Eulogy 4 - Jane Mary Macquestion (1858-1924)

5 TO FEED   

(Eulogy written and published in Facebook on 3rd July 2019 for Jane MacQuestion (m. Kelly) (1858-1924) – the paternal Great Grandmother of Karen Maloney)


Mid-summer night 1901 and the cop arrives at your Gladstone Street South Melbourne front door to tell you that Patrick has been found drowned in the Yarra (apparently on a bender with his Railway mate, Alex). 


No income - 5 kids under 14 - no family here (they're all in Ireland) - just the help of your neighbours, all of whom live in the wooden 3 room houses (shared outside toilets & washhouses) in the lanes and little streets around you. 


No Government help or Widow’s Pension. No pension or payout from Pat's Railway job. A bit of a handout from the local Catholic Church.


So, you turn the front room into a Grocery, selling neighbours' fruit & veggies, milk from the dairy, tobacco & acquired bits from the Wharfies - and you feed your kids.


That Jane Kelly (nee MacQuestion) did for the next 23 years - kept it going from the front room at 3 rented addresses until she dropped dead serving a customer in 1924, aged 66. 


Her 5 had had 10 of their own by then - such is the way of families! There was joy in that for Jane!

 

Kelly Irish Coat of Arms
Gladstone Street South Melbourne c.1920


   

MacQuestion Irish Coat of Arms


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