Where are we taking the Wayback Machine to today, Mr Peabody?
I've been trawling the most excellent Trove site at the National Archives, looking at old copies of the West Australian and Western Mail (remember that?) from the 1930s and 40s, particularly searching for any mentions of family members etc.
An indicator of just how much smaller and sleepier Perth was in those days lies in one of my mother's appearances:GIRL HURT AT SCHOOL. June Garavanta (13), of Flinders Street Mt Hawthorn, received a possible fracture of the right arm when she slipped on bitumen at Perth Girls' School about 12.30 p.m. yesterday. She was taken in a St. John ambulance to the Royal Perth Hospital.
Yep - Perth was small and bored enough in the postwar years for the newspaper to devote space to my mum breaking her arm. Different world.
It's inspired me to try and do some more digging in the many online resources available to learn a bit more about Mum's side of the family- I can trace Dad's side back 800 years or so along the Talbot line, I'd like to flesh that out a bit. Hit a very interesting lead that thoroughly appalled Mum when I told her about it. Mum's paternal family, the Garavantas, came to Australia from Liguria in northwestern Italy. It turns out that another Ligurian Garavanta (not exactly the Italian version of Smith or Jones) was Natalie Garavanta, Frank Sinatra's mother. So he's probably a sixth cousin or something. Woo, mob connections!
An indicator of just how much smaller and sleepier Perth was in those days lies in one of my mother's appearances:GIRL HURT AT SCHOOL. June Garavanta (13), of Flinders Street Mt Hawthorn, received a possible fracture of the right arm when she slipped on bitumen at Perth Girls' School about 12.30 p.m. yesterday. She was taken in a St. John ambulance to the Royal Perth Hospital.
Yep - Perth was small and bored enough in the postwar years for the newspaper to devote space to my mum breaking her arm. Different world.
It's inspired me to try and do some more digging in the many online resources available to learn a bit more about Mum's side of the family- I can trace Dad's side back 800 years or so along the Talbot line, I'd like to flesh that out a bit. Hit a very interesting lead that thoroughly appalled Mum when I told her about it. Mum's paternal family, the Garavantas, came to Australia from Liguria in northwestern Italy. It turns out that another Ligurian Garavanta (not exactly the Italian version of Smith or Jones) was Natalie Garavanta, Frank Sinatra's mother. So he's probably a sixth cousin or something. Woo, mob connections!