Women's History Month: Louisa Mary Ann Abberton

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 Louisa Mary Ann Nicolls.
                 Born 8 December 1860 in Lochyersleigh, NSW.  
           Died 7 May 1903 in Centre St, Redfern, NSW.
 Buried 8 May 1903 in Rookwood, NSW.
                                                   
 From my research, I know that Louisa was a school teacher, first at Tarlo Gap and then at Mummel. I know that at the time she was teaching there, Mummel was a thriving community, with a post office,  several pubs, a church, cemetery and a copper mine. Farming was the main source of income for most of the parents, of her students. Reading the school records I know that Louisa had to ask permission, for the school to close when ploughing matches took place. She also wrote and explained that attendance was low because the children were required to help with the harvest. I have stood in the classroom, she taught in, walked into the rooms that were her home and wonder what it was like for her.

I can assume  she met her husband,  Thomas Abberton at Mummel, as he grew up in Mummel and that is  where they married. Seven children followed, Fredrick, 1891, Sidney, 1892, Marianne, 1894, Matthew, 1896, Leslie, 1898, William, 1900 and Michael, 1903. Michael died several hours before Louisa.  Letters in her school file have her asking for " with my next posting, may it be closer to a town as I have two children, am pregnant, with my third and am looking after my elderly mother." I don't know if she got her request as she seems to have stopped teaching. I had assumed that once a woman married, she ceased employment. Louisa didn't, for several years.


Louisa was 43 when she died in May 1903 from Phthisis, that she had had for a year. We know it today as Pulmonary Tuberculosis. I can't begin to imagine how hard it must have been for her, pregnant and so ill. Louisa was buried in an unmarked grave, and in 1990 I was able to place a plaque on it.

Louisa's legacy; 7 children, 12 grandchildren and 54 great-grand-children.




Comments

  1. BernieH16 March 2022 at 11:29

    Louisa is the embodiment of resilience in the fact of adversity. She must have endured so much being pregnant, suffering TB at the same time, and looking after six young children. That is a beautiful photo of her.

    ReplyDelete

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