GILMORE, Dame MARY JEAN (1865-1962), writer, was born on 16 August 1865 near Goulburn, New South Wales.
At 7 Mary went to school briefly at Brucedale near Wagga Wagga and at 9 to Wagga Wagga Public School. At 16 she passed a formal entrance examination and began as a probationary pupil-teacher at the Superior Public School, Wagga Wagga.
After passing the IIIA teachers' examination, Mary was appointed in October 1887 as temporary assistant at Silverton Public School near Broken Hill. She remained there until December 1889 spending the Christmas vacation of 1888-89 in Sydney with her mother. Mary was transferred to Neutral Bay Public School in January 1890.
Her relationship with Henry Lawson probably began in 1890: in 1923 she recalled that 'It was a strange meeting that between young Lawson and me. I had come down permanently to the city from Silverton'. There was clearly, however, a close relationship between them in 1890-95.
Her first collection of poems, Marri'd, and other Verses, simple colloquial lyrics, written mainly at Cosme and Casterton, commenting on the joys, hopes, and disappointments of life's daily round, was published in 1910 by George Robertson & Co. Pty Ltd of Melbourne.
Her second volume of poetry, The Passionate Heart (1918), reflected her horrified reaction to World War 1. In 1925 a third volume of verse, The Tilted Cart, appeared; the poems were accompanied by copious notes indicating her keen interest in recording the minutiae of the pioneer past.
Her book of verse, The Wild Swan, had been published in 1930, its radical themes, together with its anguish over the ravaging of the land by white civilization and the destruction of Aboriginal lore, making it her most impressive work to that point. Her twin books of prose reminiscences, Old Days, Old Ways: a Book of Recollections and More Recollections were published in 1934 and 1935. In them she recaptures the spirit and atmosphere of pioneering.
She published a new volume of poems, Battlefields, in 1939. The title referred to her own radical campaigns. In 1954, as she approached her ninetieth year, she published her final volume of poetry, Fourteen Men.
She died on 3 December 1962 (Eureka Day)
Evans, Ellen Alice. ‘Nellie’ (1883-1944)
Amongst Crookwell’s local writers of distinction was Ellen Alice Evans nicknamed (The Gypsy).
“Nellie” was educated at St. Joseph’s convent in North Goulburn. She began writing at an early age and her first verse was published when she was 11 years old. She won many verse competitions. It is believed that some of her early work was published in the “Goulburn Evening Penny Post” & “The Goulburn Herald”.
At an early age she moved to Sydney and became a journalist and wrote for many newspapers magazines & journals. Her early life was not well documented.
Mary Gilmore described her as “a natural lyricist. Her poetry sang and her words were music’. The great bulk of her poems were sent to England for publication and were subsequently lost and it is perhaps for this reason that her splendid verse is not well known in her ‘homeland’.
In her time her work was found in nearly every principal newspaper & magazine in Eastern Australia including papers such as the Bulletin, The Melbourne Age & The Sydney Morning Herald.
Of a shy & retiring nature she was well known in the Bohemian haunts of her contemporary writers and acclaimed by the majority.
“Nellie” Evans died in Sydney in 1944 at the age of 60.
A 47 page collection of Nellie’s works “The remembered valley & other poems” was published in 1947 by John Lynch. |
The weekend is Mc’d by multi-award winning NSW Poet, “The Rhymer from Ryde” Graeme Johnson.
