The Koo Wee Rup Sun in July 1932 had the following short obituary of Mrs Hilda Emery of Cora Lynn. Mrs Emery was buried at the Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery, where generations of her family and her husband's family are also buried.
Hilda Eleanor Emery was born in Cheltenham on March 22, 1888 to Edwin Thomas Penny and his wife Sarah Ann (nee Coleman). (1) Sarah's father, William, built the Bridge Hotel, in Mordialloc in the early 1860s. William Coleman, who died in 1878 and his wife Mary Ann (nee Chapman) who died in 1872 are buried at the Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery (2)
Edwin's parents, Thomas and Henrietta Penny, had taken up land in Cheltenham in 1852. As noted by local historian Graham Whitehead, they had settled on ten acres of land on Bay Road (later the address was noted as Jack Road) Cheltenham. There Thomas set about clearing the land of scrub, wattle and gum trees to create an orchard and engage in market gardening. Three acres of the land was devoted to fruit trees with the remaining arable land being given over to vegetables. After the death of his father on May 26, 1866 Edwin took over the 10 acres of freehold land on the east side of Jack Road. He was about 17 years of age. Later he purchased or leased more land. Shire of Moorabbin Rate Records reveal an additional seven acres in Jack Road, the ownership of 5 acres in Barkly Street Mentone (later renamed Rogers Street) and the lease from the Mercantile Bank of 18 ½ acres in Tulip Road (later renamed Park Road) He also purchased land in Coape Street Cheltenham. When in 1915 presenting as a witness to a Royal Commission into fruit and vegetable growing Penny was asked by the chairman how much land he worked. He replied ‘about 25 acres’. (3)Edwin and Sarah had married on September 7, 1876 and Hilda was their seventh and last child and their only daughter - her brothers, as listed on her birth certificate, were Albert Edwin, aged 9; Percival Thomas, dec.; Lytton William aged 7; Reubin Ernest, aged 6; Edwin Clarence, aged 4 and Clifford Frederick, aged 2. (4) Sadly for the family, Sarah died on July 17, 1890 aged only 35 and is buried at Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery. (5)
Edwin remarried the next year to Emily Haselgrove and they had two sons, Leslie and Robert, so Hilda was still the only girl in the family. (6) Edwin was very involved in the community including the Cheltenham Church of Christ and the Sons of Temperance Friendly Society. He was also a Shire of Moorabbin Councillor and the Shire President from 1898 until 1900. (7) Edwin died on December 9, 1916 and is buried in the same grave as Sarah, their infant son Percival and his second wife, Emily. Edwin's parents - Thomas who had died in 1866 and Henrietta on June 3, 1888 - are also buried in the Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery. (8) As a matter of interest, the area known as Pennydale in Cheltenham is named for Edwin Penny. (9)
In 1897, Hilda had a narrow escape from death and this graphic report is from the Caulfield and Elsternwick Leader -A daughter of Cr. E. T. Penny, the popular South riding representative in the shire of Moorabbin, narrowly escaped a horrible death by burning about a week ago. It appears that Cr Penny, who resides at Cheltenham, told one of his boys to burn the handle out of an axe, and in order to do so the little fellow lit a fire in the yard. The girl, who is about ten years of age, must have approached too close to the flames, when her clothes caught fire. Hearing a scream Cr Penny rushed in the direction from which it came, and was horrified to see his daughter almost enveloped in a mass of flames. There was nothing at hand to wrap around her and the father at once set to work to beat the flames out with his hands, the girl meanwhile guarding her face with her hands. With commendable presence of mind the young lad ran into the house and brought out a tablecloth which he wrapped around his sister and his father's hands. By this means the flames were extinguished, but Cr Penny had sustained terrible injuries to his hands, the palms being literally roasted, the only portions which escaped being the tips of two or three fingers.
Assistance was obtained and the girl was taken into the house and attended to. It was found that beyond a few burns on the hands and arms she had escaped serious injury, and is now, we are happy to say, on the road to recovery. Cr Penny's injuries, however, were of a much more serious nature, and it will be a long time before he is able to use his hands again. He asserts that he could feel his flesh roasting and his sufferings afterwards were simply intense.....Singular to say, Cr Penny had intended going into a paddock some distance away to effect some repairs, but sat down and decided to wait for dinner. But for this fortunate circumstance his daughter must have been burnt to death because there was no one else handy to render assistance. (10)
When Hilda was 24, she married 26 year old Robert John 'Jack' Emery, a market gardener of Warren Road, Mordialloc. The wedding took place on October 5, 1912 at the Christian Chapel in Cheltenham. Jack, born on May 19, 1886, was the third and last child of Charles Joseph Hicklin Emery and his wife Esther Eliza (nee Nunn) - his brother Charles was born in 1880 and his sister Esther in 1883 - all in Ballarat. His father Charles, was a compositor and worked for the Ballarat Courier. However, at some time and certainly by 1903 the Emery family moved from Ballarat to Keys Road, South Brighton (Moorabbin), where Charles had a career change and became a market gardener. This move was no doubt influenced by the fact that Esther had came from South Brighton, in fact she had married Charles at St Matthews Church of England at Cheltenham in 1879 and her parents, James and Sarah Nunn operated a market garden in Cheltenham Road, South Brighton. James and Sarah Nunn, who both died in 1904, are buried at the Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery. (11)
Hilda and Jack began their married life in Mitchell Street in Mentone, but sometime around 1920 they moved to Lower Dandenong Road in Mentone. By then, they had two children - Charles, born August 15, 1915 and Nancy, born March 14, 1917. (12) In 1922, Robert and Hilda purchased 95 acres on Eight Mile Road, Cora Lynn, on the Koo Wee Rup Swamp. The children, who had been at Mordialloc North State School, transferred to Cora Lynn State School (13). Jack's parents, Charles and Esther also moved to the Eight Mile Road property, which they named Agricola. Agricola was sheep farm (14) which was unusual for the Koo Wee Rup Swamp, most of the neighbouring farms would have been dairy farms; but they may also have had dairy cows.
I assume that after young Charles left school in 1929, he worked on the family farm with his father and grandfather. Nancy, who finished school in 1931, worked for a few years as the sewing mistress at Cora Lynn State School from April 1936 until May 1938. The Inspector's report described her as conscientious. A sewing mistress did teach sewing, but in small one-teacher schools such as Cora Lynn, they would often give lessons to the younger children. Nancy's time at school as a sewing mistress overlapped with the time that my aunts Nancy and Dorothy Rouse and my uncle Jim Rouse were at the school, so she would have likely have taught Dorothy and Jim, but possibly not my aunty Nancy, who left in 1937 (15)
I wondered what involvement the Emery family had with the local community - young Charles is mentioned in the playing list for the Bayles Football team (Bayles is the town next to Cora Lynn). Nancy was the Honorary Secretary of the Cora Lynn Red Cross when they held a ball to raise money for the victims of the 1939 Bush Fires. (16)
Whilst they were living at Cora Lynn, Esther died on October 16, 1928 at Pakenham, aged 75; and then Hilda passed away on July 10, 1932, aged only 44; and finally Charles (Esther's husband) died on August 17, 1939 at the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum at Cheltenham, aged 83. Esther and Charles are buried together at the Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery, with their daughter Esther who had died in 1899 at 15 years of age old. Hilda is in a separate grave at the same cemetery. (17)
Two happy events took place in 1939 - the marriage of Jack and Hilda's two children - Charles and Nancy. Nancy was married on August 19 (two days after her grandfather died) to local Cora Lynn man, Leonard Leslie Donnelly, at St George's Church of England in Koo Wee Rup. They initially lived in Bayles, but later moved to Maffra. (18) Ten days after Nancy married, Charles was married on August 29, his bride was Beryl Muriel Green of Yallock, and the marriage took place at the Church of Christ in Oakleigh. (19)
In 1940, Jack Emery sold the Eight Mile property and moved to Main Road, Clematis. Jack was living there with his wife Kathleen (whom he married in 1934), and Charles and Beryl. Jack and Charles are listed in the Electoral Roll as market gardeners. They were still in Clematis in 1949, but in the 1954 Electoral rolls, Charles and Beryl had a market garden in Heatherton Road in Clayton. (20)
When Jack died on November 19, 1953 at the age of 67, he was living at 24 Gadd Street in South Oakleigh. (21) He was cremated at Springvale Crematorium and for some reason not buried with Hilda in her unmarked grave at Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery.
I realise there are many names and dates in this post, but just to summarise the Cheltenham Cemetery burials - Hilda Emery (nee Penny) is buried there, as are her parents Edwin and Sarah (nee Coleman) Penny and both sets of grandparents - Thomas and Henrietta Penny and William and Mary Ann Coleman. Hilda's husband, Jack Emery is not at Cheltenham but his parents, Charles and Esther (nee Nunn) Emery are, as are his maternal grandparents - James and Sarah Nunn.
The Penny family and the Emery family represent a time when families, through intensive market gardening, could make a living on what would now be considered very small farms. They also represent a time when Cheltenham, Mordialloc and surrounding areas were close-knit communities of farmers, intermarrying with other local families; it is almost hard to imagine this landscape now as these farms are covered in houses, shops and other businesses.
Footnotes(1) Hilda's Birth certificate.
(3) Whitehead, Graham Edwin Thomas Penny: Councillor, Orchardist and Pioneer https://localhistory.kingston.vic.gov.au/articles/653
(4) Marriage notice in The Argus, September 9, 1876, see here; Hilda's birth certificate.
(5) Friends of Cheltenham and Regional cemeteries database - https://www.focrc.org/
(6) Whitehead, Graham Edwin Thomas Penny: Councillor, Orchardist and Pioneer https://localhistory.kingston.vic.gov.au/articles/653
