Kelly Baker ancestors

By the late 1870s the little settlement of Hornsdale was well established, with a blacksmith, a post office, a school and an Anglican Church, all just half a mile down the road from the Kelly house. For the Catholics, there was a church at Jamestown and at Caltowie, run by visiting Jesuits from Seven hill. There was also a church at Appila which was the home church of the Hornsdale Catholics. It is quite impressive, built a good kilometre or so out of the town centre on a slight hill, as if the people expected the town to grow quite large. Sadly, like so many places in that part of South Australia, the land just could not sustain so many people, and the church still stands alone, and was decommissioned several years ago and has been converted into a house.

This was the parish church, and when you travel the road from Hornsdale to Appila, still a dirt road like all the roads in the area, you can imagine what a journey it would have been in a horse and cart, in the hot sun or cold wind. Appila was where Kate Kelly would go to do her shopping, and Joan recently found a shopping list, which listed among other things, ribbons, boots and straw hats for the twins. The last two children were the twins, Martha and Nan. A bigger shopping expedition would have been to Jamestown, which was twice the distance away.

When James married, Mary his mother came to live at Hornsdale with the family. Mary died at the age of 65, in 1880, only 3 years later. She was buried in the Appila cemetery. It appears as though the plot is a double one. We know that Anne, sister of James, died in 1898 and was also buried here, so we can assume that she is here alongside her mother, even though there is no headstone for her. The cemetery is well cared for by the local Catholics and they have a mass there once a year.

The Kelly children were educated at the local one teacher school. The school building arrived from Port Adelaide via Port Pirie by ship, then to Caltowie by train, and was carted to Hornsdale. This was the usual method of getting heavy supplies to the area, and was quite a burden on the settlers. It was also the way they got their wheat to market. It was estimated that transport cost the farmers 20% of their crop price.

The school was model Wooden School A. It was unsatisfactory and warped easily, was cold and draughty, the chimneys smoked, and the teachers room had no ventilation at all. It was a model discontinued in 1883. Despite the efforts of the local residents to get it removed and a stone structure built, it is still standing, just.

It seemed a lively enough school. Concerts were held regularly from 1882, with 200 people attending the first one, many of whom could not get in, and conducted their own entertainment outside in the moonlight. In the 1890s there was emphasis on the Annual Exhibitions, competitions, sports and a concert between schools in the region. May Kelly scored well in a spelling bee at one of these. Jack Kelly gained his Progress Certificate at the early age of 11.

Like country people everywhere, there were sports, and get-togethers of various kinds. In the early days, coursing, or greyhound racing was popular, and hares were chased over the land. This was something that James participated in. Cricket and football were played. Surprisingly roller skating was a popular pastime in the whole district, and this took place on the upper story of Horns Barn, just down the road from the Hornsdale crossroads, until it looked like the floor was not strong enough to withstand the enthusiasm of the skaters, and it was reserved for the country dances after that.

The children in the Kelly family were first, Mary who died in infancy. Then Margaret, a beautiful young woman who sadly died just after the family moved to Adelaide in 1902 of an infection. She had been sent to board at Cabra and studied music. We have a medal that she was awarded from the Elder Conservatorium.

Frank, my grandfather was the oldest boy. He went to CBC in Adelaide for secondary school. He came back to the farm for a while, and must have decided that farming was not for him. Anyone who remembers him would understand this well. The gene for practicality seems remarkably absent from many of his descendants as well as himself. He studied law at Adelaide University, then went up to Darwin to start practising. At that time the Northern Territory was still part of South Australia. He practised law there, and some of his cases that have been researched were defending local Chinese people on opium charges. He was present at the proclamation of the Northern Territory as a separate area.

His time there was short lived. There was a young nurse with twinkling brown eyes who had run away from home in Ballarat to become a nurse, then gone up to Darwin to work. They met and fell in love. This was my grandmother Sheila Kelly. Her time in Darwin must have made an impression on her, particularly working with the aboriginal people there. She retained a life long interest in the welfare of the original inhabitants, and always got very angry in later life when there were appeals for funds for the starving in other countries and asked why we didn't turn our attention closer to home and look after our own people first. Frank and Sheila came back south, were married in Ballarat and lived in Adelaide all their lives. They had 6 children.

They are Peter Kelly, who sadly is not well enough to come today. John Kelly, whose children Martin, John, Paul, MaryJo, David, Tony and their families are here today, and Anne who had written to us from Uganda, where she is working as a missionary, wishing very much she could be here. Michael Kelly, whose children Maria, Sara and families are here. Pat Hannon, who is here with all the Hannons except Michael. Judy Sandoval, whose son Frank was the only one able to make the trip from the States, is here with his family. Gwen McGregor, who is here, with Alex, Sheila, Richard, Peter and families.

Next in the family was John, or Uncle Jack as he was called. He became a dentist. He used to travel up to the country to see patients as well as work in town. He worked at Lippman and Kelly. He was very popular and very well known, especially with the young women. Unfortunately he died of pneumonia at the age of 30. He never married. It was through him that the family met the O'Sullivans, more of them in a moment.

May Kelly trained to be a school teacher. She was very bright and very pretty. She was reputedly the one who took up her skirts just a little higher than most of the young women when she was teaching in Jamestown, and scandalised the townspeople and delighted the men by showing a very shapely ankle. Peter remembers being taken into her bedroom in about 1914 to farewell her admirer. He went off to the war and was killed in a train accident on the Somme. She never married. She taught for many years at Norwood Primary School.

In 1900 James and the family left the farm, presumably since neither of the sons were going to continue farming. They moved to Adelaide. The other children were Kathleen, and the twins, Mattie and Nan.

Kathleen married Jim O'Sullivan, related to the O'Sullivans here, and lived at Kapunda on a farm for many years. She had four children. Only one was able to come today, Peg Sheehan from Toowoomba. Frank may be here tomorrow.

Mattie married Terry Holland and had two children, Joan, the keeper of the family history par excellence amongst many other things, and Bill, who are both here, with Claire and families.
Nan married Frank Lucas. They had 4 children. Maureen was not able to be here today, but several of her children are, Susie, Michael, Rosie, Jane. Jenny will be here tomorrow. Jac is here.

James believed passionately in a good education, but it seems he was somewhat selective in his application of that belief. His two sons were well educated. May was permitted to train as a teacher. Mattie wanted to be a nurse, but he thought that that was not fitting, and that she ought to stay home and help in the house. She and Kathleen did that until they married. Although they greatly enjoyed going in to act as relieving receptionists Jack's dental practice, and would have loved to get out and work. They married in their late twenties, delayed no doubt due to the first world war, as the husbands to be of all three girls went to France, or north Africa during the war.

Nan went and sat for a scholarship at Muirden College, and came top of the exam. She won a half scholarship to train as a secretary. It has been suggested that James was not one to let something for nothing go, and that Nan was permitted to do the course. She excelled, and worked for many years as a secretary until her marriage to Frank Lucas. There is a story about Nan and her new shoes. She was sitting by the fire one night and had her feet quite close to the heat. For those of you who remember leather shoes, if they get too hot, it can make the leather crack. James told her to move her feet back. She replied "I bought the shoes with my own money, and I'll ruin them if I want to".

James took a keen interest in politics all his life. In the early stages at Hornsdale he participated in addressing parliamentary commissions. He attended the Farmers' Federal Conference in Melbourne in 1897.

He appears to have been a successful farmer, and over the years, increased the size of his property by buying out others. He finally sold Rockdale in 1912.

The Kellys settled in 5th Avenue St Peters when they moved to Adelaide. James had a row of Hansards on the back verandah kept in chronological order. He kept an interest in the farm for some time, and followed the crops and weather avidly like all farmers do. He bought several houses in Adelaide and they provided a living. He was a member of the St Peter's Council Historical Society, for which he researched and wrote papers. He was mentally very alert all his life and physically well. He used to skip every day until the last few years.

Some of James' grandchildren have clear recollections of Papa, as they called him. They say that he retired at 50 from the land and spent the next 40 years sitting on the back verandah and terrifying his grandchildren by asking them difficult mathematical questions. There are fond memories as well. Peter Kelly remembers being terribly impressed as a boy is because James had a wooden box on the verandah, full of tools and various useful things, one of which was a real bullet. The boys were on occasion, permitted to examine this bullet with great solemnity and ceremony. Peter remembers James telling him that his grandfather was the strongest man in Ireland, and he was known as "Bully Kelly". Peter says he was a great conversationalist, and very much enjoyed the many stream of visitors that he had in old age to the house in 5th Avenue, St Peters.

Joan perhaps knew him the best, as her family moved into his house so that her mother Mattie could keep house for Papa and Aunty May after Granny, Catherine Erwin, died in 1929. Joan remembers the country visitors. Many of these were the country relations who would drop in on him when they came to the city for education, or later presenting their fiances, wives or children to him, as he was then the oldest surviving member of Jeremiah and Mary's family after Patrick died in 1923, the link with Ireland, the patriarch. Some of these cousins were known as the Belalie Kellys, who we think were the descendants of Jeremiah's brother John who came out in 1850. Other visitors were the O'Sullivans from Kapunda, the family Kathleen had married into. The grandchildren used to go there frequently for holidays through the years. Other who Joan remembers were nieces and nephews like Teresa Slattery, Archdeacon Patrick Kelly, Michael Kelly and the McNamara nieces.

Joan remembers him dressing up in his best suit and wearing his gold watch and chain that had been presented to him by his friends at Hornsdale when he left the farm, and going off to town once a week on the tram on set day each week. At home he used to wear the silver watch and chain.

James apparently had a fiery temper and liked to get his own way. He was autocratic and quite definitely the boss of the household. Perhaps this stems from his being the youngest and being spoilt by his mother and waited on by his sister Anne, his very gentle wife and his daughters. Joan remembers him on the night before he had his fatal stroke as she walked in front of him to turn on the light. She says she was a bit slow walking, and he hurried her on quoting "Men may come and men may go but I go on forever".

That night he had a stroke and died the next day, in December 1939. He is buried in the West Terrace Cemetery with his wife Catherine, daughter Margaret and son John.

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