Ethel Elsie Gibson

Ethel was forty-six in 1926. She had a large family of eleven although not all the children had survived infancy. The family home was in Rosemont Street, Wollongong and daily life there would have been busy for her. Her youngest child was six years old, but her elder daughters were in their late teens and early twenties. Two of them were married already, her first grandchild had just turned one and another baby was on the way.

I wonder how Ethel felt about becoming a grandmother while she still had young children of her own. It was the same though for her brothers and sisters most of whom lived nearby. Many of her nieces were also getting married and the wider family was growing.

Ten years had passed since her eldest nephew had been lost in France during the war. She thought of her own sweet three baby boys whose lives were only measured in weeks and hoped that her daughters would not experience the loss she had had to bear.