LOOK CLOSELY…
IS GERALDINE AMONGST THIS SEA OF
FACES?
DELVING INTO THE PAST IS ALL A MATTER OF PERSISTENCE...
Too many owners of brand new computers underestimate the power of their
machines. They use them for a variety of
mundane purposes, the mere sending and receipt of messages, the playing of
games, recording of day to day business.
The very hub of their shiny new contraption is a mystery to many and
that’s a great shame.
Unbeknown to numerous owners of nimble fingers there are
search engines within waiting for a simple instruction to lay bare the secrets
of someone’s life, to reveal the history of a little known event from the past. If there is a life after death then my many
ancestors must be writhing in their graves as bit by bit I uncover the bits and
pieces, both admirable and otherwise of their everyday lives.
***
Geraldine McGowan, my great-grandmother is a perfect example. Her past reads like a Victorian novel full of
hidden secrets and intrigue. Yet her
domestic life in Levuka where she raised her brood of McGowan and Foreman
children between 1872 and 1910 must have seemed to her the very essence of
normality even perhaps of insignificance.
The one item I could never find was photographic evidence of
her presence in Levuka and there should have been. Renowned photographers, the Dufty brothers
were in residence there at the same time and the European presence in the
1880’s wasn’t overwhelmingly large.
Perhaps the wife of a trading ship’s captain didn’t warrant a photographic
session, or perhaps as a thrifty Scotsman’s wife she regarded the cost of such
luxury unwarranted.
Or she may have been far too busy raising a succession of little
McGowans and Foreman’s. Whatever the
reason I lamented the loss, made do with the one image taken during her time in
Fiji…until I chanced upon the album of an un-named world traveller from the
1870’s. An obviously well heeled American
who sailed the Pacific stopping off in Levuka, New Zealand and Australia, at the same time utilising the skilled work of local artisan photographers to compile a tasteful
record of his travels.
Albums such as this one were popular in far distant days.
Cameras were complex and rare; photographers a breed of their own. This gentleman’s Card Album was compiled in
an accordion style compendium with the photographs featuring hand written
captions. At a recent auction this
particular creation was on offer at bids starting at $5500, a figure
incomprehensible to our people from the past.
The unknown traveler obviously possessed no camera of his
own and relied on local photographers to record his journey, the result -
professional images skilfully composed and captured.
The photographs above of Sydney were thought to have been the
work of Alexander Brodie. I for one was
surprised at the size and uniformity of Sydney town in those early years circa
1880.
In Levuka, where no doubt the unknown American tourist sailed
his vessel and anchored for a while off the township, his album included
photographs of outriggers and native trading canoes, a view of Levuka looking
towards the north of the town and a spectacular indoor shot of an assembly hall
in the then Government House at Nasova… a hall very much in the native Fijian
style.
For me though the piece
de resistance was an incredible composite montage photograph of the
inhabitants of Levuka at that time.
This magnificent and complex creation could only have been
compiled and created by the talented and photographically prolific Dufty
Brothers.
Somewhere amid these stamp sized images of the good citizens of Levuka is without a
doubt the image of both Geraldine and of Captain William McGowan. I have no idea what my great-grandfather
looked like, and I have only the image below of Geraldine to compare with a
perhaps 15 or so years younger Mrs. McGowan in 1880, hopefully featured
somewhere in the montage.
This enlarged and split version of the grouped photographs
reveals the inclusion of a number of small children and even a scene of
Europeans bathing in a favoured swimming hole.
It is a remarkable presentation, revealing not only the
comfortable melding of Levuka’s diverse cultures, but as well the ingenuity and
humour of the men who first compiled and then pieced together these literally
hundreds of individual images.
They must have had the patience of Job.
Trying to pin down the one family member, husband or wife, is
virtually impossible, but if I were to nominate a likely candidate for
Geraldine I would choose the lady extreme bottom right on the top half of the
split photo. Her hair is piled high and
neat unlike many other lady’s with flowing tresses; the age feels right and the
angle of her head is very similar to the studio portrait taken in later years. Both images share a haughty, self assured
demeanor.
I’m surprised more copies of the Levuka collage haven’t
surfaced. Surely they were prized
keepsakes at a time when photography was a novelty. But then again life in Levukas steamy climate when Geraldine was resident wasn’t really all that kind to the
storage of photographic material.
For the moment at least I am quite content with this latest
find.
If you want to know more about Geraldine’s complex life from her childhood in
Sussex, her earlier sea journeys to New Zealand and to Australia, the mystery
of her first child and her subsequent flight to Fiji, the ensuing tragedy of
early widowhood and her unhappy second marriage, just click on the links below.
****
Robyn Mortimer ©2013
The story of Geraldine Sweeny McGowan Foreman is told in the
following blogs:
****
