12 Ancestors in 12 Months, Marianne Clara Abberton.


                                                Clara, Lone Pine Sanctuary, Brisbane, January 1957

Born 22 July 1894[1], to Thomas Abberton and his wife Louisa Nichols, she was their third child and only daughter. As Thomas moved the family around, frequently she would see many different places, in New South Wales. Marianne would also be known as Clara or Claire. I knew her as Auntie Claire, from New Zealand.

On 13 October 1913 she married Frederick William Smith at the Parsonage, May Street, Newtown, New South Wales[2]. Frederick was 26 and Clara was 22. On her marriage certificate, there is yet another name change, this time as Clara Marion. Two children were born to Clara and Fred a boy, James, in 1913 and a girl, Eileen in 1915.

Sometime after the end of World War 1, Clara moved the children to New Zealand and this is where she lived, until her death on 23 July 1975[3], in Auckland, New Zealand, a day after her 81st birthday. She is buried in Rookwood Cemetery, New South Wales, Catholic Mortuary 2&3, Section 24, Row 23, Grave 793[4]. (What happened to Fred, I don’t know. Another mystery to try and solve.)

She was close to her brothers, mourning the loss of Leslie in World War 1 and her half-brother, Tommy in World War 11.

                                       With Leslie Abberton, prior to his departure to Egypt and World War 1

I don’t know if I ever met her but every Christmas she would send the New Zealand Christmas Stamp collection to us.  An Aunt I would have liked to know.
                                                  Christmas 1954, Bunbaberg, with her sister-in-law, May.   




[1] NSW Birth certificate, 6485/1894.
[2] NSW Marriage certificate 13344/1913.
[3] NZ Death certificate, 1975/39721.
[4] Rookwood Cemetery Transcriptions, CD, Compiled by the Society of Australian Genealogists, 2002

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