The Dwyers
William Dwyer (born 18 June 1860, died 1903) used to work on the wharves in Melbourne as a transport worker. I believe he was a very big man but died quite young leaving his wife (Margaret, nee McCraith) and 2 children - Andrew (Ethel's future husband) and Mary (Sis) - to battle on, the latter being about 13 and 11 years old respectively.
In fact William died on his 43rd birthday, of "pthisis and exhaustion" - read more on the Dwyer-McRedmond page. William's parents were a James Dwyer and a Mary McRedmond.
The photo below was provided by Annette Regan, a great grand daughter of James Dwyer and Mary McRedmond. She believes the photo to be of our ancestor William, who was a brother of Annette's grandmother Ellen. "Billy Dwyer" was already written on the photo when it was first shown to Annette. However it is faintly possible that the photo is of Ellen's nephew William, born in 1877.
We often find interesting stories while researching our family. Read some of these stories about other Dwyers.
Melbourne - 1919
I left my home town of Kyneton, Vic. in Autumn, in about the year 1919 (and aged 24), to make my fortune in the big city of Melbourne. My sister Mary (Tot) had previously married, and lived in North Melbourne. I missed her very much as we were good pals all our lives, starting from when we were at School, where we made our public debut by appearing in the school concert as the two little girls in blue. We sat, one on each side of the stage; Mary was dark with black hair and I was fair with blue eyes, while the rest of the school sang the old song, "Two little girls in blue lads".
I procured a situation at a butchers (Barnes), as maid and looking after the children, while the husband and wife attended the shop which, by the way, was on the premises. While at this place I got acquainted with Mrs Barnes' cousin by marriage Mary (Sis) Dwyer who used to visit us and that was how my romance started as she had a brother, Andrew. I met him when I used to visit Sis in North Melbourne. It was a pretty short courtship and eventually Andrew and I married, at Kyneton on 30 December, 1920.
Andrew (born 29 January, 1888) went to work at Vincent's dairy out Malvern way and had a very colourful life. He also worked a lot in the country areas and learned a lot about wool. Having been on sheep stations he learned wool rolling and wool classing etc and it turned out to be very useful in the years to come. The managers on the stations used to call on him in shearing times and complimented him on his ability.