Memoirs - Page 7
So much for the information on each of them as individuals, but what of them as a married couple? They had, by the time of Andrew's death on the eve of Christmas in 1948, shared nearly 28 years of marriage (and Ethel continued on as a widow for a further 26 years approx. after). There is no doubt that they lived through trying times with:
The emergence and consolidation of a new, federal system of government (founded in 1901 and physically moved to Canberra in May 1927 after having operated in facilities rented from the government of Victoria, in Spring Street, Melbourne for its first 26 years)
The reality of the Great Depression of the late 1920's and its aftermath into the 1930's
The fighting of two world wars - the first a principally European conflict between 1914-18 with the Germans and Turks when the ANZAC name and tradition was born and the terrible conflicts of 1939-1945 with the Germans & Italians and, nearer to home, with the Japanese (from 1941-1945)
The revolutions in economic conditions and technology which were continually taking place in conjunction with, and many as a consequence of, the foregoing events all around them.
I can find no evidence of their having any family support - particularly after their permanent re-location to Sydney in the late 20's/early 30's. Neither of them seem to have possessed strong or wide social skills or contacts; nor were they in possession, it would seem, of above average economic or business skills or in control of even a reasonable and continuous level of financial or economic resources. Mum's "musings" indicate that Andrew had, at one stage, access to funds (£800) adequate to purchase and renovate a dairy at Footscray (and he apparently owned two or three horses and could afford to transport them backwards and forwards between Sydney and Melbourne as needs dictated).
His skills, however, seemed more to lie in being a loyal and supportive employee - she claims he resurrected and restored to economic viability other peoples' dairy businesses - and he seemed to possess agricultural and wool classing proficiency. Ethel's skills were, as indicated elsewhere, primarily in the areas of domesticity and cooking. Other than the dairy referred to above, they do not appear to have been owners of property or people of exceptional means. They, to my knowledge, were usually renters of domestic and/or business premises and, in respect of the latter, live-in occupiers/workers (but perhaps I have misread the signs!).