William (Bill) Stephens

  General Notes:

On the twenty third of September 1899 William Stephens married Elizabeth Annie Robinson at 422 Queen Street, Melbourne.
Elizabeth had been a dressmaker before her marriage. William was an engineer and worked for a company by the name of Otis that manufactured escalators.
Elizabeth always called William "Dick". She was known as Liz or Lizzie.
A son William Arthur (Arthur) Stephens was born in 1900.
In 1901 while at work, William caught his arm in a pulley, which kept pulling him up and around. The soles of his shoes were worn down from hitting his feet on the roof as he was spun about. One of his brave work-mates risked his life by diving in under the machine and switching it off. William was safe but his arm had been badly broken in several places.
This same work-mate wasn't as lucky as William, as three weeks later; he also got caught in the pulley. Unfortunately no one came to his rescue and he died.
Grease had penetrated into the bone marrow in William's arm and the doctors, fearing infection would set in wanted to amputate it. He refused, so the doctor's put him into a ward with patients with the d'ts. When doctors scheduled an amputation operation for the following day, William remained adamant about keeping his arm and discharged himself from the hospital. It took 18 months for his arm to heal and he kept it in a sling. The bones knitted wrongly, but he wouldn't let the doctors break and reset it. Forever afterwards, whenever he lifted anything heavy, you could see the bulges of the broken pieces of bone. He was always glad that he hadn't agreed to the amputation.
William was a heavy smoker like a lot of men at that time. He used his injured arm to hold the cigarettes and because of the injury, twisted his hand around. By the time the cigarette reached his mouth the action looked like he was being very fancy with his cigarette.
Ready-made cigarettes weren't readily available and loose tobacco sold in boxes or tins were purchased along with cigarette papers and the men always rolled their own.
William wasn't able to return to work at the escalator company because of his arm. On the electoral rolls from 1901 - 1911 he is listed as an Agent and the address is Boundary Road, Burwood.
He was eventually paid compensation and with the money bought a News-agency and mixed business in Alfred Road, Burwood in 1912.
By the time the family moved to the News-agency there were five more children. Leslie Keith (Les) Stephens, born in 1902. Charles Edward (Charlie) Stephens born 10th of October 1904. Robert Ernest (Bob) Stephens born 1st July 1907. Nellie Naomi (Nell) Stephens born in 1909, and Ruby Evelyn Stephens born in 1911.
Another son, Jack Bruce Stephens, was born on November the 9th, 1913. Elizabeth had a miscarriage between Ruby and Jack.

In 1915 the family were on the move again, this time to another News-agency and mixed business in Norwood Road, Burwood. By 1916 a Post Office was incorporated into the business. Camberwell was the main Post Office; Burwood was only a sub-branch.
Burwood was only a township at that stage. It had dirt roads and was surrounded by farms. A lot of these were market gardens and orchards.
The family lived in the house at the back of the Post Office/News-agency. The house was large and had plumbing, although it was only cold running water. There was a big lawn and sheds at the back. The sheds were used to stable the horse and buggy.
The mail was delivered with the horse and buggy. William had built boxes into the back of it and the mail as well as newspapers were sorted into these before being delivered.
William did the deliveries while Elizabeth looked after the Post Office. The horse, a heavy pony, got used to the route and knew which roads to go. William would call out "gee up" when he wanted him to start and "whoa" for stop. William stayed in the back and stepped in and out to put the mail and papers in the mailboxes.
Burwood didn't have a permanent doctor. Dr. Murdoch rode his pushbike from Camberwell and used the Post Office lounge room for his surgery once a week. The children had to keep very quiet for the whole time while the doctor and his patients were in the house.
The younger children went to the Burwood Primary School. Their maternal Grandfather John Robinson, who had a market garden, also got a job as a labourer and had helped to build the school. The older boys went to the TallyHo High School.
There were no other young girls around the area for Nell and Ruby to play with, so they hung around with the boys.
Bob, Nell and Ruby were locked in the Police Station Cells one time when older brother Charlie and his mate the policeman's son wanted to get rid of them. The policeman's son kicked Ruby so hard when they let them go that she had a very sore spine and it hurt to sit down for a week or so.
Occasionally on a Sunday a motorcar would pass by. The boys would all rush out and toss their caps at the car to try and get the smell of petrol on them. There were very few cars around, only the wealthy could afford them and it was exciting to see one. The roads were all unsealed.
The First World War started in 1914. Because the soldiers were overseas fighting, the laws were changed so that hotels could only open between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and closed on Sundays. This was supposed to help the war effort. How it helped was not really made clear.
Society at this time strictly observed the Sabbath. No drinking alcohol, dancing, eating in restaurants or playing such games as billiards. Any entertainment on a Saturday night always finished up at twelve on the dot.
After a few years of running the Post Off ice, William could see a depression looming in the not too far distant future. The First World War had ended and by this time the family had another addition to the family Albert Ray (Bill or Billy) Stephens born 3rd March 1916. They now had six sons and two daughters. Jobs would be scarce and the older boys might not be able to find work. He knew that having land and being able to grow enough to eat would help them get through.
To learn farming he sent his two eldest sons to work on farms for the experience. Arthur worked at Mirboo and Les at Dumbalk. This is a very hilly area. They could see each other's farm in the distance and would wave to each other if in view. They would spend their day off with each other every Sunday.
Arthur was gored in the groin by a bull while at Mirboo. He returned home to the family in Burwood while this was healing.
William swapped the Post Office for a farm of about 100 acres at the end of Barnes Road, Ruby.
They shifted in January 1919. The removalist carted the furniture in a large covered van pulled by a team of horses. Unfortunately William made the mistake of paying the delivery-man before the furniture was bought to the farm. It had rained fairly heavily in the week before the move. The road leading to the farm was very muddy and in a bad state. The removalist refused to bring it any further so promptly dumped the furniture at the side of Barnes Road, a bit off the main road.
Luckily, by then it had stopped raining. It took William three days with the horse and sledge to bring it all to the house. (A sledge is a rectangular platform with solid board sides curved up at each end with runners underneath. The sledge is hitched by chains to the horse's collar.)
It was too late to move much of the furniture the first day, so the family had to sleep on the floor. They spread coats down to make it more comfortable. Elizabeth was in tears and said if she had known what she was coming to, she would never have moved. The children, however, thought it was a great adventure. Eventually, once Elizabeth settled in, she came to love the life on the farm.
The house, built by the Gleesons was weather-board with an iron roof. Water running off the roof was caught in galvanised tanks and carted into the house when needed. There was no plumbing.
There were four bedrooms. One luxury the family had were nice warm feather bedspreads on all the beds.
The large lounge room had a huge polished table that could be extended by adding sections in the middle. A large ornately decorated sideboard had mirrors and lots of little shelves to hold ornaments. The drawers and doors of the sideboard were elaborately carved with flowers and leaves. Elizabeth had crocheted beautiful doilies and placed them on the sideboard under her ornaments.
The kitchen had the usual wood fire stove. A large caste iron pot with a tap sat to one side and held water. The stove was lit each morning to provide heat for cooking meals, heating water for cups of tea, washing up the dishes and water for daily personal washing.
The laundry was in a shed just opposite the back door. There was a copper to boil the cloths, a trough to rinse the cloths in and a scrubbing board. The copper would be lit and the water bought to the boil with the clothes and soap added to it. When it was ready a wooden stick was used to fish the cloths out and place them in the trough to be rinsed. The troughs were double and both were filled with cold water. The cloths were put through a hand-operated wringer into the first trough and wrung again then put into the second which had a blue bag put in it. This was to counteract the yellowing effect of the soap on whites.
The cloths line was a long wire between two poles. A long wooden cloths prop pushed the wire up higher to catch the breeze when the cloths had been pegged out.
With such a large family, it often took Elizabeth nearly all day to do the weekly washing. She was often still doing it when the children arrived home from school.
Elizabeth had a box iron for ironing the cloths. It had a funnel in which red-hot coals were placed. If it began to get cool, she would swing it around in a breeze to ignite the coals again.
Later on she a set of flat irons with the one handle which clipped onto the one being used. The other two sat on top of the stove keeping hot. The base had to be wiped each time before use.
Ironing boards were yet to be invented so a blanket was folded and spread on the kitchen table with a folded sheet placed on top of the blanket for ironing the cloths.
There was an outdoor toilet, with a wooden bench seat and a large steel pan. This would be emptied by digging a hole in the earth and burying it. The toilet paper was newspaper cut up into squares, threaded with string into bundles and hung on a nail on the wall. It was Ruby's job to cut up the papers and thread them onto the string. She did this with large fairly blunt needle, which was normally used for stitching up the hessian potato bags.
The bath was a large tub, which was carried into the house once a week. Water was heated in the laundry copper and carted in to fill it. The whole family took it in turns to bath and wash their hair. The children were all sent to the toilet before they got in. As the water-cooled, some more hot water was added. Later on a bath was installed along with running water.
William and the older boys used a cut-throat razor to shave with. There were no razor blades then. The razors were like a small straight knife, which was kept very sharp. It was sharpened by scraping it along a wide leather strap. The blade was scraped along the skin to cut off the whiskers. Soap was lathered and applied with a shaving brush. It was very easy to cut the skin while shaving. It is no wonder that a lot of men grew beards.
Arthur and Les returned home to help their father around the farm. Arthur got a job working for a Mr Bright on a farm nearby.
Sunday was the day off for the men. William went each Sunday morning to a neighbour, a Mr Beistfield , to ask questions about farming. He sometimes took Elizabeth for a stroll around the farm to show her what they were doing. In later years they took the pet fox terrier on their Sunday stroll.
The family would play games like cricket and football. They younger boys had billy carts and collected satin cigarette cards and birds eggs.
William was a great talker and loved meeting people of all ages and they enjoyed his company. He was always interested in them and was also a good listener.
Elizabeth was dead set against drinking and if anyone bought beer to the house would put it away and take the lid off to let it go flat. She then used the flat beer to moisten the black lead for cleaning the stove. This gave the stove a lovely shine. The reason why she was so against drinking was that two of her brothers, Bill and Jack, drank a lot and she had seen the results of that.
Huge trees covered most of the property. Ruby is a very fertile and usually receives a good rainfall. William and the boys cleared 10 acres each year. They cleared the trees by starting at the bottom of the slope and cutting all the trees halfway through. When they worked their way to the top of the slope they would chop all the way through. The force of the top trees falling had a domino effect and knocked over those below. The stumps were then burnt out.
William also made pickets from the timber and built a picket fence around the house.
They started off 13 cows. Although William was able to do most everything else, he was unable to squeeze his hand shut. This prevented him from having the necessary action to hand milk the cows. This the boys did, even the schoolboys. They would have to get up early and do the milking. Breakfast was next, then off to school each week morning. Then when they came home from school, they would have a cup of tea and do the milking again.
The milk was separated by a hand-operated machine that spun the skim milk into one can and the cream into another. The family took what milk and cream they needed each day. The left over skim milk was fed to the pigs and every couple of days the younger boys carried the cream with them on the way to school and delivered it to the Butter Factory at Ruby. The Butter Factory eventually closed down in the 1930's.
A few sows were kept for breeding. As well as the skim milk they were often fed on rabbits. The skins from the rabbits were dried and sold. The meat was boiled up in a copper and fed to the pigs and they ate the bones and all.
The rabbits were caught by trapping them with rabbit traps. A few ferrets were kept and these were put down the burrows to catch the rabbits and bring them out.
The first couple of years were hard. Not much of the land had been cleared and a drought meant the grass dried off. The cows didn't get enough to eat and would sometimes be too weak to stand up. William and the boys had to help them up.
The cleared part of the farm was overgrown with blackberries and the boys all helped with slashing them down. The school age boys had to work on this before and after school as well as the milking.
Once they got more land cleared and the drought finished, things improved. William wasn't interested in having more cows. He wanted to be a market gardener and planted onions, peas, potatoes, beans, pumpkins, carrots and jam melons. During the time he farmed at Ruby, William is listed on the electoral rolls as an onion farmer.
To plough the paddocks a single furrow 10-inch plough drawn by one horse was used. This was hard work for the person walking along behind guiding the plough. It has been estimated that to plough one acre the distance covered is between ten and twelve miles.
The crops were weeded by first using a horse drawn scarifier between the rows. The rest of the weeds were pulled by hand.
An open wagon drawn by the two draught horses was used to take the produce to the Korumburra Railway Station five and a half miles away. The wagon was large enough to carry one ton of potatoes at a time. Freight trains carried the goods into Melbourne to be sold at the Victoria markets.
With the market garden well established, the family always ate well.
Breakfast was usually porridge in the cooler months. Toast with eggs and bacon or different spreads. Lunch consisted of sandwiches with cold meat and whatever salad vegetables available, in the winter spreads like relish or tomato sauce replaced the vegetables. Other fillings were potted meat, jams or honey. Dinner was meat and three vegetables followed by a dessert.
Sunday was a special treat day. A full Roast Dinner was prepared for lunch. The evening meal was usually cold meats and salads in the summer or thick warming soups in the winter followed by an array of cakes. Cream puffs, cream horns and lamingtons were some of these.
There was no electricity to keep food fresh so most of it was grown or gleaned from the farm. A pig would be killed and sent by train to the Dandenong Ham Factory to be made into bacon or hams. These were hung from hooks on the kitchen roof. Occasionally William killed a pig and half of it was sold to a neighbour and they had the other half as roast pork.
The boys caught eels from a creek over the railway line and they had these once a week. And of course there was underground mutton - rabbits. Most families in the country lived on rabbits as they were easy to catch and could be all consumed in the one meal. The family had rabbits at least twice a week. Lamb or beef was purchased from Korumburra and Elizabeth cooked a huge roast, which was eaten cold for a couple of days afterwards.
In the cooler weather Elizabeth would order parcels of assorted meats to be sent by train from Melbourne. This consisted of corned beef, sausages and meat for roasts. The children picked it up from the station and carried it up the railway line to the house.
If Elizabeth got a shin of beef, she used the meat for stews and some of the meat was made into potted meat. The bones were made into soups.
When Jack and Bill got older they would be sent from Ruby into Korumburra by steam train to get meat. On the way back when the train started slowing down to stop at Ruby, the boys would toss the parcel out of the door into a patch of bracken fern just near the farm. They walked back up the railway line and retrieved their parcel, saving themselves a heavy haul on the slope up.
The meat was kept cool in a large Coolgardie safe, which was under a high tank stand.
Hens were kept for eggs and occasionally for the table. Ducks were also kept for the table. Elizabeth made all her own bread and butter.
There was a five-acre orchard with every type of fruit tree that would grow in the climate. This provided plentiful fresh fruit for eating, as well as preserving and Elizabeth would use up all the fruit She had a big cast iron pot to cook up her jams and boil the bottles for the preserves. She made black current, red current and quince jelly, also gooseberry, melon, raspberry, strawberry and all types of plum jam. She bottled peaches, apples, apricots and different varieties of plums.
William always planted 100 tomato plants each year and Elizabeth used the entire whole crop as tomato sauce, pickles and relish and as fresh vegetables.
Elizabeth also made plum sauce. A huge stone jar held pickled onions. A room at the back of the house held large cupboards, which were filled with all the preserves.
A two wheeled jinker pulled by one horse was used to go shopping into Korumburra. Sugar and flour was bought in large bags and these were stored in big wooden boxes. Honey was in a kerosene tin. They mostly shopped at the butter factory, which had a store. If it was bought on account, it was 10% cheaper than cash. The Factory didn't want to handle large sums of money.
The flour came in cotton bags which, when empty, were washed and used for dishcloths and to boil the Christmas pudding in.
For morning and afternoon teas Elizabeth purchased Unita dry biscuits in a large tin, which were topped with butter and cheese for when they had visitors. For everyday she made scones and sweet biscuits, which were called "Annie's biscuits" and joined together with raspberry jam. When the men were working in the paddocks a billy of tea and biscuits were taken to them for their breaks.
Christmas was always a special occasion. William and the boys podded peas, which filled a kerosene tin. Roast meats and vegetables were followed by a Christmas pudding, which had threepence's put in it. As a special treat for Elizabeth, the men did the washing up afterwards, the only time of the year that ever happened.
The lounge room table would seat up to 20 people when all the leaves were put into it. One Christmas a cousin with his family turned up unexpectedly and they joined in the dinner with everyone fitting around the table.
The children always had presents from Father Christmas. Ruby remembered getting a Christmas stocking and a beautiful Japanese doll one year.
Regularity of the bowels seemed to be very important at the time. Elizabeth would dip the end of a teaspoon in Epsom salts and add it to saucer of tea each morning to keep regular. The children were all lined up each weekend to take a dose of liquorice powder, which served the same purpose.
Elizabeth had a happy nature but was quick to lose her temper when the children misbehaved. She used the back of her hairbrush to smack the children to keep them under control. Children were expected to obey their parents and be well behaved.
A daughter Elsie Mavis Stephens was born at home on the 26th of September 1919. The midwife was E. McKenna an elderly nurse and a friend of the family. She had helped deliver most of the other children. She came to stay for a few weeks about the time Elsie was due. She always felt the cold badly and found it hard to get warm. September can be a cold month and a couple of times William took the top of the stove off so that he could pile up the wood to really heat up the kitchen to warm her.
Albert was the only one in the family not called by his given names. When Elsie started talking she began calling Albert "willy willy woof woof" This eventually became Willy and then the name turned into Billy. He was always known from them on as either Bill or Billy.
Each year Martha and Robert Dickinson came to stay with her son and his family for about a month. Martha kept herself busy on the treadle sewing machine making flannel shirts for all the family. She made quite a few of their other cloths as well. She hemmed lengths of unbleached calico, which were made into sheets. These were hung on the cloths line until they were bleached white by the sun.
The girls thought flannel shirts were awful and didn't like having to wear them. They were mostly worn by boys and were very warm and cosy in the wintertime.
Although the marriage certificate stated that Elizabeth was a dressmaker, she never sewed anything much on the sewing machine. She did do a lot of hand sewing as she rarely sat down without some sort of mending or patching in her hands. With a large family this was constant work. Martha always helped out with the mending as well.
Elizabeth knitted all the family's socks. These were darned when they developed holes. When they wore out too much she cut the bottom off and joined fresh wool on and re-knitted it. She taught the three girls how to knit and crochet.
Elizabeth loved gardening; the plants were mostly cuttings, seeds and bulbs, which had been swapped with friends or relatives. There were very few nurseries around and most people couldn't afford to buy plants anyway. She had borders of violets and quite a few pelargonium plants of different colours.
William cut all the boys hair; he went to a neighbours to get his done. The three girls long hair was plaited and Elizabeth wore hers in a bun.
The school age children attended the Ruby State School. They walked the one and a half miles down the railway line, past the shops, then a u-turn past the butter factory and over the roadway. The school was nestled on a hill behind a large clipped Cyprus hedge. The school had only one classroom and one teacher who had to teach all the grades. The grades went from prep to grade eight. Leaving age was 14 and all the children left then. They sometimes left earlier if they were needed at home.
One morning when Arthur was heading off for work at the nearby farm for a Mr. Bright, he was caught in a shower. He stayed in his wet cloths and they eventually dried on him, but he caught a chill, which became rheumatic fever. This badly affected his heart and chest. The following winter he became so bad with a chest cold that he was gasping for breath. The ambulance couldn't come to the house because the road in was again too wet and slippery. A few neighbours helped the family to carry Arthur by stretcher down the railway line to Ruby. He was taken to the Leongatha hospital by ambulance, which was a horse drawn vehicle, where he passed away a few days later on the 1920. He was buried at the Leongatha Cemetery.
A son William Allan (Allan) Stephens was born on the 30th November 1922 at the Leongatha Hospital, the tenth and last child.
One day Elizabeth got a premonition that Bob had had an accident. She rushed outside to tell the men to go and help him. The cart he was driving on the way home from a shopping trip had tipped over but he was unhurt. Some men who had witnessed the accident said he hadn't called out and anyway he was about three miles from home when it had happened. It was the one and only time she ever experienced a premonition.
By this time Williams mother Martha and Step-father Robert lived in Camberwell. They were caretakers of a large two-story house, which was filled with lovely furniture and had happy mottos in frames on the walls. The owners lived elsewhere in Burke Road, so although Martha and Robert lived in the back part, they had the run of the house to themselves
Martha was a very gentle lady, always lovely. Robert was a silent man.
The older children would regularly visit during the school holidays and stay for a while.

Granddaughter Ruby, on a holiday at her grandmother's, remembers going with her to visit to some of her relations name
d Johnston. Mr Johnson was a tailor and Martha was helping him with some sewing, which was done by hand. When they were ready to start sewing, Martha said, "Let's get up on the table". So they both stepped up on a chair and onto the large table. Once there they sat cross-legged and commenced stitching whilst chatting away. Ruby was shocked that her grandmother, usually so lady-like and proper, had behaved in such a manner.
At this time there was a strict code of behaviour. Women always wore skirts so sitting cross-legged wasn't done. Most of the furniture was polished wood, so of course people kept off it to protect it. Children got into trouble for climbing on the furniture.
Martha explained to her later, that it was a practice of tailors to sit on the table. This kept the floor clean and it was easier to clear the snippets of cotton and material off the table.

In the 1930's the recession really started digging in. A lot of people were out of work. When the children were walking along the railway track to school, they regularly saw groups of men camped under a railway bridge where they slept out of the weather. The men would get a small weekly handout called the sustenance or "susso" of 5 shillings from the government if they lived away from home. To do this they had to be in a different town each week. So they would start off with collecting the dole from Yarram one week, walk to Korumburra the next, then onto Warragul the following week and lastly to Traralgon before doing the circuit again.
The sustenance was only one shilling and sixpence if the men lived at home or with a relative. Seeing that the average wage in the 30's was four pounds nine shillings and nine-pence halfpenny the handout wasn't enough to live on. It is no wonder a lot of men lived the way they did. Most of them smoked, so the five shillings would have kept them in tobacco and papers to roll their own. Meals were what they could scrounge up. A lot of farmers gave them rabbits and a few vegetables to cook up over their campfires.
They were mostly young men and quite a few called into the farmhouse to ask for jobs to earn a meal. Elizabeth didn't give them any work, but would always provide a cup of tea and something to eat.
Times were tough for everyone. One year when William sent beans to the market to sell, instead of receiving payment for them, he got a bill for cartage to the rubbish tip. The market had received too many beans and there was no sale for them. Another time the price he got for his potato crop didn't even pay for the cost of the bags to put them in.
Every autumn William loaded up pumpkins and jam melons to be taken into Korumburra and sold by auction. On the trip in, people would come out of their houses and purchase them off the wagon. They usually sold quite a few before they got to the auction place.
When Bill started at the Ruby State School, there were over 60 students attending with 2 teachers. A lot of the students were from potato farms where the parents worked at clearing the land for the owners in return for the use of the land to grow the potatoes. For three to four years in a row the potato crops failed and a lot of the families moved elsewhere. As is often the way, the next year was a good one for potato crops.
The Ruby School needed a minimum of eight students to keep operating. By 1933 the number of students had fallen to seven, so in order to keep it open Elsie attended. She was only a bit over four when she started. One and a half miles down the railway line and back was a long walk, so it was a very tired little girl who arrived home each day. Four of the students were from the Stephens family - Ruby, Jack, Bill and Elsie. The following year another family moved to Ruby and had four children of school age, so that helped to swell the numbers.
Elsie was left handed, but in those days children were made to write with their right hand. She would get a sharp rap on the knuckles from the teacher's ruler if she used her left hand. This made it difficult for her until she got used to using her right hand.
With little other entertainment, people had to make their own. Mr. and Mrs. Mates, neighbours, had seven daughters. They sometimes came over and William played the mouth organ and Mr Mates the accordion. The large dining room table was stood on its side and pushed against a wall so that everyone could dance. All the children joined in and were all taught to dance.
Quite often on a Saturday night a few friends of the older boys called in and they played 500, a card game. There was a regular euchre party at the hall at Ruby, plus a monthly dance. They walked to Ruby along the railway line with a hurricane lamp to light the way.
When the family went out they used a covered wagon that had six seats on it. Once a year they would all travel into either Leongatha or Korumburra and go to a movie. A nice moonlight night was chosen to make it easier to see where they were going.
A Mae West film was showing one year and the boys all outvoted the girls to see it instead of going to the alternative film in either Korumburra or Leongatha. They were all disappointed in the film, even the boys. Mae West was the sex symbol of the day, but she wasn't all she was cracked up to be.
Elizabeth's brother Jack would sometimes come to visit. Whenever he had a drink of water, he always got it out of a barrel at the side of the house. He said it tasted better and had more body in it. The barrel was cleaned out one winter and the remains of a possum were found in it. After that it became a family joke that it certainly did have more body in it.
Nell gave her Uncle Jack a bit of cheek one day and he caught her and dunked her head first in the barrel.
On New Year's Day, 1935 at Inverloch a 12-year-old girl went missing. The following day her body was found nearby in bushland. She had been strangled and gagged. From the clues left behind, the police established that this was the work of a serial killer who had previously killed two teenage girls in Melbourne five years before.
Inverloch is about 23 miles from Ruby. This was a scary time for the young girls in the surrounding district. Elsie was fifteen and her older brothers looked after her when they went out.
It was almost a year later, on 1st December 1935, when a six-year-old girl disappeared while walking home from a park in Leongatha. A man riding a pushbike had been seen in the area. The body was found the following day a bit over one mile from her home. The serial killer had struck again. Leongatha is only three and a quarter miles from Ruby.
This was a terrifying time everyone in the district, but fortunately the killer was caught a short time later. The man was Arnold Sodeman, who was a member of a road gang working in the area. At morning tea, a work mate teased Sodeman "Wasn't it you I saw riding your pushbike near there that day". Sodeman exploded uncharacteristically. "No you bloody well didn't" and strode off. The workmates thought this was strange behaviour from their usually quiet fellow worker. One of them reported the incident to the police. The detectives rushed to the site and Sodeman was arrested and taken into custody, where he confessed. He was hung at Pentridge Goal, Melbourne on the 1st June 1936.
With his arrest the nightmare was over for everyone in the district and Elsie was able to relax and enjoy life once again.

She grew up during the big depression of the 1930's and life was hard for most families. After she left school jobs were difficult to get, so Elsie mainly stayed at home helping her mother. She did go out to do some housekeeping to earn money to buy a pony, which she rode into Ruby each weekday to collect the mail.
The mail train arrived at eleven. A lot of people went to get their mail at this time, so it was a real social event. Elsie probably meet Arthur for the first time this way. Ruby Logan worked in the Post Office around this time, she later married Allan.
Jack and Bill often went fruit picking in Mildura. One year they got a job digging drains there. The salt level was building up and starting to affect the oranges and grape vines. Large drains six feet deep were dug by hand. Drainage pipes were then put down. They received one pound a chain and it was very hard work.
They decided that there must be a better way of earning a living so while Jack continued digging and earning money, Bill returned home. He rented a ten-acre paddock, bought horses and ploughed it all. He then planted 5 acres in peas and 5 acres in potatoes. When he finished harvesting he received a good price for both crops. With this the two brothers put a deposit on a farm in Barnes Road, which had just come on the market. The owner was ill and retired into Korumburra where he died a few months later.
Kardella started up a basketball team and Elsie joined. The first year they played they didn't win one match, however a few years later after much practice and perseverance they won the premiership. The team would hold a break-up party at the Stephens house. Allan disappeared when so many girls were around.
Les had gone to work in Melbourne and stayed with Bob. On a visit home, William took him for a walk and told him if he came home to help run the place, he would leave the farm to him. This was on the proviso that Elizabeth would live there for the rest of her life and that all the family could use the home whenever they wanted.

William was diagnosed with a benign growth in the bowel. This was so big his stomach had swollen up. He went to a hospital in Melbourne to have the operation and only two other operations of this kind had been done before. The doctors operated on him but accidentally nicked his bowel and stitched him up without realising it. He was sent home but two weeks later was in terrible pain and was rushed to the Korumburra Hospital where the local doctor operated and realised what had happened. There was nothing he could do and William passed away. This was on the 22nd December 1937 only three days before Christmas. For the next few Christmas's the family really didn't feel like celebrating.
As a Christmas treat, Ruby and her husband Ted had paid for Elizabeth to get a perm. She went into Leongatha to get it done, but when William died she was upset that she hadn't kept her hair long the way he loved it.
Les bought the farm over the railway line and farmed it. They made a crossing over the railway track and took the cows from one farm to the other. Alan and Ruby lived in the house on the property.
Elizabeth got her wish to die on the farm. She was bed-ridden for some time and her daughters took turns to visit and nurse her. She passed away on the 28th May 1948 at her home at Ruby surrounded by loved ones.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Occupation: Engineer, Postmaster, Farmer.

• connection. My connection to Shelley Williams is as follows:

Shelley Williams is linked in some way to . . .
Charles Stephens (1809) who married Ann Prior (1811)
They had Martha Stephens (1850)
She had William Stephens (1877)
He had Elsie Stephens (1919) who married Arthur Hiscock (1907)
His father was Frank Hiscock (1873) who married Emily Wallis (1875)
Her father was William Wallis (1849) who married Victorine Groube (1851)
Her father was Rev Horatio Groube (1814) & he also had George Groube (1847)
He had Edith Groube (1880) who married Percy Howe (1866)
His father was Robert Howe (1833)
His father was Frederick Howe (1805)
His father was James Howe (1777)
His father was George Howe (1741) & he also had Sarah Howe (1775)
She had Alexander Moss (1811)
She had James Moss (1846)
He had Laura Kershaw Waldock or Moss (1864)
She had Winthrop Larkinson (1889)
He had Dulcie Larkinson (1926) who married Colin Davies (1925)
They had me- Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950)

• connection. The connection between Michelle & Michael & myself is as follows:
They are linked in some way to . . .
Albert Lothian (1918)
His father was Alexander Lothian (c1895) who married Elizabeth Smith (1897)
Her father was Abraham Smith (c1852) who married Annie Kearns (1863)
His father was Abraham Smith (c1814) & he also had Mary Smith (1877) who married John Robinson (1845)
They had Elizabeth Robinson (1880) who married William Stephens (1877)
They had Elsie Stephens (1919) who married Arthur Hiscock (1907)
His father was Frank Hiscock (1873) who married Emily Wallis (1875)
Her father was William Wallis (1849) who married Victorine Groube (1851)
Her father was Rev Horatio Groube (1814) & he also had George Groube (1847)
He had Edith Groube (1880) who married Percy Howe (1866)
His father was Robert Howe (1833)
His father was Frederick Howe (1805)
His father was James Howe (1777)
His father was George Howe (1741) & he also had Sarah Howe (1775)
She had Alexander Moss (1811)
She had James Moss (1846)
He had Laura Kershaw Waldock or Moss (1864)
She had Winthrop Larkinson (1889)
He had Dulcie Larkinson (1926) who married Colin Davies (1925)
She had me- Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950)

Another link between Michelle & Michael & myself is as follows:
They are linked in some way to . . .
Albert Lothian (1918)
His father was Alexander Lothian (c1895) who married Elizabeth Smith (1897)
Her father was Abraham Smith (c1852) who married Annie Kearns (1863)
His father was Abraham Smith (c1814) & he also had Mary Smith (1844) who married John Robinson (1845)
They had Elizabeth Robinson (1880) who married William Stephens (1877)
His mother was Martha Stephens (1850)
Her father was Charles Stephens (1809) who married Ann Prior (1811)
Her father was Samuel Prior (1785) who married Louisa Phillips (1784)
Her father was Ralph Phillips (1761) who married Ann Brookwell (c1760)
His father was Thomas Brookwell (1722) & he also had Thomas Brookwell (1748)
He had Elizabeth Brookwell (1783) who married Thomas Dearling (c1793)
They had Rebecca Dearling (1819) who married George Knight (1806) who also married Mary Bassett (1805)
They had Sarah Knight (1830) who married William Windley (1829)
They had Joseph Windley (1853)
He had Eva Windley (1892) who married Ira Parsons (1899)
His father was * Henry Parsons (1849) & he also had Leland Parsons (1892)
He had Lois Parsons (1937) who married Kevin Nelson (1939)
His father was Laurence Nelson (1918) who married Doris Brannigan (1919)
Her father was William Brannigan (1897) who married Thomasina Emery (1899)
Her father was John Emery (1867) who married Phoebe Davies (1876)
Her father was Joseph Davies (1852) & he also had George Arthur Davies (1894)
He had Colin Davies (1925)
He had me - Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950)

Another link to Robert through Dawes line is as follows:
* Henry Parsons (1849)
His father was Matthew Parsons (1809)
His father was John Parsons (1777) & he also had Reuben Parsons (1805)
He had Enos Parsons (1847) who married Emma Dawes (1847)
Her father was George Dawes (1802)
His father was Aaron Daw (1779) & he also had Edward Bannister Dawes (1813)
He had James H. Dawes (1843)
He had Annie Florence Dawes (1873) who married Arthur Augustus Bray (1869)
He had Albert Alan Bray (1896)
He had Robert Alfred Bray (1920)
He had Robert Arthur Bray (1947) who married me - Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950)

• Birth Certificate: (20852).

• Death Certificate Number: (18395).

William married Elizabeth Annie (Liz) Robinson, daughter of John Robinson and Mary Ann Smith, on 23 Sep 1899 in 422 Queen St, Melbourne, Victoria Australia. (Elizabeth Annie (Liz) Robinson was born on 28 May 1880 in Burwood, Victoria Australia, died on 28 May 1948 in Korumburra, Victoria Australia and was buried in Korumburra Cemetery, Victoria Australia.)

  Noted events in their marriage were:

• Certificate: (0031).