CASSERLY- The Death of a Hero

On the 6th October 1938, at the Edwards Find Gold Mine near Southern Cross, an elderly miner called Frank Pagoda was overcome by dynamite fumes. His mate, Paul Casserly, made several attempts to rescue him, sustaining a fracture of the skull in his attempts which eventually claimed his life on the 12th October 1938. He […]

Child of the Woodline – grave tales

Some years ago I posted the following photograph and although I said I had no idea who was the child buried  in this sad little grave in the Kalgoorlie Cemetery, it was shared many thousands of times. It evokes all the sadness of a family who were unable to afford a proper memorial so they […]

Southern Cross – Update

Outback Family History page for Southern Cross An OFH reader recently contacted me to say that part of the Southern Cross Cemetery register was missing. It only went as far as ‘P’. So today I have devoted the day to fixing the register and working on the data to make it easier to read and […]

A Case of Mistaken Identity –

While recently doing my daily post on the WAVMM ‘The Western Australian Virtual Miners Memorial’ I found that it was the anniversary of a disaster that caused the death of three men at the Englishman GM in Kookynie on the 3rd February 1900. The names of the victims were:- BOURKE John, Miner 3/02/1900 Age 35 […]

An Eerie Premonition – Michael Madden

I had been researching the accidental death of this miner because of an entry I found in the Annual Report from the Department of Mines for 1897 which stated, that a miner called ‘John Madden’ had been killed in an accident on the Goongarrie GM. As this name was not one I had listed I […]