Next Door Neighbours. A Post for Trove Tuesday

The house next door to us has been in the hands of the same family for the last 100 years. Below is a detailed and descriptive report of the wedding of Arthur John Long and Ethel Maude Stewart, which took place on 9 February 1909. The report includes an extensive list of the wedding presents received and the names of the donors. Gifts included such items as salad sets and servers, jardinieres, jardiniere stands and pot plants, numerous dishes and trays, a dinner gong, vases, silverware,photo frames, marmalade jars and pickle jars,  

 I wonder whether any of those wedding presents given to Arthur and Ethel might have been passed on with the house and indeed could still be there, more than a hundred years later. Perhaps some of the jardinieres might be adorning the back verandah for example. 

Malvern Standard, 13 Feb 1909, snipped from Trove web site

 A daughter Dorothea was born to Ethel and Arthur in 1910, and in 1916 the Longs moved into their home in Turner St, and remained in residence for many years. Arthur's occupation according to the electoral rolls of the relevant time period was manufacturer.

Meanwhile, a year earlier in 1908, Arthur Jennings Price, solicitor, had married his second wife Constance Faerie Clark and moved into Turner Street in 1910. Together with their little girl Constance Thura b 1911 they were living next door when Dorothea and her family moved in. Both houses together with another neighbouring property were  originally owned by a Mr Thomas Gill, Commission agent but he transferred title to Arthur John Long in 1921 and to Arthur Price's widow Constance Price in 1923, Arthur Price having passed away in 1922.  Constance moved away after she remarried in 1925, although she did not re-sell the property to her tenants until 1941.

 Ethel died in 1946. Son Jack and his wife are registered as living in the Turner St house in 1949 and 1954. Arthur passed away in 1961 and in the 1960s a nephew and his wife moved in. In 1964 they also purchased the Price property, which we bought from their daughter in 2008. The nephew's widow is our next door neighbour.

 It's nice to imagine that from 1916 until 1925 these two little girls whose fathers were both called Arthur became friends and played together in the gardens of one home or the other for the next few years, together with Dorothea's younger brother Jack,