Lillias - A Short Biography

  

157 Lane St, Boulder - 14 August 1906

The cool easterly breeze blew leaves from the peppermint tree along the verandah. Beyond the wooden picket fence the red dust plumed into the air and the tumbleweed danced across the dry barren landscape. Lillias set the tea and scones on the table. The sun, still low in the cloudless blue sky that kissed the horizon, sent golden beams of light into the garden. Lillias pulled the light shawl around her shoulders as she stepped off the verandah into her garden in search of two special flowers for the vase.

The rose of all the world is not for me.
I want for my part
Only the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sharp and sweet – and breaks the heart.[1]

Lillias’ mind wandered back to her homeland on the other side of the world. Although it was summer in Glasgow the air was thick and heavy with the great black clouds that belched from the ship building smoke stacks. In her mind’s eye Lillias could see the wall of red bricks, three or four stories high, with washing strung between them and the neighbours across the road. She imagined the couple next door were still arguing and a new lot of screaming children in the houses above. She could see her father leaving for work at Barclays Engineering. His brow was deeply furrowed from a lifetime of labouring and she had to shout as the belting of the iron had made him deaf. Lillias felt his wet kiss on her forehead and she watched him shut the front door for the final time.[2] That afternoon her mother and aunts had washed her father’s lifeless body just like generations of Scottish women before them.[3]

William’s letters were full of humorous drawings of furry animals that carried their babies in a pouch. Lillias chuckled at his overzealous imagination, but she missed her only brother. He was much older than Lillias and had left Glasgow for Sydney before their father died.[4] William’s letters fueled Lillias’ imagination - he had recently moved west where the streets were paved with gold, he wrote.[5] She thought he was exaggerating but it had to be better than a life of domestic servitude which was all Glasgow could offer her. Lillias dreamed of a place she could call home, a place where it didn’t rain constantly, a home with a garden where she could sit and read a book, or enjoy some fine embroidery like the ladies she made dresses for.

Today marked ten years since Lillias and her mother Isabella stepped off the Oroya and onto Australian soil at Albany.[6]

I saw it in the days gone by, 
When the dead boy lay at rest, 
And the wattle and the native rose
We placed upon his breast.[7]

Many times Lillias had sat on the edge of despair in this foreign brown land. A little more than six months ago Lillias thought it possible she might be swallowed up by the earth. The summer sun beat down on her and the wide brimmed hat offered little protection from the harsh Australian sun. As the tiny coffin was lowered Lillias felt light-headed and William caught her arm just in time. Her breasts were aching and her palms sweating under the long dark gloves. Through the tears streaming down her face Lillias looked up at William remembering the last time they had both stood at this exact same place.[8]`[9] Mother had taken ill not long after arriving in the colony and the doctor said there was nothing that could be done.[10] Those same words rung in Lillias’ head again this year when she held her poor wee bairn in her arms for the last time.[11]

Lillias carefully arranged the white rose and the yellow wattle in the vase next to the scones. The fly wire door flew opened and Gwendoline ran out holding her arms out as if she was a lizard basking in the sun’s warmth. Gwennie beckoned her mother to come and play with her in the garden as she pushed her dolly around in the pram. Lillias smiled thinking how quickly Gwennie was growing up. Next year she would be starting school.[12]

Lillias patted her apron as the back gate from the Power House creaked open. Gwennie jumped into her father’s arms and she shrieked with delight as he twirled her around. Devastated by the death of his young namesake, Robert had transferred all his attention to his young daughter showering her with love and gifts. Baby Robert was never spoken of again and Gwennie seemed to have already forgotten her young baby brother.

Robert gently touched the flowers and tilted his head slightly at Lillias. Lillias just smiled - tonight she would tell him she was ready to try for another child.[13]

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[1] Jill McKean ‘The little white rose’, Scottish Highland Trails, n.d., https://highlandtrails.com/the-little-white-rose/, accessed 01 December 2020

[2] Death certificate of Rodger Bolton, died 23 August 1894, Statutory Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Scotland, 644/10 0535

[3] Chris Paton, ‘Scottish Burial traditions’, The GENES Blog, 4 Sept 2018, http://britishgenes.blogspot.com/2018 /09/scottish-burial-traditions.html, accessed 01 December 2020

[4] Death certificate of William Bolton, died 5 July 1931, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Western Australia, 1036/1931

[5] WA Museum, ‘Streets Paved with Gold’, http://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/wa-goldfields/rush-gold/streets-paved-gold, accessed 01 December 2020

[6] State Record Office of Western Australia, Albany List Inward from Overseas 1873 – 1900, Accession: 108; Roll: 204

[7] Wattle Day Association, ‘The Wattle by Henry Lawson (adapted)’, www.wattleday.asn.au/for-schools/poetry/the-wattle, accessed 01 December 2020

[8] ‘Funeral Notice’, West Australian, 16 April 1897, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3110738

[9] National Trust of Western Australia ‘East Perth Cemeteries, Burial Site of Robert Wilson Jones,’ https://www.eastperthcemeteries.com.au/explore/burial-search/burialsite/131072.html, accessed 01 December 2020

[10] Death Certificate of Isabella Bolton, died 15 April 1897, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Western Australia, 1847J/97

[11] Death Certificate of Robert Wilson Jones, died 5 January 1906, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Western Australia 2/06

[12] Birth extract of Gwendoline Lillias Jones, born 5 May 1902, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Western Australia, 1146/02, original held by Catherine Maughan

[13] ‘Births’, Kalgoorlie Miner, 11 May 1907, p 6., http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90245287