Copy of a Letter Written by Emily Angrove, Daughter of Edwin & Priscilla Ripper (nÈe Kendall), Setting Out Some Details of her Parents' Life in Cornwall and Elsewhere
Terongie, 34 Grey Street Albany, W.A. April 26th 1950
My dear nephew Harold,
I was very glad to receive your interesting letter. No doubt you area loyal man and grandson, and it is nice of you dear to do it.
I have told Rhona my daughter as far as I know of my dear father's history. How did you know where father was born?
I was on a visit to Ballarat, where father died in Eighteen hundred and Eighty one (1881). I had Emmie and Perlie and baby Harold, 4 months old with me, and whilst I was there your mother had a baby, it was Eddie. Father was in Cuba 11 years where he had gone to manage several silver and nickel mines for a Spanish company, and came back to England in 1851 in broken health. He was then ordered to take long sea voyage. Mother said his blood was the colour of orange juice, so with his family he left for Australia on the sailing ship "Lysander". . Edwin your father was 2 years old when father went to Cuba and Jim was 9 months old. When he returned Edwin was 13 years old and his brother Jim 11 years.
While in Cuba father was ill with fever and ague, the yellow fever and last black fever, and returned to Redruth to his wife and children a very sick man. The sailing ship "Lysander" took 4 months to come to South Australia and father, Mr Ellery and Mr Opie and wives came out with them as they were in Cuba also.
Mother was very ill all the way out, and did not expect to live through the voyage. Father had recovered a lot and the three boys could wait on her. They had brought hams, cheeses and other nice things with them, but mother could not eat any of it. Mother told us that the women who had babies were allowed a glass of stout a a day. Mother saw them leave it and told father that if she could have a little she might be able to eat, so he went to the Captain and told him how ill his wife was and that she may be able to eat if she had a little stout. He said no, it was only for nursing mothers so he went and told the women. They were very Irish and could eat anything, he said if you could give my wife a little of your stout, you can have the cheeses, so the kind women did, and it did poor mother good. What a difference these days, no privations at all. These are the people who helped make Australia as your mother's parents did also.
When they landed at Port Adelaide they went inland to Burra to inspect an outcrop of copper in bullock drays and spent a week on the journey with Mr and Mrs Ellory, Mr and Mrs Oppie and son. They were there only a short time when gold was discovered at White Hills in Victria, so they came down in bullock drays and sailed to Port Adelaide and Melbourne in an old boat laden with flour. The men could not get on as the ship was overcrowded, but the women and children did, so the <.?.> men went out in a small boat as the Captain told them he would pick them up outside the limit. Mother said imagine how they felt. They could see the white shirts of the men gleaming in the hot sun and the captain watching in his glass. At times he lost sight of them, but at last he picked them up and took them aboard, they had to sleep on bags of flour or anywhere all the way to Melbourne.
They finally arrived in Melbourne which had only two streets, one street was Latrobe Street, where they had to get rooms in a bakers place for a while. The men went to Benidgo in bullock wagons, and it took a week to get there. Father had bought a cottage near the creek which ran down that which is now Elizabeth Street. It stood in a side street which is now Collins Street, and there mother stayed. Then father was taken ill with dysentery and was brought back to Melbourne in a bullock wagon, very ill. He got to Melbourne and was very bad. There was but one doctor, a Portuguese doctor.
Milk which was needed for him was a scarcity, but eventually he got better, and with careful nursing got stronger and never had a return of the fever. The doctor told him that the dysentery killed the fever, and he went back to Bendigo and Creswick and then arrived in Ballarat just before the Eureka Stockade was fought. I forgot to say that Prissy my sister was born at the cottage in Melbourne before they left. Mother and the children went up to Bendigo in bullock wagons, and they gradually got back to Ballarat where they settled. I am wondering whether your father has told you any of this. What a different place these immigrants come to. Our people blazed the track for them.
I hope I have not written too much dear. I am tired, my old nerves are not too good today, and they have an effect on my eyes. I have for a long time had a lot of strain at the back of my neck and head. I hope you are well Harold. Pearlie says you are a very nice man and too energetic. I am sorry that Eddie is not well, I hope it is nothing serious. Pearlie says they saw a great difference in him. I am glad you all see a lot of Rosemary. I of course have not seen the babies since they have grown up.
Signed
Aunt Emily
(Emily Angrove)
Death from pericarditis over 6 months, last seen by his doctor D Hudson on the day before his death. Edwin had lived 30years in Victoria in the Australian Colonies.