This elegant lady is my father's maternal grandmother, Emma Glover, wearing her wedding dress for her marriage to John Slater Anderson. My father, also John, unearthed it recently.
Emma's parents were Abraham Glover (1823-1898) and Ann Lee (1833-1922). Emma was a pupil at Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne, where her studies included music and singing. Family stories tell that Emma was full of energy, optimism, and practicality.
Her fiancée, John, held a senior position in the firm of Anderson, Campbell and Sloss, but by about 10 months before the the wedding, the partnership was dissolved and John Anderson was out of the firm.
The wedding took place at the residence of Mr Patulloin, a well established farmer of Lang-Lang East. Emma’s uncle, the Reverend Charles Anjwin, a Methodist minister, officiated.
The couple took up residence in a fashionable home in St Kilda Road. Their first child Victor was born in 1888. But continuing family business problems saw the couple fall on hard times and required to move to more humble accommodation.
Lack of employment and money eventually found the couple in a small house in a back street near Greville Street, Prahran. Perhaps it was Emma's brother, Dan Glover, who came to see how sister Emma and the children were getting on – he knew that times were hard as John was out of work. He found Emma at her treadle sewing machine, making shirt collar bands for two shillings a gross at home and offered a move to a rural property at Nyora in Gippsland as an alternative.
The Andersons had six children: Victor ('Vic', b. 1888), Maude (b. 1890), Christina - my grandmother (b. 1892), William ('Wil', b.1897), James (b.1899) ... and John, who seems to have been born prematurely.
Emma died in their cottage at Nyora in 1906. She was alone with Christina. Will and little Jim were probably at school. Vic and Maude were working at farms in the district. Chrissie ran two miles to the nearest woman for help – Vic and Maude had to ride home from the farms where they worked. We assume somebody sent a telegram to her husband in Melbourne. Maude was too late to speak with her mother, and little newborn John had died. Emma, with baby John, was buried in a pauper's grave at Nyora Cemetery.
