Thursday 19 January 2017

Sepia Saturday 351


I love this week's prompt.  Granted, I have once again neglected my poor little blog and therefore have probably missed out on many awesome ideas.

The prompt of photos of the same person at different times in their lives is fantastic.  My great grandfather was a hoarder, so I have many photos... who to choose?

 Georgina "Gean" May Bunston, my great grandmother.

She was born on January 6 1886, the youngest daughter of George and Elizabeth Bunston.

To the left, she is seen here with her mother as a young girl - maybe four years old.

Her family lived on a farm just outside Skipton in country Victoria, Australia.  Her father, George, farmed the land as well as being the local mailman and wool carter.  Her eldest brother, James, married before Gean was a year old and by the time this photo was taken (around 1890) she had lost her younger brother, Andrew, who died in 1889.  Gean would also become an aunt that same year but sadly her nephew died as as infant.

To the right, Gean (on the left) is pictured with her eldest sister, Fannie.  This was taken in 1900 when Gean was 14 years old.  By now Gean was an aunt to six nieces and nephews.  Her second eldest brother, John, was also married by now and had moved off the farm to live in the suburbs of Melbourne.

Brother James and his young family had also moved away, to Mansfield - virtually on the other side of the state.  Sister Fannie would also move to the Mansfield area with her husband after they married in 1901, a year after this photo was taken.  Third brother George and his family would also move to area in the early 1900s.
Gean, shown here in around 1917.  By now she had met my great grandfather, Percy Nash.  This photo was sent to him while he was overseas serving his new country (Percy immigrated to Australia in 1912) in WWI.

All of her siblings were married by this time and she was the aunt to around 26 nieces and nephews.

Gean and Percy would marry in 1920 when he returned to Australia.  They would go on to have four children of their own, three living to raise their own families.

The Nash family would take over the Bunston family farm at Skipton which remained in the family until around 2013.  A well respected family of the district, as were the Bunstons before them.  Active members in their local church.  Percy was a founding member of the RSL and also played cornet in the local brass band.

Jump forward to 1970 - here are Gean and Percy at the time of their 50th wedding anniversary.  They remained on the family farm their whole married life.  Percy would pass away in 1974 at the age of 80.  Gean would pass away the following year at the age of 89.

18 comments:

  1. A lovely tribute to Gean down the years. Was she very much the afterthought in the family, with such older brothers?

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    1. Hi ScotSue, her parents had ten children in total between 1864 and 1889. Gean was the second youngest until her younger brother passed away. Not the afterthought, I just didn't mention all the others :) (for the record - James, John, William, George, Fannie, Mary, Jane, Phillip, Gean, Andrew).
      Glad you liked the post :)

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  2. Great post and wonderful photos Georgie

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  3. How lucky you are to have that wonderful succession of photographs of your great grandmother. I have been similarly lucky with the photos I have of much of my forebearing families. What always strikes me about them is how much older the young people look in those old photographs than young people look in today's pictures. The teens - such as Gene at age 14 - look so grown up. That may, however, be due to the hairdos at the time and the usually austere expressions necessary during photographing back then.

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    1. Yes, I'm very lucky to have the photo collection I have inherited. I am always amazed when I see other people's picture and they look the same as mine - the poses of studio portraits were much the same for everyone.

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  4. The spelling of Gean is unusual, is it not? Was it a shortened from of another names? Her marriage at 34 probably cut into her "auntie time" to all of those nieces and nephews. Lucky for you to have all these great photos.

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    1. Hi Helen, Gean is short for Georgina - hence the G instead of J... I guess.

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  5. A life in photographs, very ice.

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    1. Thanks Kristin. I'm lucky to have a vast collection.

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  6. I’m glad you enjoyed my prompt and I’m enjoying seeing the different way people have interpreted it. Yours is spot on with Gean from youth to old age.

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  7. Jumping through time -- how lovely! Watching Gean grow up, marry...and she lived such a long life.

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  8. Thanks for sharing such a family treasure. It helps to date the anonymous unmarked photos in my musical photo collection when I can see a series of generation photos like this.

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    1. sounds interesting, do you have a site where i can see the photos?

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