In Memory of Austin Morrison, and of his great nephew Kevin, and also of Albert Leslie Featherston

                         

My grandfather's brother Austin Lindsay Morrison lost his life in The Somme in 1916, aged 24. His photograph was published not long afterwards in the Supplement to the Auckland Weekly News on 26 October 1916. Here is the page that includes Austin's photo. Note the larger photographs for the officers, followed by smaller ones for the enlisted men:

So many men lost over such a disastrous few years, and doubtless every one treasured and mourned by their own circles of family and friends.

Gunner A. L. Morrison, killed in action, from ' Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19161026-40-24 ' 

Austin was born in 1891 in the Marlborough district in New Zealand. I had some trouble finding his name in the birth index, because the transcription of it given there is 'Estion Liencey', which I find very strange, but not strange enough to compel me to purchase a printout of the record so I can interpret it for myself, although I suppose I really should. My grandfather, the son born two years earlier, was simply named John!  

When the Great War broke out, Austin enlisted and became a member of the Machine Gun Section of the 2nd Battalion, New Zealand Rifle Brigade. His unit left New Zealand for the Suez on 9 October 1915. 

 Early in 1916 the local Marlborough paper published a report of a letter that Austin had sent home, which must have provided some degree of hope and comfort to his Irish-born mother Mary Bridget and father Daniel.

Marlborough Express, 22 January 1916, per Papers Past web site

Sadly the worst news arrived later that same year, when the family received advice that Austin had been killed in the Battle of the Somme on 16 September. Austin was much loved and missed by his parents and his ten siblings. I've written in an earlier. Sepia Saturday blog about the last brave letter he wrote to his mother just a week before he was killed, but no doubt received by her after his death.

Report published in The Press,  9 October 1916, per Papers Past web site

Here is a photograph I took in 2003 when we visited the Caterpillar Valley (New Zealand) Memorial, where Austin's name is listed amongst those of the many whose remains could not be found or identified.

Memorial detail

There is also a Roll of Honour at the Canvastown School attended by the Morrison children. It shows the names of Austin, killed in action, and of his brothers Stan and Arnold, who also served but thankfully returned.  

A sad postscript to Austin's story:

I posted the photographs of Austin and the Caterpillar Valley memorial on the Find-a-Grave web site, and this led to my being contacted by the wife of my second cousin Kevin, whom I had never met, but to whom Austin was also a great uncle, and whose grandfather was Stan, as noted on the above Honour Roll. Kevin's father was named for Austin, and his German wife was also interested in family history. A couple of years later we were travelling in Germany and met Kevin, an ex-New Zealander who spoke fluent German after living and working in the country for about twenty years. Kevin collected us from our hotel and took us to their home for 'Kaffe und Kuchen' in the small village where they lived near the town of Mainz. They seemed a lovely couple, so we were shocked and saddened to hear in 2010 that Kevin had died, his wife was in a mental hospital, and their two little boys were in care. I don't know the exact circumstances of what happened, but I don't think it was through accident or illness. RIP Kevin.

 Here's a song written and sung by one of my favourite Scottish Australian folkies, Eric Bogle, that illustrates the essential futility of war. I've been to so many of Eric's concerts over the years, but they are always great!

And finally, a sad 'in memoriam' notice, placed in the Ballarat Courier 9 August 1917, a year after the death of my husband's great uncle, who died aged 19 at Monquet Farm, near Pozieres, France, on 8 August 1916:

FEATHERSTON.-In loving memory of
my dear son and brother Private Albert Leslie Featherston,
killed in action in France 8th August, 1916 (previously
reported missing).
Your country called for soldiers
To fight 'neath the Union Jack:
With a cheerful smile Les left us,
With a hope he'd soon some back.
You fought midst other heroes;
Yes bravely fought and fell
how we sit and think of you, dear Les,
No other tongue can tell.
-Inserted by his loving mother, sisters, and brothers, Joe, Ralph, Sylvia and Lillian.

Private Albert Leslie Featherston, photo from the Ballarat Courier, 2 June 1917.

Doorsteps: family gatherings and stories of love and loss, and of then and now

I didn't really think I had many photos of people framed in doorways or porches, but on closer examination my mother's albums come to my rescue again.  I could single out just one, but I'm not good at choosing, so will include a few of them here.

Here are my grandparents Mona and Jack Morrison on the porch of their weatherboard home at 2 Aylmer St Somerfield, with their two oldest children Patricia and Kenneth, in about 1925. My mother Jean was the next child to arrive, being born the following year.

Kenneth Forbes Morrison, the baby in the photograph above, enlisted and became a pilot in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Aged only 19, he was a Flight Sergeant in the 78th Squadron RAF, but tragically Ken and all his crew were killed when the Halifax he was flying was shot down over Wuppertal Germany on 25 June 1943. Sister Jean was sixteen, and has told me she remembers the day they received news of his death as if it were yesterday.  The crew members' names appear in one of a large number of books of remembrance maintained for all those RAF members who have died in conflicts worldwide. These books line the walls of the RAF Church of St Clement Danes, London, and are well worth a visit.

 The second photo was taken just in front of the Aylmer St porch, and shows Jack with his father Daniel and brother Arnold, who must both have come down to Christchurch for some occasion. Daniel and his wife Mary Bridget Morrissey emigrated from Cork in 1875 with their first baby daughter,changed their surname to Morrison,  and had another fourteen children in the district of Canvastown, Marlborough NZ. Daniel began his working life as a messenger boy in Cork, and retired as a much respected company secretary of a local cheese factory. A large brood indeed, but in those days babies just happened, and four of the Morrison children died in infancy. Of the remaining sons, Bill, the eldest, was a farmer, and three of his brothers became lawyers, including the two above, but missing from any future family gatherings would be their brother Austin Lindsay, who was killed in the Battle of the Somme. On Sept 9th 1916 he wrote his last letter home: 'If anything should happen to me try and bear it Mother, as cheerfully as possible, just for my sake.  I can't write any more, there is a great deal I would like to say but don't know how to; I send my fondest love to all and hope to meet you all again.  Farewell now Mother mine, with fondest love from your son Austin.xxxxxxxx. '

Lest We Forget

Next are three photos taken when Mona and daughter Jean visited Mona's sister Ruby and her husband Will in about 1935. Will Berry and his son Jack posed in the doorway of their Invercargill home.

The Invercargill home to which the arched doorway is attached

A couple of charmers: Jack, right, with his older brother Doug, still in the doorway

 Sadly Jack [John Waldwyn Berry], born in 1920, was to be killed in 1943 in Italy. The report from the Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database records that "[At] 8:00 am on 21 November 1943, Corporal Berry and two others crossed the Sangro River. Arriving on the further bank, Berry left his men behind and went on alone to the foot of a cliff. He left his gun and then, apparently, climbed the cliff unarmed. He did not return, and nothing more was heard of him until months later when his grave was discovered near Chieti, Italy". So there was to be equal heartbreak for sisters Mona and Ruby,  mothers of cousins Ken and Jack.

On a happier note, here are my paternal grandparents Oliver and Myrtle Cruickshank, standing in the alcove of their home in Rangiora NZ, in 1949, and then no doubt one of them has taken a shot of their son Ian and his fiancee Jean in the same setting.  Jean has captioned the photos accordingly.

Mr and Mrs Cruickshank

'A future Mr and Mrs'

The Cruickshank family home in Park St Rangiora. Granddad Oliver was a keen gardener.

Back in the Aylmer St porch a few months later, we see Mona and Jack again, all dressed and ready for the wedding of their daughter Jean to Ian Cruickshank on 22 April 1950.

Here too are  Aunties Bess and Flo, two more sisters of Mona, also set to go to their niece Jean's wedding.

 Finally, here's a doorway photograph taken in far off Turriff Aberdeenshire, ancestral home of my Cruickshank ancestors. During the year spent in the UK in 1953/4, my parents visited the mothers of all the crew members who had perished with Ken. We also called in on some relatives like my great great Aunty Kitty in Margate, as discussed in  a previous post, and also my great grandfather's cousin, George Morrison Cruickshank, who ran the chemist shop in Turriff, where we stayed in a flat above the shop for a few nights.  Pictured in the doorway with a small yours truly are George, born 1874, and his daughter Janet, born 1919.

 Amazingly just a couple of weeks ago another Cruickshank descendant in Invercargill NZ showed me this 'matching' postcard that George had sent to her family back in the 1920s. On the back George wrote that it showed him standing in his shop doorway, with his little daughter Janet standing on the kerbside.

High St, Turriff, 2003. 

 The Cruickshank pharmacy in Turriff is still run by Alan, one of George's grandsons. We met him there but didn't think to pose in the doorway.

For more doorstop gatherings and reflections, go to Sepia Saturday 203.