e-Muster August 2012 - Central Coast Family History Society Inc.

Page Page No: No: 15
Journal of the Central Coast Family History Society Inc.
THE HALL SEAT
The short entrance from our front door opens into a wider area and there
stands the hall seat. Let me tell you something of its history and how it came
to be there.
My grandfather, Alfred White, my mother’s father, was a cabinet maker.
Alfred married Mary Louisa in 1902 and they moved to Lismore on the NSW
north coast. Here Alfred worked for a furniture manufacturer as foreman
cabinet maker, and it was at Lismore that my mother, Leonie, was born in
1905.
Time passed. By the 1920’s the family had moved to Sydney, my mother’s
older sister had graduated from teachers college and was teaching in
western NSW. Leonie was the remaining daughter so was natural she, then
in her early 20’s, would assume the role of carer for her invalid mother.
Clearly Alfred loved his daughter and greatly appreciated the sacrifice she
was required to make. Though he was no longer in the trade, Alfred drew on
all his skill as a cabinet maker to make for Leonie a hall seat, to be used as a
glory box for her trousseau. By the time Mother and Dad married in 1931
the hall seat was well stocked with linen and other items required by the
newlywed couple.
Mother and Dad moved from their initial North Sydney apartment to a larger
flat at Greenwich when the first of four sons was born. I was born there in
1936, the second son. The family moved on to Sutherland to begin a new life
following the strains of the post-Depression years; on then to Cronulla,
possible for more affordable accommodation, back to a different house in
Sutherland to start yet again to build a life after the difficult years of WW II,
then to the Canberra suburb of Yarralumla when Dad was transferred to
open a branch office for his insurance firm, and then to the nearby suburb of
Farrer when Dad retired. Mother moved back to Sydney and into a
retirement village after Dad died in 1985.
The hall seat, the first item of furniture to be moved into their first home in
1931, had travelled faithfully across the miles and the years. Inevitably, the
time came for Mother to move to a nursing home where space for personal
items was limited. As is the way, her sons and their wives selected special
items. I selected the hall seat, so let me tell you why.
The Muster – August ugust 2012
2012