Thursday, April 24, 2014

Trans Tasman ANZAC Day Blog Challenge - 2014 - Malcolm Michael (Mack) Shepherd

Malcolm Michael Shepherd 
ANZAC day is almost here, and this blog is my contribution to the Trans Tasman ANZAC Blog Challenge that is run each year by Kintalk.  This challenge provides an opportunity to relate family stories that are linked with the ANZAC's and Australian and New Zealand military history. This year I would like to write about by grandfather Malcolm Michael Shepherd.

Mack's Dog Tags
Mack Shepherd (as he fondly was known) the second son of Lynn Shepherd (III) and Annie McDonald was born on 29 September 1892, in Braidwood, NSW Australia.  Mack grew up on the family property on Araluen Road, in the Braidwood District.  Prior to enlisting in the army he worked with his older brother Angus in his father's carrying business transporting goods from Braidwood to Nelligen and Braidwood to Goulburn.

Mack enlisted in the 30th Infantry Battalion on the 31  January 1916.  His enlistment number 3315. His Military record describes a tall young man of 6ft 2 inches, with fair hair, fresh complexion and grey eyes. 

Lark Hill Military Base
He was part of the 7th Reinforcement of the 30th Infantry Battalion and on the 2 May 1916 his division left Australia on the HMAT Hororata bound for the Europe via Suez and then on to Lark Hill Military Base, Salisbury, England.  From here he was transferred to North Africa to join the 30th Battalion before finally being shipped to the Front in France.


For the next two years Mack served as a stretcher bearer on the battle line in France, until 8 August 1918 when he was wounded while serving on the front line.  He received a gunshot wound in his forearm. He was transferred from the front line to the Military Hospital at Camiers. From here he was transferred to Wymouth Military Hospital to recover. The war was close to an end and Mack was shipped back to Australia on the 27 November 1918.

Annie and Lynn Shepherd were relieved to have their son return from Europe, their first son Angus John Shepherd, who had enlisted in the 3rd Division of the 33rd Battalion stayed on in France after the war for another year, enlisting with the War Graves Division.

As the local paper reported, the community paid its respect to Private Shepherd and welcomed him home with considerable pomp and ceremony.

Malcolm Shepherd settled back into the carrier business, assisting his father and then establishing his own business with a bullock team of his home.  He worked mainly carting logs after they were felled to the sawmills around the south coast.

On the 29th September 1923, at St Andrew's Church, Goulburn, he married Christina Lee, the daughter George  Lee and Catherine McGregor.   Their start of married life was overshadowed by the loss of their first child Muriel in 1924, however, their family soon expanded with the birth of Malcolm in 1926, Colin in 1928 and Nancy in 1930. It seemed that Mack had been able to move on from the trauma of the Western Front and settle into family life with his own thriving business.  However, this was not to be.

Braidwood Dispatch, 13th March 1931,

Serious Accident
A telegram was received by Mrs. Lynn Shepherd of Braidwood on Wednesday announcing that her son Mac Shepherd had met with a serious accident that day as a result of which he was lying in a serious condition in Moruya Hospital. Mac and his brother Angus were carting timber at the time. There were no particulars as to how the accident happened.  Mrs Shepherd went by car down to Moruya that same afternoon.

Mack Shepherd had been injured seriously when a tree fell on his head while he was working in the bush.  He spent considerable time in hospital and then convalesced at home, however his health did not improve and early in the following year (6 January 1932) he passed away leaving his young wife, Tina and three children. Family letters describe Mack as a quiet kind and hard working family man.  A man who experienced much in his short life.

I recently visited the small town of Braidwood and took the opportunity to visit the local war memorial, to pay my respects to the grandfather that I never knew.
War Memorial - Braidwood

_____________
Resources:
National Archives, Army - World War I - 1914-1918,  http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/defence/service-records/army-wwi.aspx
Trove:
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article99020452
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119236706
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119272300
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16761687

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Work Day Wednesday - Sawyers on Acacia Farm

Sawing logs - Acacia Farm Nelligen

Today I would like to share with you another of my recently discovered pictures of life on Acacia Farm, This is a picture of my father Malcolm Shepherd helping his uncle Jordie Lee saw a log on the farm with an old two handed saw. 

The two man saw was used in the timer industry and involved two sawyers standing or sitting on either side of the log, and the sawyers would alternate in pulling the saw through the wood.  The saws were designed to cut in both directions, and the special tooth design of the saw allowed the sawdust to be cleared from the cut as the sawyers worked

Tombstone Tuesday - Lynn Shepherd II (1829-1903)

Gravestone - Braidwood Cemetery Lynn Shepherd II
Recently I visited the historical gold mining town of Braidwood and wrote about our family's connection with the Gold Mining history of this district in a blog on the Worldwide Genealogical Collaboration, Visiting Past Connections - a reflection on the influence of the gold rush on our family history.  In this post I mentioned that one of the branches of our family was involved in the carrier business.  Three generations of the Shepherd family lived in the Braidwood district and were instrumental in the transport of all kinds of goods from timber, supplies, mining equipment from the small outlying settlements around of this district, to Braidwood and over the Clyde Mountain to Nelligen.

This is the photo of my great great grandfather Lynn Shepherd II's grave, which is in the Braidwood cemetery.  Lynn Shepherd II, born in Newcastle, New South Wales, on the 14th February 1829, was the son of Lynn David Shepherd and Elizabeth Mariner. He married Harried Webb in Arualuen in 1855. They had a large family of  six sons and six daughters, among these was my great grand father Lynn Shepherd III (yes, three generations of Lynn Shepherds!). Also, his youngest son  Ralph Shepherd died in mysterious circumstances after a house fire. 

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Sentimental Sunday - More Pictures of Acacia Farm - Clyde River Nelligen

As I promised in my recent post "Those Places Thursday - Acacia Farm - Clyde River Nelligen" I would like to share some more of my recently discovered pictures of Acacia Farm, Nelligen.  These photos were taken about when my father visited his Uncle Jordie at Acacia Farm circa 1950.

Visiting Acacia Farm


Calves at Acacia Farm
Cattle at Acacia Farm



Thursday, April 3, 2014

Follow Friday - An accumulation of my weekly research - 10

It is a long time since my last "Follow Friday- An Accumulation of my weekly research" post.  However, I have been spending many hours focusing on the story of my greatgreat grandfather Donald McDonald. So today I would like to share some of my research discoveries. 

I discovered Donald McDonald's obituary at the end of last year in TROVE.  The article confirmed the family stories that he had immigrated from Canada, and added the additional information that prior to coming to Australia, he had spent some time in the goldfields in California.

As outlined in my previous post the article also provided some other clues to his life before arriving in Australia, ie. That he was from Glengarry, Ontario and his family had a link with the Hudson Bay Company. I was very keen to research these clues further, but to my dismay found that researching in a new country was not as easy as I thought it would be ie, lack of knowledge of the social and political history, geography, new languages, unfamiliar with archives, birth, death and marriage records etc.  I recognised this as “Genealogical Culture Shock” and wrote about this on my blog on the Worldwide Genelogical Collaboration last month.

Following on from this blog – which looks at some ways that you can overcome this brick wall or genealogical culture shock, I have been reading, collecting resources, identifying relevant history books, linking with genealogical societies, and searching facebook, pinterest and blogs by others who are linked to or researching in this area of Canada.  For my Follow Friday Post – I would like to share with you some of the Resources I have found. 
Do you know of other research resources for this area? It would be great if you could share them as well!!

Books

Clan Donald by Donald J. McDonald
The Scots in Canada by J.M. Bumstead

Archives
Glengarry Archives: http://www.glengarryarchives.ca/
Library and Archives Canada: http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Pages/home.aspx
Hudson Bay Company Archives, http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/

Genealogical and Historical Societies

Glen Garry Historical Society: http://glengarryhistory.ca/new/

Web sites
RootsWeb, Glengarry County GenWatch: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~onglenga/
Clan McDonald Southern Ontario:  http://southernontario.clandonald.ca/
Clan Donald Canada Incorporated: http://www.clandonaldcanada.ca/
Canadian Headstones Project, http://canadianheadstones.com/links.htm

Libraries

Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Library, http://www.sdglibrary.ca/
Toronto Public Library, http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/

Blogs

Facebook

Pinterest



Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Those Places Thursday - Acacia Farm, Clyde River, Nelligen

Acacia Far - Clyde River - near Nelligen, NSW

Last night I was going through some old files on our computer and found a folder of old photos that my husband had kindly scanned for me a couple of years. Note to self!!  I need to go through these and label and file into appropriate family files.    

I started looking through the pictures and was very excited to find quite a few of Acacia Farm.  I believe they would have been taken around very close to the time when my parents were married, probably just before they were married and my father bought my mother from Broken Hill to meet all his family who lived on the South Coast of NSW. 

 So over the next couple of days I would like to share with you some of the lovely old black and white pictures of Acacia Farm.  This farm was where five generations of the Lee family lived from the late 1800'.  My Nanna Christina Lee (daughter of George Lee and Catherine McGregor) grew up on this farm and travelled by boat down to the school in the small village of Nelligen.  Then when her husband Malcolm Michael Shepherd passed away my father lived there with his grandparents.  My Nanna’s youngest brother Jordie inherited the farm and it was then passed down to his daughter.