the substance of the first...

My name is Anne and I live in Melbourne, I am also related to the Hannagans who are in Melbourne, Mt Gambier and Sydney. Your Blog address was given to me by Marnie Hannagan who is a descendant of Martin John Hannagan. Martin married my great aunt Eliza Beggs, her youngest sister Isabella was my grandmother and she married James Fitzpatrick.

I have been in touch with John De Courcy via email and he has sent me his family tree. The Brian Hannagan mentioned as providing info was the grandson of Martin and Eliza his father being James, and very close to my father Edward James Fitzpatrick. I don't know if you are aware but there have been a number of Martin John Hannagan's and the latter have mostly been known as 'Jack'.
I know that I seem to be rambling but it is only in the last few years that I have reconnected with the Sydney Hannagans and got in touch with Marnie.

In the inputting of names I've been doing today, Martin John Hannagan and Eliza Beggs have been very much to the fore.

A couple of emails later, Anne wrote:

I cannot help too much with the Hannagans and what I do know about the ones in Victoria and South Australia comes from Marnie Hannagan who is a direct descendant of Martin Hannagan. It was Marnie who gave me your blog address and that had been passed on to her from someone else (isn't it wonderful to belong to such a large family?) My family are only related through marriage but in the past the ties have been strong and I am establishing them again (I hope).

I have attached a family tree you maybe interested in and that came originally from Marnie too. I also have the email address of Pat Maughan nee Hannagan granddaughter of Martin Hannagan who married my great aunt Eliza Beggs, I am sure that she would love to hear from you, she is a sprightly 87 year old who lives in Brisbane (I visited her last month) but at the moment she is in Sydney visiting her son.

I do though have many photos of the Hannagan girls in Sydney taken by may dad in the 1920's. If you are interested I could send them to you.

Of course I'm interested in the photos...!

Frank Hannagan & Passenger lists

2008-05-03T21:47:00.005+12:00

Still trolling through the Web and found something else of interest. My great-uncle, Frank Hannagan, the brother of my grandfather, Charles, was killed in the First World War.

I've just found a reference to him (!) in a roll of honour of those killed on the 12th October, 1917. (I'm not entirely confident about this date; it may just be when these men were listed.)

He's shown as the son of John and Bridget Hannagan, of 97A, Harrow St., Dunedin, and he's buried in the Tyne Cot cemetery, Belgium. There are several abbreviations which I don't recognise; someone else may be able to help with these. He was Private 24433, and the letters OIR (Otago Infantry Regiment?) and KIA (Kiwi Infantry something?) are alongside his name.

The Roll of Honour takes up innumerable pages of the Web, and is part of someone's enormous genealogical site.

On a separate subject, this is an index to Unassisted Inward Passenger Lists for British, Foreign and New Zealand Ports 1852-1923

It would be interesting to know if any of these people were kin! (It comes from a search done on the public record office of Victoria.)

Family Name	First Name	Age	Month	Year	Ship	Port	Fiche	Page
HANNAGAN	---- MRS	49	NOV	1875	ALBION II	N	139	001
HANNAGAN	BESSIE	15	NOV	1875	ALBION II	N	139	001
HANNAGAN	F	24	SEP	1866	OTAGO	N	069	001
HANNAGAN	G MISS	11	JUL	1921	OMAR	B	946	002
HANNAGAN	MARY	18	NOV	1875	ALBION II	N	139	001
HANNAGAN	PAT	28	MAY	1857	POMONA	B	125	004
HANNAGAN	W	53	NOV	1875	ALBION II	N	139	001
HANNAGAN	WILLIE	8	NOV	1875	ALBION II	N	139	001

The Musical Hannagans

2008-05-03T21:31:00.003+12:00

Here's something almost totally irrelevant. While searching the Web to see if I could by chance find anything more about William Hannagan, I came across this oddity.

Hannagan, Margaret, and Clandillon, Seamus. [Annagain, Maigread Ni, agus Clanndioluin, Seamus]. Londub An Cairn, being Songs of the Irish Gaels, in Staff and Sol-Fa, with English Metrical Translations. Oxford U. Press, Humphrey Milford 1927. 1st. VG. 75 songs, most from family of Hannagan (West Waterford). 3 volumes in one, as published.

It was listed in the Lewis Becker catalogue of collection.

75 songs mostly from the family of Hannagan? So we're a musical lot from way back...

Aussie Hannagans

2008-05-03T17:03:00.005+12:00

Well, I've just spent a couple of hours inputting a large number of Australian Hannagans onto the Family Tree. Tailors abound - it was obviously a common occupation in those days - but there's a theatrical agent amongst the group, which is a bit different (!)

As always there are several common names running through the generations, but there are some unusual ones as well. One that struck me as interesting was Kearns Hannagan. The Francis Hannagan (Francis is a frequently-used name) from 1825 (my great-great grandfather, if I've remembered to put enough greats in) was married to Mary Cairns, but there seems to have been some question about the spelling of her name. It might have been Kearns. A generation or three down the track someone seems to have thought so and named one of their sons with that spelling.

The other thing about this afternoon's work is that we now have a tree going back to 1800 - approximately. In fact, it might be a little older than that, as William Hannagan's birth date isn't secure. However, he was my great-great-great grandfather (I've just checked it using the 'relationships' part of the 'People' menu). William has the distinction of being the oldest person on the tree at this point - unless he happened to have married a woman (Brigid Daly) who was older than him. Again, her birth date is not quite known.

William left a huge legacy of descendants - whatever date he was born!

Martin John Hannagan; obituary

2008-05-03T15:12:00.001+12:00

Obituary Border Watch P3, Wednesday June 4, 1913
Mr Hannagan was a native of Melbourne,where he was born in 1856. In his boyhood he emigrated to New Zealand with his parents and remained there some 10 to 12 years, and
learned the tailoring trade.
Then he went to Melbourne, where he was for many years manager of the business, Hollands,
Tailors and Outfitters.
He was married there to Miss Eliza Beggs.
After coming to Mount Gambier he was for some years in the employ of Messrs Rowan and Gaillard.
"Dad" as he was familiarly called, was of a genial and liberal disposition, and his dignified figure will be missed in the streets.
He was a PCR of the Ancient Order of Foresters,having passed through the chairs in Melbourne. He leaves a Widow and family of nine - four sons and five daughters. Mr Frank Hannagan of Messrs Cameron and Helpman, of this town, is one of his sons.
Messrs James and Walter announce the funeral this afternoon.

Francis Hannagan

2008-05-03T14:42:00.004+12:00

A very cold Saturday and I'm finally trying to get some of the info sent to me by Nola Marshall sorted. I might put some of it on the Family Tree site, but information space is limited to 1000 words there, and Nola has provided some extensive info on some people. Note the usual inconsistency in the spelling of the family name!

Victorian Police Gazette, February 1856: Lost or stolen, from the person of Francis HANNAGAN, on the night of the twelfth instant somewhere in Melbourne, an open faced silver lever watch, No 1152, makers name Robertson of Liverpool, with gold guard attached, gold ring with FH engraved outside , and a dark coloured pocket book, with a small ink bottle. Five pounds in gold and silver , and sundry documents. Information to the Inspector of Detective police, Melbourne 16th February 1856.

Friday February 19th 1892 NEW ZEALAND TABLET We record with regret the death of Mr Francis Hannigan, [sic] father in law of Mr John Blaney, of the Caledonian Hotel, South Dunedin, which occurred at the age of 67,on Monday last. Mr Hannigan was an old member and well-known resident of Dunedin, where he came from Victoria at the time of the gold rush. He stood high in the esteem of a large circle of friends and acquaintances. R.I.P.

There are also three other known mentions of Francis Hannagan in newspaper reports.
Otago Witness 7 May 1870, page 14
Otago Witness,Issue 1047, 23 December 1871, page 6
Otago Witness,Issue 1075, 6 July 1872, page 8

I've included these for the moment as a reference.

Another bit of the tree

2008-03-30T17:11:00.003+13:00

A couple of days ago I received an email from a Hannagan in Australia. The writer's name is Nola Marshall, and she says:

I recently found your homepage for Hannagan.
I am a descendant of the Australian Hannagans.
My Grandfather was William Francis Hannagan, brother of Martin John Hannagan. I have information and photos of this side of the family if you are interested.

This bit of the family is a little confusing - at least at this point. William and Martin were the sons of Francis Hannagan (born in 1825) and his second wife, Mary (nee Cairns). On the family tree as it currently stands, I have two William Hannagans - I suspect they may be the same person, and we've got the information a bit confused. It isn't entirely unusual for people in the Victorian period to give two children the same name, if the first died very young. However, I don't have any evidence for this, as yet.

We'll keep you informed when I hear back from Nola.

Anngow news

2008-03-30T16:50:00.007+13:00

Things have been quiet on the Hannagan front of late, both because I haven't added anything, and because there hasn't been much coming through to put on.

Today, however, Barbara Anngow wrote:
Mark and I have just spent a lovely few days down in Dunedin with the family in welcoming our third beautiful grandchild. Toia Barbara was born on Good Friday to our eldest daughter Cara and her partner Matt. Cara and Toia are doing great and Shayla just adores her little sister.

The photo above is of Barbara and Mark's first grandchild, Oceania, holding Toia.
The one on the right is Shayla with her new sister.

Amelia Hannagan

2008-03-02T21:00:00.003+13:00

I've been very remiss in not announcing the arrival of the latest Hannagan - particularly since this is called the Hannagan blog. (I've beaten my head against a convenient brick wall, and now feel a little better.)

Amelia arrived back in very early February, and has somehow managed to slip off my radar time and again. She's the second child and first daughter of Peter and Rachel Hannagan, who live these days in Washington, DC. Amelia has a big brother, Oliver.

Daphne has put a number of photos of Amelia on the Net, on Snapfish (a similar setup to Ringo, or Flickr.) Let me know if you can't get access to them.

A Hannagan birth - by which I mean a child with the name of Hannagan - is an occasion to be celebrated. In spite of the fact that I have so many cousins, and they have so many children, there aren't actually that many who are called Hannagan. And when you consider that it's most likely only the boys will pass the name on to their own children, there are even less.

Three photos from the Joyce side

2007-12-14T21:12:00.000+13:00

These three photos came courtesy of Eileen, who is the daughter of John Milliman James Joyce.

This photo shows Miliman, James, Flora (my grandmother), Arthur and Hester.

(There seems to be some ongoing confusion as to how Milliman is spelt!)

This is James Joyce. I presume it's the James in the photo above, rather than the James Joyce senior, who is virtually the top of the list in the tree at the moment.

These are James Samuel Joyce and Arthur Joyce when young (obviously!)

Three bits of family tree news

2007-12-14T21:09:00.001+13:00

Just over a week or so, I received an email from a Tim Hannagan, who'd come across the family tree. He isn't Brian and Suzanne's son, but a member of the family down a different line altogether - but still connected by my great great grandfather. John DeCourcy's list turned out to have his father and grandparents on it, so I was able to include them all on the family tree online.

And then Mark Hannagan (Terry's son) wrote to me today - I hadn't heard from him in a long time, possibly not since he was living in Dunedin with his family. He gave me some details about his children's birthdates and names, because he'd found the family tree online as well.

And then I happened to check the Connections part of the family tree online and found that Anne Rogers' niece has a family tree on Tribalpages as well, and she is doing the Joyce side of things. Furthermore, she's sent me three pictures that we don't have, which I'll upload in due course.

Charles and Flora

2007-12-09T20:06:00.001+13:00

These two photos have been joined together at some point. I think the one of Charles is more recent than the one of Flora, as in the football photo below, he appears to be younger altogether. (He's second from the left, front row, in case you miss him!)

Note that this appears to be a football club, rather than a rugby club. The letters on the ball are CB FC, which I presume means Christian Brothers Football Club - though I could be wrong.

Flora Hannagan and Michael

2007-12-09T18:17:00.000+13:00

Taken in the kitchen at Stanley St. A rare photo of Nan (Grandma Hannagan, as I think she was known to some of you) smiling!

Note the clothes hanging on the rack above the coal range - my memory of Nan is of her sitting almost permanently by this range, cooking or drying or working at something. I'm sure she moved sometimes, but this was her 'home.'

Yours truly getting in the photo as always. (Rather like his younger son in later years.)

Click on the photos for larger versions.

Joe

2007-12-09T18:14:00.000+13:00

This photo has survived for some 90 years. On the back is written:
With Best Wishes & Kind Remembrances, From Yours Truly, Joe.

Someone else has added: Derry Farm, Ranfurly, 11-4-18

I don't think this is a family member - certainly not the Uncle Joe from the Hannagan side - but someone might still remember who he was and what happened to him.

Almost all the Hannagans

2007-12-09T18:05:00.000+13:00

The only person missing here is Doreen Hannagan.
Otherwise we have at the very back:
Des O'Flaherty and Daphne Hannagan.
Sitting: Joyce O'Flaherty and Tess Ryan.
Sitting lower: Terry Hannagan (this appears to have been taken about the time he was very ill), Monica Hannagan, Pat Crowl, Des Ryan and Monica Stokes.
Sitting on the floor: Jack Hannagan, Charlie Hannagan and Des Stokes.

I've had an email from Daphne: she thinks the occasion may have been Paul and Mary Stokes' 21st and 20th birthdays. She says everyone gathered at her house in Kaikorai Valley Rd so that Terry could come for a while.

Click on the photo for a bigger version.

Two group photos

2007-12-09T17:49:00.001+13:00

From left to right:
Ray DeCourcy, Frances Rooney, Jack Hannagan, Monica Stokes, Kevin DeCourcy, Pat Crowl, Tony DeCourcy, Kath Wilson.

The same people with spouses - though they're not necessarily standing with the right people.

Click on the photo for a bigger version.

Thomas and Hester

2007-12-09T17:38:00.000+13:00

I found this photo amongst my mother's collection, which we're just having another sort through. It's Milliman Thomas Joyce and his wife, Hester, nee Harwood.

Typically, they're taking the occasion very seriously, particularly Hester, whose voluminous dress hides her figure almost completely.

Wanderers Return

2007-12-02T15:05:00.000+13:00

Some of you may have been following the Crowls' exploits overseas on the Travel Diary.
For those who haven't, we're now back in Dunedin, and happy to be home. Our time away was starting to get just a bit too long, so we came home about ten days earlier than planned.
We had a great time away, with a few ups and downs thrown in, but all in all it was worth doing, and certainly gave us a chance to get to know some of the younger members of the Goodson clan (Celia's family), most of whom we hadn't seen since our wedding, when they were all children. And we met their children as well, and can now put names and personalities to the faces.

Martin John Hannagan

2007-12-02T14:56:00.000+13:00

I’ve just discovered that I’ve had the following piece of information in one of my folders for some time. It comes courtesy of John deCourcy, who now lives in Australia, and is part of a family tree he was compiling at the time.

This photo, taken from The Border Watch, Mt Gambier, of Thursday 2 June 1983, is from their ‘70 years ago’ history section and shows (in the top hat) Martin John Hannagan, who died in 1913, following a prominent career as a local businessman. His obituary, from page 3 of the Wed June 4, 1913, edition of the same paper, notes:

‘Mr Hannagan was a native of Melbourne, where he was born in 1856. In his boyhood he emigrated to New Zealand with his parents and remained there for some 10 or 12 years, and learned the tailoring trade.
Then he went to Melbourne, where he was for many years manager of the business of Hollands, tailors and outfitters. He was married there to Miss Eliza Beggs.
After coming to Mount Gambier he was for some years in the employ of Messrs Rowan and Gaillard.
“Dad”, as he was familiarly called, was of a genial and liberal disposition, and his dignified figure will be missed in the streets. He was a PCR of the Ancient Order of Foresters, having passed through the chairs in Melbourne. He leaves a widow and a family of nine – four sons and five daughters. Mr Frank Hannagan, of Messrs Cameron and Helpman, of this town, is one of his sons. Messrs James and Walter announce the funeral for this afternoon.’

At present, on the Hannagan Family Tree, you'll note there are no details of Martin's family. I should be able to rectify this soon.

Thomas Milliman Joyce turns up...

2007-09-09T02:01:00.000+12:00

Earlier this year, one of the librarians at the Dunedin Public Library wrote to me, in reponse to an enquiry I'd made about Thomas Milliman Joyce. I've mentioned this previously in this blog. I've finally received the piece of paper from NZ and here's what's printed on it. Note that Thomas Milliman Joyce has got his name around the wrong way, which might account for some of the confusion about where he was and so on.

Summary of information on Lee Stream and Traquair P.O.s

Lee Stream, from the beginning of the settlement, lay on one of the routes used by horsemen riding to inland sheep runs, and is said to have had an accommodation house of sorts as early as 1858. its importance increased rapidly when much of the same route was used by the miners going first to the West Otago rushes after mid-1861 and then to the Dunstan the following year.

Robert and Elizabeth Simmers, who had been living in Melbourne, crossed the Tasman in April 1862 with three young children, and built the long stone building which was to serve as the Lee Stream general store, with a ‘bush licence,’ during the following years.

Although mail passed this way at various times in the early years, Lee Stream did not itself become a post office until October 1, 1876; and for many years thereafter the post office operated in conjunction with the store and hotel, and either form the building that Simmers had erected, or, possibly, from a lean-to attached.

These are the early postmasters recorded on John Slattery’s cards, and all are verified as publicans from directories and other sources:

Jane Snow, from October 1, 1876

William Wallace, July 1, 1882, (then the Carrier Arms Hotel)

Henry Phillips, April 1, 1887

D. McDermid, July 1, 1889

P. Ferguson, September 1, 1891

John McEwan, April 1, 1894.

Whether the list is complete is not certain. A William Nicholson, who appears in Stone’s [Directory] as a publican, for instance, does not appear on Slattery’s list of postmasters; and the complete list of ownerships and leases of the pub has not yet been established by those researching it.

On May 24, 1895, the post office temporarily closed for a period of approximately ten weeks. This may have coincided with a fire in the pub which took place about this time. The Post Office reopened on August 2, 1895, and as the next Post Master was the publican, it presumably reopened at the store by the hotel.

Thomas Joyce Milliman, August 2, 1895

Mary Johnston, May 25, 1896

John Wellman, June 1, 1898

James Borthwick, February 14, 1899

Once again it is not certain whether the list is all inclusive.

Pat O'Flaherty, Des Stokes and the Crowls

2007-08-26T08:59:00.000+12:00

I know it’s been sometime since I wrote anything on the Hannagan blog. It’s not because I haven’t wanted to but because I’m in England with Celia, and we’re a bit out of contact with our NZ rellies, for the most part.
However today we went to visit Pat O’Flaherty (and Miriam) at their Ketton Christmas Tree place. It’s a ten acre block, not entirely covered with Christmas trees, with a 120-year-old house they’ve been doing up and various large outbuildings. Pat wasn’t home when we arrived, so fortunately we took a bit of time to have a cup of coffee from our onboard supply. By the time we’d finished, she arrived. And furthermore, she told us that Des Stokes was riding back on a bicycle! It was only the hottest day we’ve had so far, so we expected him to arrive in a lather of sweat, but nope: he looked as fresh as a daisy, and not at all hot and bothered. I’d forgotten - or hadn’t realised - he was staying with Pat while he was over here, so it was great timing to have been there when he was. He’s off on the Continent for a week about the same time we go to Luxembourg, but I don’t think we’ll run into him over there.
Pat filled me in a bit on Terry O’Flaherty, about whom I haven’t heard a thing for years. He’s in Perth, and his wife died when she was forty, leaving him to bring up two daughters, who are now in their late teens. He’s been very unwell himself in the last few years, but currently is okay. I haven’t seen him since was a teenager himself - at Jack Hannagan’s wedding. Terry, Jack’s bigger brother, took Terry O’Flaherty and me out for something to eat between the wedding and the reception. And I couldn’t eat whatever was put before me, for some reason.
Pat will probably growl at me for publishing a photo of her - since we nearly didn't get one of her at all - but it was a somewhat historic occasion!

The last episode from Daphne's Trip

2007-07-15T05:32:00.000+12:00

I said in my last report I had no idea of what was happening on the last night in Poland apart from the fact that we were going out to dinner together. It was such a surprising evening. We were taken to a very ethnic restaurant - in fact it was like going back in time. We were the only people there and we were entertained with Polish song and dance. It was such a lovely evening and we were all sad when it came to an end. That evening back in the hotel and again the following morning there were many fond farewells from all the people we had been with over those 2 weeks, a number of whom were there for the same reason as us, to go back to their roots. There were actually a few Polish people on the trip and one of them had thoughts of returning to Poland with her husband to live, however, I think, although she really enjoyed being back in her homeland, she had decided that maybe staying in America was the best option as, I think, it is probably not that easy for the elderly in Poland.

The next morning found us at the airport once again, this time Warsaw to Vilnius. We arrived there mid afternoon, offloaded our bags at the hotel and went for a walk. It was very hot so I only got as far as the river and sat there while John investigated the town a bit further. From where I was sitting I didn't get a great impression of Vilnius and wondered what we were letting ourselves in for. My first impression changed however when we met with our tour leader and some of the rest of the group for dinner that evening. Jona said it was just a little walk into town to the restaurant where he wanted to take us. I soon found out that his little walks were never that little for me and I was always tailing along behind. However, we had a very enjoyable dinner and then strolled back, with the Australian member of the group, through the town back to the hotel. Mike, you talked about having a hot chocolate. I had a hot chocolate in Vilnius and that was exactly what it was - hot chocolate. They gave you a little spoon to eat it. Very nice but not quite what I'd expected. After that we we wandering along the street and John, the Australian, pointed out a little church. It was a Catholic church and at 8.45pm on a Sunday there was Mass going on. I went in but sadly the Mass was just about finished. It seemed to be a more modern church nestled in amongst cafes and shops but the last hymn I recognised as one we sing at SFX and I even shook hands with the priest on the way out.

The next day all the group, a very different collection of people, set off on our first walking tour of the Old Town of Vilnius. Jona's walking tours though were more like marathons for me. In the afternoon we visited Trakai and the island castle sete in a gorgeous position in the centre of a lake. We were both really tired that afternoon so did a lot of resting on the island over the afternoon and then met the others for dinner before returning to the hotel.

The next day we left for Grutus Park and on to Druskininkai which is a famed spa town. Jona told us he could book us in for a spa, sauna, mud bath or several other delicious things. John and I opted for having a mud bath to sooth our tired bones. John enjoyed his mud bath but because of my swollen legs I had to resort to a mineral bath instead. It was luxurious!

We then went on to Kaunas and Kretinga. A very interesting visit was made to the Kovno Ghetto and NInth Fort. The Nazis reduced the Jewish population of Kaunas from 37,000 to 2,500 in the course of 3 years. The fort was built by the Russians but fell to the Germans during WWII.

Kretinga was a very interesting place to stay. It was like a glorified farm stay, with 2 restaurants, and was so nice that John and I opted to stay there for a day of rest while the others explored the Curonian Spit National Park. It was really mostly beach and the others said we didn't miss all that much and we benefitted from our day off. Some other interesting places we visited were Witches Hill and the Hill of Crosses at Siauliai. We then proceeded on to Riga, the party town, and Parnu and finally Tallinn the capital of Estonia. I really loved this town and John and I after doing an Off On Bus Tour climbed up a tower and walked along part of the wall of the Old Town. There were also many interesting shops to poke around although I resisted the temptation of buying the lovely handcrafts they had for sale.

We then travelled to Tart and then onto Sigulda. In Sigulda we went on a gondola, after walking up about 800 steps, and crossed the very heavily forested valley which was very beautiful. From there we went on to our final destination being the national park. Jona was keen for us to go canoeing or kayaking on the beautiful lake. My family would have loved it but it wasn't for me and, as it turned out, not for anyone else either when they discovered they had to be out there for 4 hours. Jona was a little disappointed. However, we went for a walk and then missed the bus back to our hotel which turned out to be another 5km walk - that I could have done without! However, I made it but next day I stuck with the bus and had a much more leisurely day visiting the bee museum - very interesting - and a little walk up the hill to view the 4 or 6 lakes which was very picturesque.

That was the final day of the tour and we arrived back in Vilnius mid afternoon. Went out for our final dinner and back to the hotel early to have a little sleep before having to rise at 3.30am to leave for the airport. Actually nobody had much sleep as the Vilniu hotel has a dog over the road which barks all night. I won't be going back there in a hurry.

For me then it was off to Washington to see my family where I had a nice relaxing week with Peter and Ollie and Rachel a little bit as she was working.

The photo is of the old town in Vilnius.

Daphne's Tour Coming to an End

2007-06-08T14:48:00.001+12:00

May not get another chance for a at least a few days as we're off to Warsaw again tomorrow with the tour ending on Sunday morning.

We've been here at Gydinia for the longest time of 3 nights. It's just a beautiful place and today when we came back from our tour of Westerplatte and lunch at Gdansk, I walked down to the lovely beach which was absolutely crowded with people, young and old, and paddled for the second time in the Baltic Sea. It was quite warm and the waves very gentle. I left John behind as he's not keen on the sand but it was so interesting just watching all the people - and the children are so cute. As I was sitting drying off my sandy feet some of the other people from our tour came along and we chatted for a while before I came and picked John up to go and get something to eat. I just thought how much my family would have liked being here enjoying the beach, and with so many bars and food stalls along the way you could have something to eat before going home to put the children to bed. Again, there were so many people!

Today was a religious holiday in Poland so the shops and museums were closed for the day. There would have been processions but we didn't see them as that was the time we were having lunch. Gdansk is the home of Amber and there's quite a few pieces of amber jewellery going home on our bus - I can tell you. The American people seem to be able to spend up large! I did purchase a few items but not today.

Westerplatte was very interesting as it is the place where the WWII started. It was also the place where Pope John Paul spoke to thousands of young people and his words "War Never Again" are displayed there as well. There is also a commemorative cemetery where each year they have a memorial service similar to our Anzac Day services in NZ. The tour guide said she hadn't been as it was about 4.30 in the morning but her friend had said it was very moving.

It has been definitely more relaxing the last couple of days but tomorrow we're off again to Warsaw and visiting Marlbrook Castle on the way. We also have lunch there. Not sure what we're up to on Sat but Sat evening we have our final dinner together as well as a folklore show which will be nice. Our tour guide tried to organise one for us today but because of the holiday it wasn't possible.

I haven't mentioned at all the food we've had during our stay in Poland. It has been absolutely amazing, except for the pizza we had this evening, and I am totally sold on Polish food although it probably wouldn't be too good for my waist line as they love their cakes and we've sampled many types of them. Maybe we need a Polish restaurant in Dunedin!

Hope all is well in NZ. It seems a bit strange not knowing what's going on in the rest of the world for such a long time.

Daphne's travels

2007-06-02T20:39:00.000+12:00

Another brief note from Daphne:

We've had 2 huge days in Warsaw and Krakow. Yesterday on the way to here we went to Chzechacowa (home of the Black Madonna) and then Auschwitz - very sobering. Today the old town of Krakow, the Cathedral, castle and had lunch - Spinach dumplings in the square. This afternoon 2hrs walking around the salt mines - tiring but hugely interesting. There's a queue for the Internet so won't dally.

More from Daphne

2007-05-27T19:46:00.000+12:00

Was all set to do this e-mail last night but my computer came up with a message that I couldn't interpret except for one word 'problem' so I went off to bed to rest and read my book and left John to it on the computer that was working.

We had the most amazing day yesterday visiting the area where our great grandparents and grandmother came from. We even visited the church where our great grandfather was baptised as well as the graves of, probably, our 42nd cousins one of whom only died 2 yrs ago. I don't know if I can adequately describe in an e-mail though the fantastic people we met along the way. We first met Andre, an hour later than we were supposed to as we got lost in the bus station and missed our bus. We are also not good at following directions of people along the way, mainly because of the language and the fact that when they say 5 kilometers its usually about 15. We've actually taken to riding in taxis more as they are so cheap and my legs are saved. It's been really hot everywhere we've been and they don't like that.

Getting back to the people we began with Andre who was a contact person we had. He is the director of the National Museum in Stourgard which wasn't too far from Tczew the town we wanted to visit where our family roots were. He was waiting for us and ushered us into his office to straightaway partake of lots of Polish goodies and a good long talk with him. Any people who speak a little English seem very eager to converse with you. He gave us also a bag of information and lovely postcards then showed us round the museum and the town and went with us to the bus to go to Tczew. He was such a nice man and it is the first time that I have ever had my hand kissed.

We had several other experiences of helpful nice people on the way and in the town where we visited the church just about the whole village was out, talking flat out in Polish and trying to help us. The taxi driver we had here was shouting out the window at various people and when I realised he was looking for August Plewa, our great-grandfather, I quickly put in his hands the information I had so say that he was actually dead. I then managed to get through that it was the church we wanted to go to. We duly went to the church and met a lady who seemed to know about the Plewa family and the next thing we found ourselves going to the graveyard where we saw the graves of Jahn and Francesca Plewa.

That whole experience cost a bit for the taxi but it was worth it and we duly arrived back in Gdansk tired and hungry but very happy with our day. We're off to Warsaw today but not until we've seen a bit more of Gdansk. Fortunately, we purchased our tickets for the train to Warsaw yesterday owing to another helpful Polish guy who was keen to try out his English on us. However, that's another story.

Must be off now. We join our next tour Mon evening. Hopefully there'll be some English speaking people.

27th May, 2007

2007-05-27T19:43:00.000+12:00

Pat Crowl would have celebrated her ninetieth birthday today.
Instead, some of the family went out to her grave and stood around and talked and arranged flowers – and froze: it’s been blowing a freezing gale all day. And we prayed and thanked God for her, because even though she was a quiet person, who didn’t like to be in the public eye, she was greatly beloved by our family.
There’s even been a bit of a joke about her ninetieth birthday. Last year, we’d talked with her about having a celebration for it, and she kept saying, “Well, I won’t be there.” She made sure of that!
Happy birthday, Mum. Hope you’re enjoying being in the presence of God and his endlessly delightful gardens, where no weeds grow, and nothing dies.

The Adventures of Daphne..!

2007-05-25T17:14:00.000+12:00

Well, have arrived in Gdansk with a bit of a hiccup on the way. We missed our connection from Munich to Gdansk and had to go via Frankfurt. However, not too horrendous except that we arrived in Gdansk to find that our baggage was still in Munich. It will arrive though tomorrow and in the meantime we have been given a little bag of goodies, including the most gorgeous nightshirt, to tide us over. We'll no doubt survive. The hotel where we are staying is run by a family which includes mum, dad and 4 sons. The son we dealt with was just so friendly and helpful we feel right at home. They even have hot chocolate!

We were a little sad to leave Croatia. It was a lovely country, my favourite city being Dubrovonik. Split, the second largest city was also very nice. We also made friends with a couple from Brazil and will be able to show you a photograph on our return. I may have already said Reuben had a Croatian grandfather as well and he also spoke fairly good English. Tuesday night we spent at the Plievitce National Park hotel, very lovely waking up to the birds singing instead of lots of noisy cars, and spent 3 hrs the next morning touring the park by foot, by boat and by train. It was fantastic! We got back to Zagreb about 4.30 and thought we'd look for the History Museum but by the time we got there it was closed. We sat and had a drink in the square and soaked up the atmosphere for a while before we plodded - and plodded we did - back to the hotel for our last dinner together. Unfortunately, we were sitting with those that couldn't communicate with us very well so it was a fairly quiet affair, unlike the other table where stories in Spanish were being told and there was much hilarity. Hopefully there'll be some English speaking people on our Polish tour which begins on Mon evening. Meanwhile we have 3 days here in Gdansk to explore.

An Update on Thomas Milliman Joyce

2007-05-21T19:29:00.000+12:00

A while ago I wrote to the Dunedin Public Library and asked if they could help with any info on Thomas Milliman Joyce. There was a bit of confusion at some point, because the librarian, Cheryl, thought his name was just Thomas Milliman. So her first email response was as follows:

I have been searching for information on Thomas Milliman as discussed by email but have not been having very much luck.

As I indicated in my first email, I checked with 2 sources I thought may be able to help.
Firstly, my husband has been writing up the history of the Lee Stream Hindon area for the local committee. He is working from notes made and collected by various people in the area so although he has done a lot of work verifying information he did not collate the original material. I asked him to check for your Mr Milliman and he found one reference to him being in the area in 1895 but the name has been extracted from a list that came from the Chief Post Office. He believes that the list may have gone to the Hocken Library as a lot of material was deposited there.

I also checked with another patron who is doing work on hotels around Dunedin and Otago. He provided me with a list of hotels and licensees at Lee Stream for the years 1878-1895. There appear to have been 2 hotels - Lee Stream Hotel and the Carriers Arms - but there is no Thomas Milliman listed as licensee.

I checked Stone's directories from 1893-1905 but his name does not appear with a hotel or in the alphabetical sequence. I also checked electoral roll 1894 and 1897 for the Taieri electorate but he is not listed there either. I have checked the newspaper index and other genealogical resources with out luck.

I am sorry I cannot be of assistance at this stage, perhaps the Hocken Library will provide a few more clues. Of course , if I come across any information I will contact you and if find any leads I will be happy to do further checking.

After I'd informed her of her mistake, she wrote back:

Thanks, your email gave me a nasty moment!! I double-checked and I did find him, with variations, in some records but still nothing linking him to the Lee Stream Hotel. I did give the correct name to my other informants. The person who is working on hotels gave me a printed list of licensees of the hotels in the area and his name did not appear.

I have found Mr Joyce in the 1893 electoral roll. He is listed as "Milliman Thomas Joyce" bookbinder , living at Hindon. Hestor is listed as a housewife, also at Hindon and Arthur is listed twice, once as a labourer of Hindon and again as a farmer of Hindon.

I checked some of the Stone's directories (I didn't do very many because I am not sure how much checking you may have done already). In Stone's directory 1893 "Thomas Milman Joyce" is listed as a bookbinder, Union Street, Dunedin.

In 1894 Stone's directories, he does not appear at all - under any variation of the name!
In 1895 James Joyce appears as a farmer at Hindon.
In 1896 Stone's there are no Joyce's listed at Hindon.
In 1897 Stone's directories "Thomas Joyce" is listed as a bookbinder, Buchanan Street, M[ornington]

Both Mr Joyce and his wife appear on the cemeteries database. "Milliman Thomas Joyce" this time!

I will leave my searching at that point and wait until I hear from you. My apologies for getting muddled the first time round!

You can see how difficult tracing family history can be...and I haven't even done any of it here. It would appear that the story about him being licensee of the hotel

Daphne in Croatia

2007-05-20T19:34:00.000+12:00

We received an email today from Daphne. She and her brother John are touring around Croatia where their forebears come from.

What a relief! After using the e-mail at Singapore with no problems I couldn't get into it at Zagreb for some reason or another. Tonight we're in Split which is way down the coast in Croatia - into Dalmatian territory. Last night we were in Opajtia - a very quaint town on the coast and this morning after leaving there we traveled through Reijk which is where our grandfather lived. It was a very busy port and it was easy to see how our grandfather could have hopped on a boat to come to New Zealand. I would loved to have stopped there even for 5 minutes but didn't get the opportunity. We have actually been talking to a couple from Brazil over dinner tonight, Reuben and Beatrice - very nice people. His grandfather and grandmother also came from Croatia and the area we will go through tomorrow. John invited another Brazilian couple to our room for a glass of not very good wine before dinner. Sonia was a paediatrician and her husband an anaesthetist.

Croatia is a very lovely place and so much of it is so so old. Unfortunately, John and I are the only English speaking people on the tour, apart from the tour guide. At Zagreb she arranged for us to have a guide of our own which was really good and we had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Kristina our guide is very nice but she talks to us a lot on the bus and not so much when we get to places. Consequently by the time we get to where we're going we've forgotten what she said a lot of the time.

Tomorrow we're off to Dubrovonich where we'll spend 2 nights and then I think we make our way back to Zagreb and then to Poland. We've been on the bus most of the day today but are spending the morning here in Split before we more off again.

It's all going well and especially now that I know I can reach you all by e-mail again

A couple of notes from the Reunion

2007-04-12T22:00:00.000+12:00

Thanks for Mary Fraher for the much improved group photo now on this blog. (A couple of posts back, in case you didn’t notice the link.)
I’ve been meaning to jot down a few things that I remember in particular from the reunion. Just a couple concerning Stefanie’s children. Mykala and Luke, the two younger children, were rather shy at the daytime event. However, when they saw Tess, both of them latched onto her, and finished up having lunch at the same table as her. Why? Because at first they thought she was actually ‘Mumma’ as they called Pat (my mother). And when it was explained that she was Mumma’s sister, they obviously settled for that as being the next best thing!
Another small thing with Luke. After Monica Stokes arrived, I brought him over and was sitting near Monica, with Luke on my knee. There was a wonderful moment when he caught her eye, and exercised all his not-inconsiderable charm in getting her to smile at him, while he played some ‘hard to get’ game. The interesting thing was that Monica was fully involved in the game, and thoroughly enjoying it.
I felt that Monica was quite alert to the people around her, and while she may not have had full recognition of the various people, she obviously interacted with different ones. I was really glad Des brought her along.

Some people never grow up!

2007-04-09T17:07:00.000+12:00

John Stokes and Celia Crowl get involved in the (children's) lolly scramble.
Madeleine Stokes thinks it's a great joke.

A few quick notes about the Reunion

2007-04-09T16:44:00.000+12:00

We’ve finally had a family reunion. Not on a large scale as yet, because there were plenty of people not there, but we still had around thirty at the dinner last night (Easter Sunday) and some fifty at the informal get-together and lunch today. Jacinta and Daphne did most of the organising, but I think it helped that the blog had been up, and the emails had been going out, since last year. The other thing that triggered it further was that Peter and Jane Ryan were coming over for a trip to the South Island, so that gave us a definite excuse.
We had a meal together last night at The Station Café in Mosgiel – it’s literally the old Mosgiel railway station done up.
On the Ryan side there were Tess and Anne, and her daughter Sophie, and Peter and Jane. I haven’t seen Peter since I was in my mid-teens, back in the late fifties, I guess.
On the Stokes side, there were Des, Mary and Paul Fraher, and Paul – who came in after the meal was finished – and Debbie with her Japanese husband, Hide (pronounced, roughly, Heeday). They’ve only been married about a year.
Daphne was there, along with Jacinta and Dave, Jennifer, Trish and Ross, Teresa and Bob – and Bob’s mother, Peggy – and Denise and Malcolm. The three teenage boys were there too, until they went to Jacinta’s to watch tv: Matthew, Hamish and Finn.
And there were some Crowls: Celia and yours truly, and Stef, Abby and Ben. (Louise and Jacob were in Invercargill.)
We had a buffet meal and there was a good friendly atmosphere, especially considering a number of people didn’t really know each other well.
Today (Easter Monday) we went to the East Taieri Hall from around 11.30 for a bring-a-plate lunch. Being a Hannagan do, of course there was plenty of food…!
I think the only person who wasn’t there today from last night was Peggy. Otherwise the same bunch came, along with John Stokes and Lucy, and their three kids, Madeleine Monica, George Louis and Eloise.
Raymond and Bernadette also came, with Andrew and his wife of a month, Sian (I presume that’s the spelling, although they were pronouncing it Sharne to my ear), and Matthew.
More Crowls came: Dominic, the three little Stewarts: Jenna (who’s birthday it is today as well), Mykala and Luke, and the big Stewart: Doug. Abby also brought Thomas.
Jacinta’s three boys were there: Jack, Charlie and Oscar. And Denise’ daughter, Chloe, came too, and did face-painting on the little kids.
And one last arrival, who makes the number to fifty by my reckoning, was Monica Stokes. Des went and got her after lunch. It was great to have her there, particularly since the home she is in is so close to the proceedings, and having all of us going to her might not have been so convenient.

Guess Who - again

2007-03-25T16:44:00.000+12:00

Okay, here's a competition. Who is this chap? His mother has written on the back of the photo where he's standing up in the pram:

The Prime Minister delivers his speech. Place: Shrine of Remembrance. Aged 11 months and one day.

Again, you can click on the photos for a much larger view of them.

A Hannagan Wedding

2007-03-25T16:38:00.000+12:00

A photo found amongst Mum's bits and pieces. She's made a note on the back:

Guess Who? He's showing them a photo of themselves which someone took a minute or so earlier.

Bernadette, however, seems more interested in avoiding tripping over her wedding dress!

Bookbinder to the King

2007-03-25T16:09:00.000+12:00

This is a photo and article cut from the Otago Daily Times - unfortunately there's no date, but it would have to be the early fifties at the latest, as Pop died in 1954.

The text is as follows, for those whose eyesight can't pick up what's on the screen (!) - though it will come up full size if you click on the picture. It may take several seconds.

Three specially-bound copies of Dr A H McLintock’s official history of Otago will accompany the Mayor, Sir Donald Cameron, when he leaves for Britain in the near future. They are presentation copies which Sir Donald will hand over as gifts from the city of Dunedin to his Majesty the King, the Lord Mayor of London, and the Lord Provost of Edinburgh respectively. The binding of the books has just been completed, and they are to be displayed in the window of a city book store before being handed over to Sir Donald.
The binding of books in the elaborate presentation form is a craftsman’s task, and there are few men in new Zealand who are still able to do the work, which calls for special skills and painstaking workmanship. The binding of the copy to be presented to the King was carried out by Mr C Hannagan, who told the Daily Times yesterday that he had enjoyed the work as a variation from more prosaic bookbinding tasks.
Handsomely finished in scarlet Morocco leather, with the heavy covers bevelled and the page edges gilt, the presentation volume is a fine example of master craftsmanship. It is contained in a lined and similarly bound presentation case, which, like the books, has the city’s coat of arms embossed in gold on the cover.
The copies which are to be presented to the chief officers of London and Edinburgh are similarly bound, although their covers are lighter and only the upper edges of the pages are gilt. These volumes were bound by Messrs R Craik and D McKay under the supervision of Mr Hannagan. As with all the de luxe edition copies of the centennial history, the frontispiece of each volume is an original etching by the versatile author.
With the completion of the presentation volumes, Mr Hannagan and his assistants will now return to the binding of the final batch of copies of the first printing of the history.

Couple of Crowl grandchildren

2007-03-16T20:21:00.000+13:00

Lucy Baker on the right - so uninspired by her bath, she appears to be falling asleep.

And to the left, her slightly older cousin, Jacob Crowl.

Lucy Isabella Baker

2007-02-24T19:57:00.000+13:00

We talked about the arrival of Lucy recently, but so far we haven't had any decent pictures to show you. As soon as these are organised, we'll post them on here.

More on the family reunion

2007-02-24T19:55:00.000+13:00

Jane and Peter Ryan are coming to Dunedin on Sunday 1 April. They will have Tess with them and Des Stokes and Daphne Hannagan will meet them at the airport to go straight to Cromwell where we will stay in Dave and Jacinta's house until Friday.
They'll all be back in Dunedin for Easter and as a result thought Easter Monday would be a good day for a family reunion. The intention is to hire the use of the Presbyterian Church hall (just along from their place in Gladstone Rd) where there's lots of play equipment and room for the children.
Please note that Mike and Celia Crowl now have three bedrooms free in their house, with two lots of single beds, and a double bed available. Anyone needing accomodation for this reunion, let us know.

Family Reunion

2007-02-24T19:51:00.000+13:00

For those who've lost the email that referred to this, here's the info again:

HANNAGAN FAMILY REUNION

Date: Monday 9 April
Start Time: 11.30 am
Venue: East Taieri Presbyterian Church Hall

Please bring something for lunch - preferably finger food

There'll also be a meal the night before - venue unknown at the moment - for anyone interested.

R.S.V.P. Daphne - dhannagan@xtra.co.nz - soon - to advise of your presence at this reunion, and most especially

for the dinner the night before as I will have to book.

Anthony John De Courcy

2007-02-17T21:45:00.000+13:00

Michael De Courcy wrote on the 12th February:
On Sunday at 3:07pm Anthony John De Courcy arrived! Wahoo! He is 8lbs, very healthy and (we think...) quite cute. We are absolutely thrilled. Desiree, baby and myself are getting well looked after at Birthcare for a couple more nights.

And sent some photos...

From John Ryan

2007-02-12T22:27:00.000+13:00

And another John - John Ryan this time - emailed me and said:

Great Blog. I was curious when Mum told me about my photo on your blog. It's definitely me, and it looks like it was taken in barracks next to my bed. Either Hobsonville or Wigram. I don't remember the photo being taken, but I was in the RNZAF in 1976.

John, who spends a good deal of the year in Switzerland, working, adds:
It's a bit difficult being so remote from Lucy and Wendy, but we do get to see each other for 14 weeks each year, and those times are just wonderful. Our daughter Lucy is learning 3 musical instruments, one of them being the piano. She has already passed 2 piano exams, and will do grade 2 this year. I remember you playing the piano at Stanley St when I was very young. The other 2 instruments Lucy plays are violin and flute. She'll also be doing exams for those this year.

Babies to the left of me, Babies to the right of me...

2007-02-12T22:24:00.000+13:00

Lucy Baker has no sooner arrived on the scene than she's ousted from first position by another newcomer...

John DeCourcy emailed me today to say:
Anthony John DeCourcy was born yesterday 11 Feb2007 to my brother Michael DeCourcy and his wife Desiree. Weighed in at 8 pounds, and according to his father is "perfectly formed"! First male DeCourcy for a long time, with a name that goes right back intothe family tree.

No photo available as yet.

From the Cricketers' Arms Hotel...

2007-02-11T20:31:00.001+13:00

We found a complimentary card this week amongst Mum's papers. At the top it has:
With the compliments of Cricketers' Arms Hotel (Des O'Flaherty, Prop).
And it goes on to tell this little story:
A Hotelier who commenced business twenty years ago with a capital of £50, recently retired with a comfortable fortune of £50, 000. He states that his good fortune is due to industry, economy, conscientious effort to give full value, indomitable perseverance and the death of an uncle who left him £49,950.
We lack the rich uncle.

Lucy Baker

2007-02-10T19:27:00.001+13:00

The main news of the day is that Lucy Baker arrived in the world at around 1 am this morning. She was born in Christchurch, to Libby Crowl and Nathan Baker. She's their second child; Israel was born in Sept 2004.

Libby had the easiest birth in the world with Israel: it was all over in a matter of a few hours. Lucy decided to show Libby what a real birth is like, so the labour pains started back on Thursday, and came and went until late last night, leaving Libby exhausted. Libby had already had a false alarm (though it was very much like before Israel was born) back in January...!

Lucy was 7lb 8oz, and has black, curly hair - according to Libby - and looks very like her brother. Let's hope she gets his smile as well: it's radiant.

Hoarding....

2007-02-10T13:28:00.000+13:00

Mum was a great hoarder of 'bits' - cuttings from newspapers, or things she'd been given by the grandchildren, or things that had special value at some point. She also liked keeping note of silly jokes, and so I'll be adding some of these to the blog over the next few days/weeks.

Here's something for starters:

After Glasgow football team Celtic lost 3-1 to unfancied Inverness Caledonian in the Scottish Cup, the Sun headline declared: 'Super Callie Go Ballistic - Celtic are Atrocious.'

And here is a photo we came across amongst the bits and pieces: if I'm not mistaken, it's a very young John Ryan.

The Hannagan Name

2007-01-25T16:34:00.000+13:00

I’ve just come across a very exciting page which brings together a heap of links to Hannagan family research. If you have a free day or two to spare, check it out!

The following information comes from a page put out by the Historical Research Centre. I have a photocopied version of this, but haven’t been able to find them on the Net to permission to re-use this material.

HANNAGAN

Ireland was one of the earliest countries to evolve a system of hereditary surnames. They came into being fairly generally in the eleventh century and indeed some were formed before the year 1000. The traditional belief that the system was introduced deliberately by Brian Boru is without foundation; it developed spontaneously in Ireland, as elsewhere, as the population increased the former practice, first of single names and then of ephemeral patronymics or nicknames proved insufficiently definitive.
The Irish surname Hannagan is patronymic in origin, being one of those names derived from the first name of the original bearer. The name is an anglicization of the Irish surname O hAnnagain, and means ‘the grandson of little Annadh’ or ‘the descendant of the little slow old man.’ The name is of uncertain origin, but it is possibly an old County Limerick surname and, in some cases is used as a variant of O’Hannon. It is mainly associated with widely separate areas, Counties Waterford and Tyrone. The earliest known reference to the name occurs in 1556 when John Hanigane of Waterford City obtained ‘English liberty.’ A generation later the name occurs among jurymen and trade guild officials in Dublin and also in Inishowen pardons. Later is was a principal name in the barony of Decies, County Waterford. In Dublin, James Hannagan was warden of the guild of Saint John the Baptist (merchant sailors) in 1752-53. In 1774 David Henegan founded the course for Cork students in the Lombard College, Paris.
Blazon of Arms: Quarterly gules and or, overall on a bend sable, three crosses pattee agent.
Translation: Gules (red) denotes magnaminity. Or (gold) denotes generosity.
Crest: A pennant sable, within a wreath gules, erect.
Motto: Turris fortis mihi deus
Translation: God is a tower of strength to me.
Origin: Ireland.

I must say I'm impressed with the family motto!

Some Hannagan children

2007-01-25T15:52:00.000+13:00

This, if I've got my facts right, is the original Raymond Hannagan - that is, not the one who currently lives in Mosgiel, but his uncle. This Raymond died when he was around four. I'm not sure of what.

The other photo is a family group consisting of most of the Hannagan brothers and sisters. From the left, Charlie with the sun in his eyes, Monica, not looking her usual bubbly self, Joyce in school uniform, Terry, I presume, on her knees, Pat and Tess.

Flora and Thomas Joyce

2007-01-25T15:23:00.000+13:00

Further to Tess' request about her mother living in Hindon, I've had a bit of a discussion with Des Stokes, and his understanding is as follows.

Flora Joyce, as she was then, lived in the Lee Stream Hotel (I remember hearing this too). Whether her father (Thomas Joyce) ran the hotel at that time or not, we don't as yet know - though's that an avenue someone might be able to investigate. It seems that Flora might have gone on horseback to school at Hindon - again something that rings a bell with me. Des thought she also learned the piano at Lee Stream - or maybe at Hindon School. (Presumably there are school records for Hindon School, if it still exists.)

Des also reminded me of another point about Thomas Joyce - he died of 'softening of the brain.' Not a very complimentary-sounding statement, though Des suspects it probably had something to do with dementia, rather than a physical softening (!)

He also thought that Thomas might have done some goldmining up Hindon/Lee Stream way. Flora's wedding ring was made from gold got from that area, but whether he mined the gold himself, or bought it, isn't clear.

I'm assuming I'm correct in thinking this is Flora as a child, and also with her father, but correct me if I'm wrong!

Question from Tess

2007-01-15T22:51:00.000+13:00

This came via Margaret Irvine, today.

"Does anyone know, or recall being told, where Nan (Flora Hannagan) grew up and where she lived in Dunedin before she married Pop?
Mum knows she was born in Hinden but can't for the life of her fill in any gaps after that. if anyone can help we'd really appreciate it."

If anyone can help, please contact me on mcrowl@gmail.com

The Hannagan Family

2007-01-15T14:14:00.000+13:00

(Click on the photo to enlarge it)

The 'original' Hannagan family - is there a remarkable family resemblance? Which continues to this day? LOL
(back 'row') Charlie (with arms folded), Kit, Albert Powell, Rose, Frank, Tess, (front 'row') Molly, Grandma, Anne, Dan.
'Grandma' was Bridget Kennedy, originally. I'm not sure who Albert Powell is, but no doubt someone can tell me. I think he may have been the fiancee of either Tess or Anne.

Christmas at the Ryans

2007-01-11T14:22:00.000+13:00

Margaret has sent us a bit of a description about Christmas Day at the Ryans...

Tradition has it that as many family members as possible gather at Mum's (Tess's) place for Christmas lunchtime, prezzies and some convivial imbibing.
This year it was a little strange not to have Dad tut-tutting about the wrapping paper and how much there was of it and how it only got used once then thrown away. We all drank a toast to his first heavenly Christmas.
All of the Ryan daughters were there with their families, or as many as were able to attend. Frank and I, Lauren, Andrew, Rhonda and her partner Josh. Kathy and Stewart Macfarlane with Bridget and Avril.(Kiri was flying to Oz) Anne Meekan with Kevin, Kieran, Sophie and Sean and we all had a pretty wonderful Christmas Day. Peter and John now have their home bases in Australia although John commutes to Switzerland for work)
Mum always cooks a lovely ham, all glazed with brown sugar and pineapple and garnished with cherries, Kevin's a dab hand with the salads, I had taken out a second mortgage to buy a leg of lamb and everyone contributed chickens, more salads and loads and loads of nibbles.
It was a great day to talk and reminisce and watch the kids. Of course, it rained all day and we all looked out windows and said "Well, it never comes right till after Christmas."
And it still hasn't!

Some photos from 21.12.06

2006-12-22T10:02:00.000+13:00

The Crowl 'kids': Ben, Libby, Abby, Stef and Dominic seated on their grandmother's favourite settee, which originally belonged to her grandfather, Thomas Joyce.

(Click on the photos for larger versions.)

Stef with Mykala

Louise, Ben and Jacob

Abby, Thomas and Steve

This is a photo of most the people who came back to our house after the funeral yesterday.
Front row: Luke Stewart, Mike Crowl, Louise Crowl, Stef Crowl, Mykala Stewart, Jenna Stewart, Libby Crowl, Israel Baker, Abby Crowl, Daphne Hannagan, Des Stokes.

Back group: Steve Earnshaw, Thomas Earnshaw, Dominic Crowl, Ben Crowl, Jacob Crowl, Doug Stewart, Kathleen Macfarlane , Barbara Anngow, Athene Stewart, Mary Fraher, Jeanette Milner (longstanding family friend), Celia Crowl, Tess Ryan, Paul Stokes.

Tribute to Pat Crowl ('Mumma')

2006-12-21T21:24:00.001+13:00

This is the text of a tribute I gave at Mum's funeral today. Some of the family said they'd like to see a copy of it. My apologies if it seems rather long (!) Mike

Pat Crowl.
Mum was born on 27th May, 1917, the 4th child of Charles and Flora Hannagan.
She was one of a family of nine children, two of whom died very early.
At first they lived in Elgin Rd, but later moved to a somewhat bigger house at 7 Stanley St. It must still have been crammed, with two adults and seven children, and only three bedrooms.
Mum had to leave school quite early, though I’m not sure when. Certainly she had little secondary education, something that niggled her throughout her life, since she was bright and would have benefited from more schooling.
One of her jobs after leaving school was as a housemaid at the home of the original Arthur Barnett family in Highgate. She had to walk all the way from Stanley St to Highgate, and then walk home again at the end of a long day. She was never very much enamoured of this particular job! However in 1934 when she was 17 she began work at the Roslyn Mills in Kaikorai Valley. In those days this was a huge enterprise and there was plenty of scope for young workers.
She stayed there until she went to Australia, in 1942, and then worked there again when she came back from Australia in 1948. I can remember going down there when I was small: the machines were enormous. Someone working on the big knitting machines would spend the day walking back and forward changing bobbins, with the clatter of several other large machines beating their ears constantly.
In her teens and early twenties she played cricket, and we have several trophies at home telling us that she was the best bowler in the St George’s Cricket Club over the period from about 1936 to 1942. I have a memory that she played for the Otago Women’s Cricket team at some point, but haven’t been able to verify this.
She was enthusiastic for all sorts of sports, as the several scrapbooks she made in her teens and early twenties testify. And also for the ‘sport’ of flying: Jean Batten features strongly in these scrapbooks. If my memory serves me right, when she went to Australia, it was in a flying boat.
Her enthusiasm for cricket never waned, and she would often listen to cricket games while lying in bed at night when she lived at our house, or watch the games on television with the sound off because she found the tv commentators inferior to the radio ones.
In 1942 she went to Australia. She corresponded regularly with a number of people throughout her life, but there was one penpal in particular called Frank Crowl who lived in Melbourne and was a brilliant chess player. Quite how things came together I’m not sure, but she went to Melbourne around September 1942 and was married in October. I have in the back of my head that Frank had proposed to her by correspondence (he played chess by correspondence a good deal as well, so perhaps it was a natural approach for him), but I have nothing to back this up.
This big adventure didn’t quite take off: Frank was not a natural husband or father. Chess was his life, and everything else came second. He lived before his time, in the sense that if he been born twenty or thirty years later he may have made a career out of the game. In the forties, people didn’t make money from playing chess.
My mother had to work for both of them, and got a job in the Rationing Department, and then in the Post Office, as a mail sorter.
I was born in 1945, the only child to come to full term. My mother suffered at least three miscarriages. Because she had to work in the daytime, she left me in the care of a home run by Catholic nuns for unmarried mothers. Apparently I was very popular with all these ladies.
In the end my mother must have decided that coming back to NZ was her only option, for her own health’s sake, and mine. Both of us were undernourished and unwell. She told me once that she expected my father to follow, but I think that was a fairly faint hope. He continued on with his chess playing, but not having any what we would now call ‘marketing skills’, he spent the remainder of his life struggling, and died in 1965 owing money to people – most of all to my mother.
Mum and I came back to a full household in Stanley St. My two grandparents were there, my two young uncles, and - as I only just learned the other day - so were my recently-wed Auntie Monica and her husband Des. Seven adults and a three-year old child. Stanley St was crammed again, and the two young uncles must have turned the lounge into a bedroom.
Mum went back to Roslyn Mills, and I grew up with a bunch of adults.
We shared a love of movies, and one of the things I remember is waiting for her to finish work every Friday so we could go to the ‘five o’clock session.’. And, though she never played any instrument herself she encouraged me to learn the piano, something which I took to like a duck to water (mostly!) and for which I’ve been grateful ever since. She did like to sing, but an operation she had on her throat at some point turned her into a baritone, and after that she stopped singing for the most part.
In 1965 she finally gave up working at Roslyn Mills, and took up a job in the Records Dept at Dunedin Electricity. She was highly successful in this, and when she retired in 1977 she was greatly missed.
Meanwhile in 1974 I had returned from living in England with my newly-wed wife. I’d been away from home for six years, during which time my mother faithfully wrote to me, week in and week out. (I wrote in return, by the way, having picked up her writing bug.) Celia and I lived with her in Stanley St for a time, before finding a flat of our own. But before we left, our first child was born, and Mum began her new career of grandmother-come-second mother, and soon began to be known as Mumma.
The family home in Stanley St was deteriorating, and though Mum had the option of living there as long as she liked, it was obvious that we either had to spend a good deal of money on repairs, or come up with another solution. Mum kept mentioning how she needed to book a room up at the Little Sisters, but we hated the idea. (And she would have hated living there.)
In the end my wife Celia came up with the idea of building a second storey on top of our house. The Stanley St home was owned jointly by all the Hannagan brothers and sisters, and we asked them if they would pool the money earned from the sale of the house in order to build Mum a home within a home upstairs at our place. In general this was agreed to by the family, and with loans and gifts from them another storey was built, and from 1984 Mum became a live-in grandmother.
Quietly and subtly she took over the laundry, the housework, the gardening. We did battle over this for a time, and then gave in. She was determined to be a fully-functional grandmother - not one who sat back listening to the cricket all day. All who know her will have benefited from the glories of the garden she built up at our home. And the new potatoes that would arrive faithfully in time for Christmas each year.
Then there were the cats. There had always been a cat at Stanley St since I was young when an unwanted kitten turned up at the door one day. As soon as one died of old age, another would arrive. When we lost our favourite family cat (Mamble) at Glenpark Avenue, a scrawny pregnant cat arrived not long after and deposited two kittens under one of the beds. They grew up under Mumma’s care, and only died in the last couple of years. There was also Libby’s black cat, who was very aggressive and often gave Mumma bleeding hands or legs. Nevertheless she just kept on loving it until it loved her in return.
Dominic will shortly tell you about the way things were when the children were growing up with her in the house, and the huge contribution she made to our family life. None of us would be the people we were if it wasn’t for her presence in the home over a period of twenty-two years.
I haven’t talked about her spiritual life. It was a quiet, down-to-earth kind of spirituality that got on and did the job without fuss. It was a faith plus works spirituality that believed (without actually talking about it) that being a servant was one of the prime ways of expressing yourself as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
We have only a small understanding, I suspect, of the amount of serving she did in her lifetime. For instance, in 1962 she took unpaid time off work to stay home and care for her mother, who was dying of cancer.
We also have only a very small grasp of the amount of praying for people that she did. Certainly she prayed for all of us in the family, but I can’t believe we were the only ones she prayed for.
She would attend Mass in all weathers. She cleaned the brass in the church for years, even hauling those heavy items back and forth from home to deal with them. I’m sure many of you in this community know more than we do what other works of service she did.
Mum wasn’t an outgoing person, at least in her later years. Nor did she enjoy being the centre of attention. She would have preferred a funeral where no one else came. But she delighted in the achievements of other people, especially those in her family, and we have found dozens of mementoes of special occasions amongst her things.
She was one of God’s great servants: I believe she’ll now be rejoicing with him, chatting to him about the enormous garden he’s prepared for her, and suggesting, no doubt, that there are some everyday chores she could get on with for him, especially now that she’s got her strength and her youth back.

Pat Crowl: 1917-2006

2006-12-18T11:58:00.000+13:00

After nearly three days of being at home with us, asleep and sometimes struggling for breath, Pat Crowl died quietly - almost while we weren't looking (!)

A number of family members (including a surprise visit from Mary and Paul Fraher, and from Catherine Hannagan) came, as well as other friends. It's been a good time, with Mum there, even though she's been asleep, and people have been relaxed and talking beside her.

We're going to miss her hugely: she's been an integral part of our family for around 22 years. She's lived upstairs, babysat, done a good deal of the housework and gardening, loved the kids, and then their kids as well, loved us even when we weren't always the easiest people to live with, shared her income generously with us and with a surprising number of charitable organisations (as we now discovered), and in general been a faithful daughter of God.

Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the rest the Lord has prepared for you. (A mansion with an enormous garden which she'll have the time and energy to cultivate for eternity...!)

Update on Pat Crowl

2006-12-15T15:55:00.000+13:00

We brought Mum home this morning, by ambulance. On Wednesday it was found that she had had another bleed in the brain, and the neuro-surgeon said there was nothing else that could be done for her. She had been going downhill for a few days, more and more sleepy and complaining of pains in her head. On Monday and Tuesday she was barely responsive.

After this news was given to us, it happened that the whole family were gathered together in the hospital room and we decided that it would be more comfortable altogether for her to be at home, with her family, and without all the clamour of the hospital and dreariness of the bland room. Though the hospital staff have been great, there's a huge inconsistency of care, as one shift changes to another, and various staff are rostered on and off.

So she's been brought home to sleep out her last days. We've put her in the big lounge downstairs, rather than back upstairs in her own part of the house, mainly for everybody's convenience (we have district health nurses coming three times a day). One of us will probably sleep in there with her, and the kids may be able to 'spell' us at night occasionally.

We don't know how long this will go on, but she's neither eating nor drinking (the hospital staff said that feeding her would only prolong the inevitable), and she may be here for Christmas; she may not.

Pat Crowl's health

2006-12-10T18:44:00.000+13:00

Just an overview of what's been happening with Pat since last Wednesday.

I found her on the floor of her bathroom (she lives upstairs in our house), about 7.30 am. She said she'd been vomiting for some time, and she was very weak, and still feeling like she wanted to be sick every few minutes. We got her into her lounge, and called the ambulance, after a short debate (she didn't 'want to trouble anyone.')

The ambulance came and the two guys did the usual routine of asking all sorts of questions, when all you wanted them to do was get her down to the hospital pronto! They took her down the stairs in a special chair, somewhat concerned about their backs (although she's a featherweight these days) and Celia went down with her.

I had to wait for someone to come for an appointment, but after that I went down and stayed with her until they took her up to the ward in the afternoon. It was learnt, eventually, that she'd had bleeding from a burst vein in the brain - a brain aneurism, to be more precise. This accounted for the vomiting, and the very sore neck she had - both symptoms of this problem, because the brain's ordinary fluid gets mixed with the blood from the vein, and the two irritate each other somewhat.

Her right eyelid was closed too, perhaps as a result of a shock to the nerve. This isn't good as it's the eye she sees best out of. Her other one has a macular degeneration, and she only has peripheral vision in it.

For the first couple of days she was often confused about where she was, and who was visiting her. Celia stayed with her a good deal of the time, getting her settled at night and going in first thing to make sure she was okay in the morning. On the Thursday morning she was so concerned she rang my only out-of-town daughter, Libby, to come down, and she did, in the afternoon, even though by that time Pat had settled down a lot and was much more lucid and behaving normally.

Her limbs are fine, (her grip is definitely fine), and her speech, hearing and sight (what she has of it) are all fine. The specialist indicated that there would be some swelling as a result of the injury after a couple of days, and this proved correct: yesterday she was very uncomfortable with a severe ache over the right eye (where the vein had broken) and a return of the neck ache. This has eased off somewhat today, although she's also had a lot of codeine.

At first we thought she'd had a fall in the bathroom while being sick, but it seems more likely now that she passed out at some point. She had a graze on her nose, which she said had actually been there for some time, though it looked fresh, and another over her left temple. However, it now seems likely most of the damage was from the burst blood vessel rather than a fall.

She's now stable, and lucid all the time, but very tired (not helped by the endless pills she's having to take). There's concern over her blood pressure, which the hospital staff are trying to keep down. Today it hasn't been very good.

The photo is of Pat (or Mumma, as she's better known) and Israel, one of her great-grandsons.

Mice at the Shamrock Hotel

2006-12-08T23:04:00.000+13:00

Tess Ryan has been down to see her sister, Pat (Crowl), who had an brain aneurism on Wednesday the 6th December. Pat is recovering, though her right eyelid is refusing to stay up, causing some problems with her sight. (Her other eye has macular degeneration, meaning she can see some peripheral things, but not those directly ahead.)

While Tess was visiting, she told Pat a story that went back nearly sixty years. Their elder sister Joyce, who was married to Des O'Flaherty, had not long given birth to her third child, Patricia. Joyce had septicemia, and though at home, was rather unwell. In those days, the O'Flahertys lived at the Shamrock Hotel, in Wellington, and ran it.

The younger sister in the family, Monica and her husband Des Stokes, were visiting at the time, and one evening in the large dining room at the Shamrock, there were two mice running about. To her amazement, Tess managed to catch one of these mice in a brown paper bag, and, holding closed the top of the bag, offered it to Des O'Flaherty as he came into the room, as a 'present.' Des, unaware of the contents, opened it slowly, and just at that point, Joyce walked past. The mouse leapt out of the bag, past Des' face, and gave Joyce an enormous fright. Mice were not her favourite animals. She swore at Des (!) and the others, of course, found it a huge joke.

From my god-daughter: Catherine Hannagan

2006-11-28T16:25:00.000+13:00

Some people obviously have too much time on their hands, it would seem, and thank goodness you do – or something like this would never ever get done!!!

I couldn’t possibly give any excuses related to the office relocation I’m trying to manage my way around tomorrow as that might be used in evidence against me – and I couldn’t have that, could I?

The first Hannagan born in the 1960s is living in Maungaraki (overlooking Petone, Somes Island and the entire Wellington harbour) and working “under cover” for Victoria University, managing a group of people collectively known as ILANZ (International Languages Aotearoa NZ). It is under cover because we look like a separate entity, are not based on campus and most of the university doesn’t know we exist – which can be a real advantage at times! We are a team of 10 in total, five from overseas (China, Spain, Japan and Germany), who provide support for the teaching of international languages in NZ schools. It’s a logical continuation of my career in French, German (and occasionally Maths) teaching and my five years as National French Adviser to schools. While the job no longer involves enough travel – either within NZ or overseas - to soothe my itchy feet, it does keep me in regular contact with the world beyond these shores and provides me with an every day “Robbie Burns view” of kiwis as others see us.
Great fun!

I have been living in this, the first house I’ve ever owned, for just over two years and am loving being a house-owner. I’ve discovered the latent gardener in me and am learning lots of those little delights that others have been experiencing for years: how to replace the lining in a wood burner, crawling round in the ceiling trying to find where that leak is coming from, trying to locate a kitchen sink that fits exactly into the hole that the disgusting, old one came out of… You know the kind of thing. In my “spare” time, when not in the garden, I love to swim, kayak, walk and read, and my Nana(McCabe) would be delighted to know that I have also recently rediscovered the joy (and occasional frustration) of knitting. My plans always include travel. I love the Pacific Islands and have had the pleasure of working in several over recent years, as well as holidaying there. The next major project, however, involves a canal boat and a year or so on the waterways of Europe…in 2008, I hope.

An update from Margaret Irvine (Ryan that was)

2006-11-28T16:17:00.000+13:00

A couple of weekends the Irvine clan, Margaret, Frank and the kids, gathered together. As this is a relatively rare occasion, let me tell you about it.

The event had been planned to be a barbecue but after two weeks of unrelenting rain we brought the sausages inside the house Frank and I have owned for over 30 years and where all the children grew up. [Never plan a barbecue: it will always rain! Mike]

The day was a farewell for our third child, second daughter, Marie and her husband Roy who are going to Northland where Roy will continue his work as a cheesemaker with Puhoi Cheeses. Marie will probably soak up the sun on beautiful Snell's Beach where they have rented a house for a while.

Also at the party was our eldest, Lauren, and her partner Dan. Lauren's hobbies have been travel, buying shoes and maxing out the credit card but of late she has been quite settled down. Dan trades in car parts with much the same degree of passion as Lauren has for heels and slingbacks.

Bachelor and bearded son Andrew, who works in a hardware store and looks like Al of Tool Time (sans plaid) was also there. He is a repertory fan and a committee member and backstage stalwart of the local Players Theatre.

Our youngest, Rhonda and her fella Josh were also present. Rhonda works in an inner city StarMart and keeps attempting to escape but they lure her back with the offer of more pay. Josh works with troubled teens in a psych unit and as he's a great out-going sort of guy, the work suits him.

We all get along pretty well and are going to miss Roy and Marie dreadfully - but they are still on the same island and the same side of the world. Roy is from Manchester and they had thought of going back to England to make cheese in traditional styles over there.

That's enough for now but there could be more instalments. Looking forward to seeing more Mainland stories.

Excuses

2006-11-27T19:45:00.000+13:00

All these supremely busy people who haven't got time to write a little bit about themselves - supremely busy or supremely modest! So I've decided to collect the excuses....to see how they stack up.

Here's Daphne Hannagan: Haven't forgotten, just been a bit busy lately. Will do something soon.
And Jacinta Grey (Hannagan that was):
I will get onto very soon, promise. Just need five minutes to myself and at a time when my brain is still working!
And from Margaret Irvine:
It's coming OK! I just have to consider the spin, the angle, the opening 25 word para, the nut graf, the plot and susbsequent sub plots and a convincing ending.

2006-11-25T15:27:00.000+13:00

Things are a bit slow on the news front, but you might like to check out some Crowl family photos at this address.

It would be good to have some photos from other members of the wider family....and some news!