Edna Cameron

Memories \ Edna Cameron

My Gran  (Edna Cameron)

My Gran wasn't a famous person but she did have an eventful life. The aim of this page is to tell her story "warts and all".  It is not my intention to represent anyone as either good or bad. Everyone is a product of their own experiences and decisions. The earlier parts of this document come from conversations that my mother and father had with my Gran as well as memories of my dad's.  The later parts are my memories.

A Complicated Beginning

My Gran, Edna was born in Ultimo Sydney on 3 June 1913. Her parents, Alice Keane (1892 - 1982) and William Denham Brown (1888 - 17 Oct 1969) were not married at the time and with the social pressures of the day, they were forced to give her up to an orphanage. 

The situation was very complicated. Alice's father told her that she could stay in the family home but the baby could not. Even worse, William was already engaged to someone else at the time. Alice went to see William's mother (baby Edna's paternal grandmother) to see if she could get some support from there but Ada Brown (nee Moran) (1868 - ?) said that her son would never do such a thing and refused to have anything to do with Alice. 

Alice didn’t have any money to deal with the issue and didn’t know what to do. Fortunately, someone told her of a woman who badly wanted a baby but couldn't have one. She was only too happy to take the baby and things settled down for a while.

Turbulent Early Years

As often happens in these cases, not too long after the woman took Edna she fell pregnant and had a little boy. When the first world war broke, out this woman's husband joined up but was killed. 

She began drinking and became very ill. Edna was sometimes cared for by the woman's sister who lived at Rozelle. Edna believed that the woman was her mother and the lady who lived at Rozelle was her aunt.

Edna's Family

Young Edna May Brown with her little brother Wally Lewis - At the beach with her biological father William Denham Brown and her mother Alice Keane.(Colorized).

First Holy Communion

Edna makes her First Holy Communion (Colorized).

Returning Home

When Edna was six or seven years old the woman who had taken her in became ill and her health deteriorated to the point where she wasn't expected to live.

In the intervening years, Edna's mother Alice had married a man called Walter Sydney Noble Lewis on 15th June 1917. He was 27 years old and she was 25 at the time.  He was a mechanic and worked in Bathurst Street Sydney, making and sharpening surgical instruments. He and Alice had a son, Walter (Wally) Lewis. 

The situation was explained to Alice and she was told that she could have Edna back if she wanted her or else Edna would have to go to an orphanage. I think that Edna did spend a bit of time in the orphanage because she often told of how bad it was and how badly the nuns there treated her.  Her mother was Catholic but as a result of her treatment at the orphanage, Edna decided that she would bring her children up as Church of England. 

Alice and her husband Walter took Edna back. Edna had a lot of trouble settling down and ran away twice, back to the woman who she believed to be her real mother.

Rebuilding the Family 

Somehow, Edna’s real father, William Brown came back into the picture never having married the girl to whom he was engaged. He used to visit Edna and used to take her on little trips to the beach or parks. She thought he was her uncle. He seemed to be very fond of her and she liked him very much.

I don't know the circumstances nor the reasons but on 22nd April 1926 Alice and Wally divorced and Alice married Edna’s father William Brown on 3rd July 1926.

They became a family but Edna never really forgave her mother for giving her up. She could never see that any of it was her father’s fault. She was very close to her father and always somewhat jealous of her brother Wally, especially of his relationship with their mother Alice.

William Brown worked as a clerk with a large timber company and he became a fine craftsman, working with wood as a hobby. He had a small timber workshop down the backyard he built himself which had storage cupboards, bench, etc.

He was always inventive he made a letterbox with a perspex front so you could see if there was any mail without leaving the house. He also made a clothes line on a pulley come hoist system when all the other clothes lines were kept up with clothes props. He was also a keen cyclist and walker and would walk down to Brighton beach and back most weekends.

Edna idolised her father but seemed to have a running battle with her mother. She went to various schools playing truant whenever possible and always seemed to be in trouble. 

Married Life

From all accounts Edna was a bit of a wild child, she always said that she was a tomboy and she played figero and tennis. She worked as a machinist making shirts in a factory at Glebe, and I think she met her husband playing tennis. 

We will never know the true story of their life together, Edna says they just decided to go off and get married and were married in a Registry Office on 29th September 1938.

Edna Cameron with young Bill Bollard and Jim Bollard (Colorized)

After they married they moved into a flat above a hamburger shop which was owned by Jim’s sister Milly and her husband, Sid Hurst. Milly and Sid had another shop at Mascot at the time and they wanted Jim to manage the hamburger shop in Victoria Road, Drummoyne. The shop was located just down from Lyons Road and across the road from the hotel Oxford. It was one of the few hamburger shops around and it was located in a very good position. 

When the war broke out Jim joined the Air Force and spent most of the time in Melbourne. I think he was in catering but am not sure. He told his son Bill that he flew Spitfires, which to a young boy was much more impressive. After the war he returned to the Hamburger shop and he ran it during the day while Edna worked for Saltons the sailmakers. It was just down the road from their shop. She took over at night. The hamburger shop became so well known that his eldest son Bill became known locally as “Hamburger Jim’s son”.

Edna and Jim had two sons;

Divorce

Jim used to drink fairly heavily and often his sister Millie and her husband Sid would call for him and they would all go off for a game of golf. When they brought him home he would be pretty drunk and they would prop him up against the door then leave. Needless to say Edna wasn’t too happy about this. 

She said that she had decided to leave him just after Donald was born but didn’t end up going until four years later.

Bill remembers one night when his mother was working in the shop cooking hamburgers and his father came home drunk, stood outside the plate glass window in front of her and started making faces at her. She picked up a bottle of lemonade and hurled it at him straight through the plate glass window. 

Apart from this one time he doesn’t remember any fighting between them. 

When Bill was nine years old his parents finally broke up. He remembers having to stand in front of a magistrate and being asked who he wanted to live with, his mother or his father. This was a very unfair question to ask a child, especially as his mother was doing the hard work at home and his father was more often than not, doing things that were more enjoyable.  He thought about how his father was  always good natured and kind to him and how he hardly ever roused on him. Whereas his mother, who had all the problems of the shop and of bringing up a family was always cranky and pretty free with her smacks and abuse.

Bill chose to go with his father and Edna never forgave him for this. She said he chose his father because he thought he would be riding around in big cars all of the time and thought he would have a great life, but of course this was wrong. He was only a little boy and chose the parent who seemed to be the least disciplinarian. 

What Bill didn't know was that Edna's early life had created a fear of rejection in her. She had, after all, begun life by being rejected by her own parents, then her foster mum (who she had thought was her real mum). Bill's choice was just too much for her and their relationship was never quite the same after this.

Remarriage

After the divorce, Edna took her youngest son, Donald to live with her in a rented room in Mullins street, Balmain.

Edna and Jim were had both been early members of Drummoyne Sailing Club (as was Bill Cameron who later became Bill’s Stepfather). Apparently they were all good friends. There is a group photo of members of the Drummoyne Sailing Club taken in the early 1940s and Bill Cameron and Jim Bollard are standing next to each other.  The photo is hanging on the wall of the club to this day.

Edna would make scones and sandwiches for the sailors and would bring them down after the race, she was also involved in the club’s entertainment group where they would dress up in ridiculous outfits and put on a show.  This became a major part of her life and it transferred to from Sailing to Legacy (where Bill Cameron was heavily involved) and continued well into her retirement years. 

When Bill was 13 his mother married William Cameron (1953) and they moved to 143 Tennyson Road Gladesville. When they were settled in at Gladesville, they asked for young Bill to return home and live with them.  Bill found it very hard to fit into this new family. He hardly knew his brother Donald, and resented his step-father.

Edna used to tell stories about how she caught her sons Bill  and Donald smoking and how Bill tried to lie about smoking and she punched him in the nose. Edna had some big hang-ups about lying and it was one of the worst things that anyone could do to her. 

While there was no doubt that Bill Cameron and Edna loved each other, the marriage was a rocky one. Bill Cameron was quite a heavy drinker and he would become violent when he was drunk. Bill came home many times to his mother hiding under the house waiting until his step-father went to sleep.  Eventually Bill grew old enough and strong enough to hit back. One day when his stepfather went on a rampage, Bill knocked him down and after this, he never attacked Edna again. 

When her boys moved out, My gran took in Stephen, the son of a friend. Her friend had some difficult circumstances and Edna was always glad of the extra company. She was a tough disciplinarian with Stephen and would often tell us of how she caught him doing various normal teenage things like smoking and drinking and how she handled them. It always seemed a little heavy-handed to me as a kid but this was what she'd grown up with.  There was no doubt  that she loved Stephen and we all treated him like he was my dad's younger brother.  It was a proud moment when he moved out and got married. 

Working

I remember when Bill Cameron died in 1976.  He was very sick  and was in the back room of the house. He called me in and wanted to give me a giant book on fishing.  He really loved fishing. At the time, I didn't realise that he was trying to say goodbye forever. 

I think Gran must have kept working for a while after Bill Cameron died because I remember visiting her at work several times. She worked in a cafeteria above a shopping centre and would always try to make a special effort for us when we were there, sneaking us cakes and other goodies. 

Living Together

Gran was not a person who could live alone so after Bill Cameron died, my gran asked her son Donald and his family to move in with her.  I think Stephen moving out was part of this decision.

It was a tough time for the families and I don't think we really understood it at the time but it led to a lot of big changes.  On the plus side, we got to see more of Don's kids but on the minus side, it was the end of casual visits to Gran's house. It was hard for us to visit her when we felt like we were intruding on Don's family. 

She would often tell us to help ourselves to drinks from the fridge (and they always had much better drinks than us - fizzy drinks instead of cordial). Whenever we went home, we'd get a lecture on why we couldn't drink those drinks, they weren't hers to give away.  The same went for the toys. There were toys everywhere but we weren't supposed to play with them.  I'm sure that it would have been uncomfortable for Don's family too as  we were intruders in their home and often they weren't there or were otherwise occupied with sports. Gran wanted our families to grow together but I think we just grew apart. 

I think Don's family kept Gran up with the times a bit. I can remember her going through a Village People phase and also liking the band KISS because her grandkids did. In those days, Gran was doing a lot of crafts and performing arts for Legacy. 


Edna Cameron and her brother Wally Lewis with her mum Alice Keane (Repaired and Colorised)

Alice

Gran used to go a little overboard at Christmas and she'd expect everyone to be there. The room was always full of people I didn't know and far, too much food. We used to get there around lunchtime and leave when it got dark. At the time, we lived at Hornsby Heights but Gran would always get us to drop her off at Rockdale "on the way".   It was miles out of our way and we'd always get home very, very late. 

Once year, my great grandmother came up to my mother and said, "My mother is dead. My father is dead, all of my brothers and sisters are are dead too and there's only me".  I think it hit hard because my mother said that she thought it meant that Alice was beginning to have dementia. She was right. The following year, Alice's mental heath declined rapidly and my grandmother moved to her place to look after her.  It must have been very hard work because Alice was constantly soiling herself and moving things around. There were lots of fights in the house because Alice would hide things, especially money and then she'd forget where she hid it and would blame Edna. 

She sometimes thought that Edna was her mother but mostly acted as if she were her keeper. I remember my gran explaining a couple of times that she was her child. Sometimes my great grandmother would understand for a few minutes but then the knowledge would disappear.  I could tell that my gran was hurt every time by these changes.

The temporary move to Rockdale had a great effect on us as the neutral ground brought us all closer together. We even got on better with Don's kids as they were in the same situation as us at Rockdale.  There were no toys and no spare television, We all had to talk to each other. 

Eventually Alice became too much for Gran to handle and she was moved to Lindhurst Nursing home at Hunters Hill. My gran wanted to be close to her and so she took work there. I think it would probably have been volunteer work. She continued to work there for a little while after her mum had passed, which at the time I remember we all thought was a little crazy but also incredibly humble.  Eventually, I think she clashed with some of the supervisors there and left the job. 

The Declining Years

I don't think Gran was ever quite the same after losing her mother.  When she came back home, she moved rooms to allow Don's kids to have more space. While the extra space was good for her, I think it  also separated her a little from the family. She would still cook up a storm in the kitchen (she made the best scones and fairy cakes ever) but she mainly moved between the kitchen and her bedroom. We didn't usually go into the family or lounge rooms with her. 

She was still doing a lot of crafts and performing arts for Legacy. They would go around to retirement villages and perform for them. I remember my nanna being very excited to recognise her during a performance and they had a great day together.  

In March 2001 Edna had a fall on the escalators at Macquarie Shopping Centre, and another fall at home soon after. She went into some kind of shock, it may have been a stroke, and she could hardly walk and seemed to forget how to talk. She never became well enough to go home and went into a nursing home called Rotherham, located at Meadowbank.  She was there for four years and eventually passed away 13th August 2005.

She lived long enough to see all of her grandchildren married and several great grandchildren.