Book Review: –
This book is a biography written by a 90 year old nurse/midwife who was one of a family of eighteen children born on the Murchison Goldfields just after the turn of the century (early 1900’s). From humble beginnings Mavis succeeds in fulfilling her training at Royal Perth Hospital and was to become the matron of the Pemberton Hospital. She was never to marry herself.
This is an example of a dedicated life with no great dramas but a life full of sincerity and an uncompromising attitude to life. Mavis could be described as one of Australias uncomplicated achievers.’
The above photograph depicts the following:-
Lady seated far left is Matilda Hossack (Mavis’s Aunt)
The young boy behind her is Charles McGillivray jnr
Man in centre seated is Charles McGillivray Snr
Young boy in front of him is Archibald Hay McGillivray
Young woman standing at rear on left is Margaret Jane McGillivray
Beside her is Jessie McGillivray jnr
Young man in far right corner is David McGillivray
Woman seated on rifght is Jessie McGillivray Snr ,nee Hossack
Baby on her knee is Isabella McGillivray
Little girl to her left is Matilda May McGillivray
Mavis was born in Lennonville on the 10th May 1905 and was called Matilda May McGillivray but was always known and Mavis. One of eighteen children, twelve boys and six girls. Only nine of the boys and four girls were to grow to adulthood. The family moved around a lot so the children were all born in different places on the Goldfields such as Mount Magnet, Day Dawn, Younami and Cue.
Her parents, Charles McGillivray and Jessie Hossack were from Scotland and married in Queensland and had their first child there, David McGillivray, before travelling to the west. Charles McGillvray Snr was an only child and his widowed mother, Margaret Hossack, came with the family. She was a very experienced midwife (luckily for Mavis’s mother) and delivered many babies in the towns they lived in. When she was widowed to Charles father she re married the brother of Mavis’s mothers father so she has the same name as Jessie’s maiden name (complicated). It would make her a grandmother on both her father and her mothers side.
Moya Sharp
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