| The second of Michael and Eleanor Gorey's 12 children, Edward, was aged just five when he died of diphtheria at Ballarat District Hospital on December 31, 1921. Edward was born at Trafalgar on April 14, 1916 while his father was working as a casual "spud picker" in the district. Edward's sister Mary Burns recalled their mother saying she gave birth in a hospital run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. They didn't serve meat to the patients, and Eleanor couldn't get out of there quickly enough for a proper meal. Mary also remembered her mother saying that Edward was wrongly treated by a locum doctor who had originally diagnosed laryngitis. The doctor was sincerely apologetic, but a life had been lost. There was no coroner's inquest. The death certificate shows that Edward died after a six-day illness. Dr G.E. Hill signed the document, which strangely records the parents' names as unknown. Michael and Eleanor were possibly too grief stricken to worry about paperwork, or perhaps the doctor was anxious to finalise a sad affair. Edward's sister, Noreen, was told years later that "Teddy" had been given a tracheotomy which should have saved his life. "Adult patients at the hospital said he had been left too long unattended and he was found with the fitting not in position," she said. "Not having the parents' names recorded (on the death certificate) was a further example of incompetence." By all accounts Edward was a playful child, a real villain in fact. Eleanor told her children that he used to light fires under his bed. He was also clever. Noreen recalls being told that Teddy achieved grade three status in his first and only year at school. He was buried at Waubra on January 2, 1922. |