This beautifully written history covers the Horsley farming family in the Gundagai district from it's establishment in around the middle of the the nineteenth century to the current day. A wealth of charming family photographs combines with a literary writing style that provides an enjoyable read. This copy was kindly donated by the family and can be viewed within the library only.
Detail: Wallace Horsley with Ian on George the pony (no date)
Prolific medical and social historian Mavis Gaff-Smith has written a thoroughly researched history of the midwives of the towns along the Murray River, to the coast. This little known and undervalued but immensely important part of history is uncovered by Ms Gaff-Smith in all her works, a great many of which can also be found in the library's collections.
Above: from Midwives and paddle Steamers
Janine Agzarian tells the story of her grandfather Charles George Bishop,who fought in World War One, after inheriting a wooden box with George's World War One postcards, photographs and documents. The author travelled to France to walk where her grandfather did, ninety years before, in the Great War.
And there I was, on a small tarred French road with my C E W Bean extract, an 18th battalion war diary, a battle plan and a packet of chewing gum...and my grandfather.
p 53, The grandfather I never met
This book is absolutely the best example of a meld of family history, war history and travel I have read to date, a perfect weave of imagination, reality and history. The color illustrations using George Bishop's personal items and photographs make the story even more evocative of the connections between then and now.
Above: George Bishop (left) and cousin-in-law Frederick Frauenfelder, from The Grandfather I never met
As always these books are available to view within the library.
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