Saturday, January 10, 2009

Newspaper reports of Minnie's death




The first report as featured above was from the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday June 25, 1935, page 11. The second was from the Daily Telegraph on the same day.
The Telegraph report had some glaring mistakes regarding Minnie's life history, and obviously had questioned someone that wasn't particularly close to Minnie- Miss Younger, the superintendent of Twilight House most likley.
The article stated:
" Madame de Greslan was the daughter of a well-known pastoralist in NSW, and marrying a Frenchman, went with him to Noumea. There she lost touch with her old friends and relatives. She and her husband parted 20 years ago.
An accomplished pianist, she earned her living as a music and languages teacher for five years, then came to Sydney.
In a now strange country, she experienced many hardships before gaining recognition as a teacher. Five years ago, having saved sufficient money to keep her in her old age, she retired.
Some 15 months ago, she went to live at Twilight House, Mosman, and seemed perfectly happy. She spent much of her time tending a little patch of garden. Yesterday she told the superintendent, Miss Younger, that she was going to town, but apparently she went straight to The Gap."

The basics of the first few paragraphs are correct, but there are mistakes in the details...her father as a pastoralist was more well-known in Victoria than NSW, although he did have interests in NSW in the 1860s.She didn't meet Jean Gaston de Greslan in Australia and go with him to Noumea- she met him in Noumea where he was born and eventually ended up in Sydney.And Minnie didn't lose touch with her Sydney friends in Noumea- rather, she would have lost touch with her childhood friends from New Caledonia when she was forced to relocate to Sydney.

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