Gertrude Symes

Story

My Grandmother immigrated to Australia four years after we did (The Foster-Bailey Family-1952) when my father was ‘called up\’ during World War ll she moved in with my mother to keep her company and to help with us children, after the War she stayed on with us until we immigrated. Granny was a Salvationist attending the Corps in the town of Redruth in Cornwall.

My parents decided to bring her out to Australia when they received a letter from the lady she boarded with saying how lonely she was and how much she missed the family. The Suez Canal was still open at the time so she was at least able to sail to Australia by the shortest route. I don\’t recall her saying much about the trip except that she was forever getting lost in the narrow passages on the ship when trying to find her way down to her cabin and was always having to ask a steward which way to go.

We were living in West Preston when she arrived in Australia and so were all able to go to Station Pier to meet her. Later when my parents moved to Tasmania, she again sailed with us on the old SS Taroona to Devonport. She spent the next six years in Tasmania and moved back to Victoria to stay with my parents at Portsea in 1964.

Since I was quite young in England, I remember Granny often had a recurring dream that she was living by the sea and loving every minute of it. At Portsea, the house was right on the cliff and she would walk over to the back fence and watch the Ships sailing though the ‘Heads.\’ As she turned to walk back into the house my Dad was often heard to say ‘here\’s Granny with the shipping forecast’ Granny loved Australia and the sunshine and passed away suddenly at the end of a beautiful spring day in 1964. She had spent the day watching the sea and the ships in the sunshine, singing her favourite hymn about heaven and talking about looking forward to being a Great Granny. You could say that Australia helped her dreams come true.

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