Myra's story (Part 2)

Here's the link to Myra's story (Part 1). Myra is the half sister of my grandfather, James Oswald Woodlands.

On 11 October 1919, my twenty year old half grand-aunt, Myra Woodland, married fifty year old divorced father of two, Robert Hollyford Whitworth, in Sydney.

This is the only photo we have of Myra who is with her little sister Lorna around the time of her marriage.

Both Lorna and my Dad, Myra's half nephew, remembered meeting Myra when they were young children. Dad was six years younger than Lorna. Their recollection was that she would return home when she was in need and would then depart without warning. There was never any mention of a marriage. On one occasion, her father told her that, if she left without warning again, she wasn't welcome back. That was the last time Lorna and Dad saw Myra. We don't know if her parents had any further contact with Myra. I'm thinking this would have been between 1923 and 1930 when James and Agnes Woodland moved from Newcastle to Sydney.

The 1919 marriage of Myra and Whitworth marked the end of his travelling theatrical company. The only trace of them in the 1920s is sadly through Myra's appearance in the Victorian Police Gazette in 1922 and 1923 and The Argus in 1926. They were living in Prahran. Whitworth's parents had settled there in the 1870s.  By 1922, his parents and all but one of his siblings were deceased. His surviving sibling lived in Perth. 

I recall finding the 1922 reference to Mrs Marie Whitworth. I was thinking that Myra was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that thought changed when I found the 1923 reference. Myra was missing from her Prahran home and was described as "addicted to drink". Was this one of her visits back to her parents? It certainly ties in with the timing of their move to Sydney. In 1926, Myra's charged with vagrancy and sent to goal for a month. Did she return to her husband or parents after this? I just don't know and doubt I'll ever know.

AU7103-1922 Victorian Police Gazette 1922

AU7103-1923 Victorian Police Gazette 1923

WOMAN SENT TO GAOL. (1926, November 13). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 37. Retrieved December 11, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3820717

The next twist came when I found Whitworth living with Jean in Prahran in the 1931 and 1934 Australian Electoral Rolls. Without finding a death registration for Myra or another marriage for Whitworth, I was thinking that Myra had another name change. What happened between 1926 and 1931? Had her father's ultimatum had such an impact that she settled down with her husband and decided on another change of identity and lifestyle? That seems to be the most likely explanation. 



Robert Hollyford Whitworth died on 9 June 1934 at the Alfred Hospital, Prahran. His death certificate shows accurately that he was sixty five and that he had two and not three marriages.  It records that he was fifty four at the time of his marriage to Jean Miller in Sydney and that there were no children of this marriage. So this marriage would have been in 1923. There's no record of this marriage. We also have evidence that Myra was alive in 1926. So evidence grows that Myra had settled with Whitworth by 1930.

Click on the image to the left for more details.



(1934, June 12). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), p. 1. Retrieved December 11, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page19056746

After Whitworth's death, there's no further reference to Myra until Jean Olive Whitworth's death on 23 February 1946. Myra died at her home at 42 Weigall Street South Yarra. Her age is shown as forty seven which ties in with Myra. Her birth and marriage to Whitworth is shown as taking place in Bendigo. There are no names recorded for her parents but her father is shown as a gold buyer. A long way from a baker! She's shown as twenty eight when she married and that there are no children of the marriage. There's no record of a marriage in Victoria or New South Wales in 1927.

Click on the image to the left for more details.

I'm satisfied this is Myra. She's not buried with Whitworth but at the Springvale Botanical Cemetery under the name of Jean Olive Witworth. Visiting her is top of the list for my next visit to Melbourne. 

(1946, February 26). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved December 11, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page19533142

Did Myra ever know what happened to her family in Sydney? Lorna and Dad certainly never knew what happened to her. While she died on 23 February 1946-
  • Agnes Woodland (nee Cahill), her mother, had died in 23 January 1946,
  • James Oswald Woodlands, her half brother, died on 10 May 1946 and 
  • James Woodland, her father, died on 8 July 1947.
Her sister, Lorna, who was born in November 1914 when Myra's relationship with Whitworth had become know, married Stan Bisgrove in 1934. Their second child, Gail, was born in March 1946. Myra also had a ten year old nephew, Gail's brother Ron, a twenty six year old half nephew, my Dad, and a sixteen year old half niece, Pat, who never met her. I'm sure she never thought that she was the missing link in our family for many decades after she left. I hope she found contentment after all those turbulent years and that Whitworth treated her with care.

Here's the link to Myra's story (Part 3).

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