The marriage of James Oswald Woodlands and Margaret Essie Gersbach - 09 August 1919

It's 98 years since a 27 year old grocer from Stanmore married a 27 year old saleswoman also from Stanmore.  Yes, on 09 August 1919, James Oswald (Jim) Woodlands married Margaret Essie (Essie) Gersback at St Michael's Catholic Church in Stanmore.  

On the marriage registration, Jim shows his parents as James Woodlands, a baker, and Agnes Cahill.  Essie shows her parents as Francis Gersbach, a collector, and Margaret Killion, deceased. 

The witnesses at the wedding were Ettie Kane and Irene Gersbach, Essie's sister.  "Auntie Ettie" is very familiar to me amongst all the visitors to my "Grandma Woodie's"  home at 14 Yeo Street Neutral Bay.  She was a friend and not relative of Jim and Essie.  

Jim has enlisted in the First World War on 29 May 1917 in Newcastle and had been discharged on 23 June 1919 in Sydney.  I've wondered how long Jim and Essie knew each other before the marriage and whether Jim was a boarder in the Gersbach home at 19 Northumberland Street Stanmore.

On 09 April 1919, it's recorded in the local Newcastle newspaper that-

"Mr and Mrs Woodland of Junction Street have been notified that their son Signaller James Oswald Woodland of the First Light Horse is returning by transport Ullmaroa which is due in Melbourne on April 14.  Before enlisting he was employed in the tramways service."

I can't find any evidence that Jim was employed by the tramways as he records his occupation as grocer on his enlistment papers and also on his marriage registration.  There's no evidence that Jim returned to Newcastle after his discharge from the army.  

It had been a sad year for the Gersbach's prior to the wedding.  Essie's brother, Francis Joseph Macleay (Frank jnr.) Gersbach, died on 18 April 1919 and then Essie's mother, Margaret, died on 05 July 1919.  Both died from bronchial related illnesses during the Spanish Flu Pandemic that spread across the world in 1918 and 1919.  Frank jnr. had also served in the First World War and was wounded on 22 August 1915 when his battalion landed at Anzac Cove.  After this time, Frank jnr. saw little active service and, following his return tp Australia, was discharged "unfit" on 10 Jul 1918.

Jim and Essie had two children - Francis James (Frank ) on 31 December 1920 and Patricia Margaret (Pat) on 07 November 1930.  Frank is my Dad and Pat is mother to cousins, Deborah, John and Robert.  Jim was Lorna Bisgrove (nee Woodlands) brother although we now know that Jim's biological father was Cornelius Bray.
Family of Jim and Essie Woodlands
Frank Gersbach, Jim and Frank Woodlands at 175 Military Road, Neutral Bay circa 1935

Essie, Pat and Jim Woodlands circa 1945

Popular posts from this blog

Agnes Cahill - My Woodlands great-grandmother

Image
Since early in 2016, I've been looking at my paternal grandfather's family - researching, questioning and sharing with a few of "the cousins" along the way.  There've been a few surprises!  The biggest being that Cornelius Bray was my grandfather's biological father and James Woodland (Snr) was his step-father.  We knew my grandfather as James Oswald Woodlands but his birth name was Oswald Cahill. So it's probably time that I started to record some of what I've uncovered...  After all, there's a lot more to research - my grandfather's biological Bray family and his known (or social) Woodlands family! My grandfather's biological pedigree My grandfather's "social" pedigree Agnes Cahill is at the centre of the story.  Agnes's descendants are a small groups these days - one granddaughter, great-grandchild (including me) and great-great-grandchildren.  Maybe we'll find out how many as more join our Facebook group! Here...
Read more

How a DNA match led to finding Agnes's older brother, Thomas Cahill. Or is it Carroll?

Image
Thomas John Cahill was born on 26 August 1866 at Black Creek (near Singleton), NSW. He's the eight of the eleven children of James Cahill and his wife, Eliza Dunn. Agnes was the next child born. Cahill family historians have been searching for Thomas for years. In May 2018, twelve trees on ancestry.com.au showed Thomas but none included any details of Thomas's life after his birth. We did think that Thomas was alive at the time of his mother's death in 1890 as he's recorded on Eliza's death certificate as "living" and aged 25.   Genetic genealogy is a tool that I'm using more and more in my family history research. In August 2017, "ER" reported as a match to me and other "Cahill/Dunn cousins" at AncestryDNA. ER's predicted relationship to me was 4th cousin ie predicted that we shared 3rd great-grandparents. I messaged "ER" a number of times but, as is too often the case, no response. "ER" did have a small t...
Read more

Myra's story (Part 3) - Robert Hollyford Whitworth

Image
Here's the link to Myra's story  Part 1  and  Part 2 . Myra is my half grand-aunt. On 11 October 1919,  twenty year old Myra married fifty year old divorced father of two, Robert Hollyford Whitworth, in Sydney. Myra was estranged from our family in the second half of the 1920s. I found Myra in 2017.  The last piece of this puzzle was to find out about Whitworth's family. Family Notices (1919, October 20).  Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW : 1876 - 1954) , p. 4. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14007329 The parents and siblings of Robert Hollyford Whitworth Robert Hollyford Whitworth was the fifth of the six children of Robert Percy Whitworth (RPW) and Margaret Rivers Smith. RPW was born in 1831 in Devonshire England (1). Margaret was born in 1834 in Lancashire. They married in 1854 at Manchester Cathedral. RPW was a barrister's clerk.  Their first child, Alma Rivers Whitworth , was born in 1855 in Man...
Read more