Florence Margaret McVicar

The fourth child and third daughter of Arch and Margaret was born 18/10/1901 at Avoca. She was probably named Florence for her father's favourite sister Florence Amy, who had died aged 18, 22 years before. However, he always called her Bob, perhaps because he had only one son, and he wanted another !! Fortunately for him, and perhaps Florrie, the next child was a boy, Jack.

Florrie attended the Avoca State School from April 1907, and her cousin Dorothy (Dory) McVicar remembered climbing into bed with her when she had mumps to try to catch them so that she too could have some time off school. She doesn't appear in the Underbool school records, unlike the younger Jack, Pearl, Selwyn and  Matt, so presumably she completed her schooling in Avoca.

Tom was developing a block known now as Stewarts, but which he called Bowenvale, after his birthplace near Maryborough (In reality he was born at Chinaman's Flat, which is a "suburb" of Bowenvale, but presumably the name wasn't all that suitable for the rolling sandhills of the Mallee!)The Stables at BowenvaleAn old house was dismantled in the Maryborough area, and brought to the Bowenvale block. Pearl M. thought that it probably came from Avoca, and by train. The photographs of Bowenvale were taken (on an angle!)  by the incoming Stewart family at the end of 1927. Each time Florrie needed Tom urgently, for instance, was showing signs of birth labour, she would let Tom know by putting a bed sheet in a prominent point on the fence around the house.Florrie and Tom's  first child wasn't registered, and died at or not long after birth.  Some family members remembered Paddy Amos making the coffin, on 13 March 1922.  Unfortunately I have forgotten the source of this exact date.  The baby, rumoured to be a boy called Robert, was buried in the old part of the Underbool cemetery outside the current back fence, for which there are no records, and so there is a recent group memorial plaque. 

The second child, born 9/3/1923, was named Evelyn Margaret, for her aunt, and great aunt, and her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother! How names were recycled!. Although she left Bowenvale when she was three, she remembered living in a very basic house, with an earth floor in some rooms and no glass in some windows, so the birds flew in, and the night  bright as day as the mallee scrub, rolled and dried, was fired to clear the land for cropping. The third child, born 31/12/1924, was David Archibald, named for his two grandfathers.

Florence's grave in the Presbyterian Section of the Maryborough Cemetery The right hand side of the marble inscription book was not used by her husband, because he remarried and is buried at the far end of the cemetery, in the Anglican Section. Two years after her death, Florrie's father-in-law was buried in the plot to the right, and eight years later, his wife Henia/Hannah joined him there.The baby was named Joan Florence by her 19 year old aunt Pearl, and cared for with Evie and David at Montague's by Pearl and her mother Maggie. Pearl told of coming home from dances, and, it being summer, in days without ice chests, milking a cow in order to get fresh milk for Joan.

 It reads. "Underbool FridayDear Tom, Just a few lines to let you know that Annie (her daughter) is not as bad as Bruce (Annie's husband) thought Sunday. She was operated on Sunday night and is doing alright. It was a mishap. I think the Dr must have said it might turn septic. Anyway he frightened the life out of us, but are glad to say it turned out different. (The significance of this comment is that "mishap" refers to miscarriage, and that it is not long after her sister Florence has died of septaecemia follow the birth of Joan, leaving the three children without a mother). Bruce was in (Ouyen, where the hospital was/is) on Wednesday and she was doing well - and will be there for a fortnight. Ev (her sister) has Ian and Beryl, and Teresa is with the others so they are alrightTell Davie if he was here now he would say Joan kicks all the clothes off and tell Evie that she won't sit still, weighed 20 (possibly 20, but might be an alteration from 19) lbs this morning & is a good little thing, some difference to when Davie was a baby. Dad and Jack (second son) went up to Carwarp with Archie (eldest son) and they walked up from Nyang (where the railway station was, now Torrita) this morning, Dad half a mile ahead of the others - it rained steady here last night - Jack says he will write directly (meaning soon) Give Evie and Davie a big kiss from Joan and me so as Archie is waiting I will now stop. Remember me to all, Mum(Post script at top) See if you can get a rattal for Joan can't get one here.  XXX Davie from Joan  XXX Evie from Joan"Perhaps this is the same holiday which Pearl (the children's aunt who had been caring for them at Montague's) referred to when she said "Their father took them on (pause) 'a holiday' to Maryborough and they didn't come back". This was apparently to the surprise of the McVicars. Instead they lived for several years with Tom's sister, Bell Beaton. Tom lived in a tin shed at the back of his mother's house around the corner in Gladstone Street (even though there was a "best bedroom" for guests).  Evie said that Davie was really disturbed by this second lot of changes (from parents at "Bowenvale" to grandparents and aunt and uncles at 'Montagues' to unfamiliar aunts and uncles in Maryborough) and would get under a bed and cry "for ages". The move to Maryborough may have coincided with Evie starting school, at Maryborough State School, No.404, date unknown.  Joan moved to Maryborough at a later date, "when I was 2", to live with her father's sister Nell Davies, not far from Evie and Davie at the Beatons.Tom remarried in 1930, to Doris Muriel Challacombe, and had another son, Edwin. They built a new house in Kars St. Maryborough, at the railway line end, on the block where they had demolished his new mother in law's house. Tom, his wife and mother-in-law lived with a neighbour while the new house was being built.