When I was about 10 or 11, I read the "Tea Tree Gully Sketchbook" by Ian Auhl. It was in my nanna's bookcase and it was small with a bright green cover. I was interested in history when I was that young, but I preferred historical fiction to actual history. Anyway, I got to the page on the Greenwith Methodist (now Uniting) Church and I found something - that even at that age - I thought was pretty interesting. I haven't read this book in years, but I still remember it really well: there was a small paragraph at the end of the page that said the church used to be the Upper Dry Creek School, the teacher was Mrs. Elizabeth Ghrimes, and she had three daughters who died in a diphtheria epidemic and were buried at the Golden Grove Cemetery (across the road from the nearby Golden Grove Presbyterian - also now Uniting - Church). I got my dad to take me to the Golden Grove Cemetery and I found their grave - Marian, Charlotte and Louisa all died within a few days of each other and were buried together. There was a little fence around it that, in a strange way, made it feel almost cosy - like they were protected. Their grave is one of the oldest in the cemetery.
Obviously, I found their story very sad. Charlotte and Louisa were younger than I was and Marian was the same age as me at the time. This was when my interest in 'real' history began to grow. I wanted to know about these girls, who they were, where they lived, what they did. This is in an era before Trove, and before I had any sort of workable research skills. I put their name into a couple of search engines a few times in my teens but nothing came up. I now know that one of their brother's descendants has done some genealogical research into their mother, but all that is known about the girls is that they died young. And that's probably all I'm going to find out.
I've not been able to find anything about the 'diphtheria epidemic', but all three died from diphtheria within a few weeks in December 1862. Diphtheria was prevalent throughout South Australia in the early 1860s (and before and after) and there were cases of diphtheria in December 1862 in Meadows. Cases of diphtheria actually decreased in the last half of 1862, when the girls died from it. Saying that, a quick review of death notices from that time shows an enormous amount of people - especially young children - who succumbed to diphtheria.
On 9 January 1863, the girls' brother Wallace ("Lacy") broke his leg (this is why I love the old newspapers - being able to pinpoint an event down to the day like that). He was playing with young horses at a neighbour's property "when he was thrown down by them and had his leg broken." Elizabeth, their mother, was not told for "a day or two" because she was suffering from diphtheria and was "altogether prostrate from [the deaths of her children] and her sudden and severe calamities". The paper states that two of the girls had died within the fortnight before the accident. If I remember correctly, one of the girls - I think Charlotte - died on Christmas Eve. The newspaper also wrote that Mrs. Ghrimes was beloved by her pupils and respected by everyone in the district.
I don't know where the girls were born but the genealogy websites have told me that their parents, Elizabeth and Robert, were English and arrived in Australia in 1849. A newspaper report tells me that they arrived in South Australia on 27 October 1849 and travelled on the "Senator", a 619 tonne barque. They were not travelling with any servants or children.
Their mother was a teacher in a small country town, so I can only assume they (or at least Marian and Charlotte, who were eleven and seven) went to her school. Elizabeth Ghrimes applied for a teaching licence in 1859 and she was already a teacher at 'Upper Dry Creek', so she must have had a few students already. The girls would have been eight, four and one in 1859. In March 1860, Mrs. Ghrimes requested government aid for her school and the Reverend J. A. Boake wrote to the Education Board asking for this. He stated that the school was very good and "he had received excellent character [references?] from the inhabitants."
In 1861, a year before the girls died, the school was inspected. The report reads: "This school is under the management of a competent teacher. The pupils, although drawn from a purely agricultural neighbourhood and often required for service at home, have made good progress. The school-room is very defective." The foundation stone of the Greenwith Church wasn't laid until 1863, so were using another school room. Mrs. Ghrimes was encouraged to find an alternative building by an Inspector of Schools, but there was a bit of a controversy when she took up the Greenwith Church. It was close to another school at Golden Grove run by Miss Cate, who complained to the Inspector of Schools that there shouldn't be two schools so close to each other. In 1869, nineteen families petitioned to Board to keep Mrs. Ghrimes as a licensed teacher, but she doesn't appear to have been inspected after 1869, indicating to me that she left teaching at this time. As I understand it, there was never an official schoolroom at Upper Dry Creek/Greenwith, but there was a schoolroom and teacher's residence at Golden Grove. Golden Grove was preferred as the local school because it was older and was built for the purposes of a school. The Board of Education wanted a male teacher to teach the boys, who were getting too big for a female teacher to manage!
Marian, at least, must have been taught in the "very defective" schoolroom and I really wish I knew where it was. On 20 September 1861, the school students were examined and it was written about in the "South Australian Register":
"The scholars were tested in reading, spelling, English and sacred history, general geography, writing, and the principles of English grammar. Specimens of drawing and needlework were minutely inspected by the company, and at the conclusion prizes were distributed to the most meritorious pupils. Mr. Kerr [the examiner] congratulated the parents for the neat and very imposing appearance of their children, and also Mrs. Ghrimes for the highly praiseworthy manner in which she seemed to have performed her duties during the past year...The happiness of the evening was kept up to a late hour by music and many recreative [sic] amusements."
Through Trove, I've since learned that Elizabeth Ghrimes was a widow by 1872 and she took up 177 acres on Section 105, Golden Grove. Each acre cost 1 pound, so the whole property would've cost her 177 pounds, which is quite a large amount of money. My next step is to look at old maps with the sections marked on them to see if I can find where she would have lived. I know sections in the 2000s are in present-day Golden Grove, near the Golden Grove Village. Since the Greenwith Church (which is actually in Golden Grove) is nearer present-day Greenwith and the original Golden Grove property is probably about 1km from the church, I think the earlier sections would be in that area.
And that's all I have. I understand that there wouldn't be that much information out there about three girls who died young, and I've been fortunate to find the little information I have. There's a lot of information available about pioneer families of the Tea Tree Gully area, but the Ghrimes family don't seem to fall under this category. There aren't any streets named after them, nor no known property owned by them. The only place I've been able to visit that I've known for certain they've been too is the cemetery. The church was their mother's workplace for many years, but it pre-dates the girls.
Since Elizabeth was also suffering from diphtheria, no doubt caught from her daughters, I wonder who organised the girls' funeral and burial. I haven't been able to find a funeral notice for any of them. I don't know where the funeral would've been held, as there were no churches in the area. I wonder who took care of Wallace after his sisters died and his mother was ill. I wonder who took care of Elizabeth. Wallace's broken leg was set by Dr. Bosch - did he provide medical care to the girls too? Did he take care of Wallace? When I research, I often ask more questions than I'm able to answer and this family is difficult because, basically, they were an ordinary country family. I think they lived hard lives and are admirable - Elizabeth ran a school with four small children; the youngest was still a baby when she started teaching and I'm sure there weren't childcare facilities for her. (More questions: who cared for Charlotte and Louisa when their mother was teaching? Did she bring them with her?) I have a picture of them in my head, of three little girls running through the long grass near what is now Golden Grove Road, their mother standing outside the school ringing an old-fashioned school bell and calling them in for lessons. It's sentimental and romantic, but it's what I feel.
Thanks for reading.
REFERENCES
Tea Tree Gully Historical Society
Marian, Charlotte and Louisa Ghrimes' gravesite
Elizabeth K. Grimes [Ghrimes?] Inspectors' Reports
"South Australian Register", 31 October 1849, p. 3
"South Australian Register", 4 April 1850, p. 2
"South Australian Weekly Chronicle", 16 July 1859, p. 3
"South Australian Weekly Chronicle", 11 February 1860, p. 7
"South Australian Register", 6 March 1860, p. 3
"South Australian Register", 12 October 1861, p. 2
"South Australian Register", 15 January 1863, p. 3
"South Australian Register", 6 March 1863, p. 3
"South Australian Weekly Chronicle", 16 July 1864, p. 3
"South Australian Weekly Chronicle", 3 December 1864, p. 4
"South Australian Chronicle and Weekly Mail", 5 June 1869, p. 14
"South Australian Advertiser", 1 March 1872, p. 7
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