Ethel May Hill (1885-1919) was my grandmother. She was the daughter of William Samuel Hill and married, firstly, William Edgar Gillard (1873-1906) who died very young, after fathering Ethel's first two children, David Michael and William Robert Gillard. She found a second husband in Fletcher William Hogarth, gave birth to twins Keith and Ethel, and then herself died young.
Ethel May's father, Wm Samuel Hill was born in Tasmania, but lived in at least three other states. He married Margaret Roberts in Melbourne (her home town) in 1877, but they must gone to South Australia almost immediately, as their first five children - including Ethel - were born in Adelaide, 1879-1885. They then appear to have returned to Victoria as the last two were born in Melbourne, 1888 and 1891. At the time of Ethel May's birth, in 1885, he was serving in the Water Police at Port Darwin and living - presumably without his family - in Palmerston, which was renamed Darwin in 1910. Then in about 1899 he took his wife and remaining four children (three boys having died in very early childhood) to Western Australia to make his fortune on the goldfields.
A technical note. This is a print blown up long ago from a glass plate negative which we still have. It's nailed into a frame with glass on the front, and I'm reluctant to take it apart. So, as I couldn't scan it, I took a photograph of it with a digital camera - and was not able to avoid some reflection. I hope to get my photographer daughter to do a better job some time.
When Ethel's mother Margaret Roberts Hill died on 4 October 1901, and was buried in Yundamindera Cemetery, only four of her at least seven children were still alive: Beatrice Harriet, Leslie, Ethel (aged 16) and Elsie (whose actual name may have been Elizabeth Mary).
Ethel May presumably continued living on the goldfields with her father, William Samuel Hill, and remaining siblings, and would have met William Edgar Gillard there, as I believe he went up there from Perth around 1901.She married him two years later, in 1903, aged 18. According to a note my father left they were married in Perth, at St Bridget's West Perth, by Father Fagan. But an entry in the book More Lonely Graves of Western Australia says that they were married in Kookynie. The Hills were Anglican, but Ethel converted to Catholicism to marry her first husband. He got her to promise to bring their children up as Catholics. They had two sons together, and then WEG died in 1906 - basically from the poor conditions in which they were living and he was working.
I don't know at present where Ethel May's eldest son William was born, and I'm assuming it was in Yundamindera. However, David's birth certificate says that he was born in Perth.
A note about spelling. The name of the station is spelt 'Yundamindra', but when the township was gazetted its name was spelt 'Yundamindera'. I presume the Cemetery is at the township, not the station.
This may be the photograph that records Ethel May's marriage to Fletcher William Hogarth, tho his grand-daughter could not confirm that. The man at the centre is Ethel's father, and the woman on our left is her sister Beatrice. So it's likely the man next to her is Hogarth, and that the other one is her brother Leslie. The two boys are David and Will. Keith and Ethel, the Hogarth twins, are yet to be born, in about 1910-12.
David Michael Gillard married Mary Linda Robertson and had one child, Garry Michael Gillard. David Michael Gillard died Perth 4 October 1982. Mary Linda Robertson Gillard died Perth 10 August 1988.
William Robert Gillard and his mother Ethel May are buried in the same grave in Karrakatta Cemetery. (This photograph shows the headstone of the Irish woman who is buried there now.) It's in an area that's been 'renewed', and not only is there no headstone (I'm guessing there never was one) the exact position of the grave is not to be seen, as there has been another burial at ROEC 009. The cemetery records have Ethel May's name spelt incorrectly, as Ethel May Hogartt [sic]. The 'grantee' of the original plot (which expired 29 Nov 1962) is one Elizabeth Mary Lynch. I now believe that this was Ethel's younger sister, whom we knew in our family as 'Elsie', and that the first burial in the plot was that of her son Thomas Mathew [sic] Lynch, aged 0 years, having died 5 November 1912. Elizabeth Mary (b. 1891) married one T. [Thomas?] M. Lynch, so prolly she provided the gravesite for Ethel in 1919 and then again for Willie in 1927.
It's very striking that tho Ethel Hogarth is buried in the RC section (having converted to Catholicism to marry WEG) her second husband's - Fletcher Hogarth's - remains are something like half a kilometre away, in the Presbyterian section. His grave is also unmarked, at FA 585.
Ethel Hogarth (daughter of Fletcher and Ethel) married Karl Lothringer and had two daughters May and Alma, born in the 1940s. Ethel Hogarth Lothringer died in November 1952. Karl married again, to Joan. Alma married Milton, and May married Frank Edwards.
Either Keith or Fletcher Hogarth (sorry I can't be sure which!) married Bonnie, and they had four children, including Val Hogarth Jasper.
References
Coate, Yvonne E. & Kevin Coate, More Lonely Graves of Western Australia, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, WA, 2000.
Palmer, Alex, Yundamindra: Its Towns, Mines, People and Station, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, WA, 2006.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Adrian Spall, particularly for information about the Hill family.
