Aline Laura Hughan

Aline Laura Hughan was the fourth of five daughters born to 42 year old Phoebe Berry Hall Hughan and her husband Allan Hughan. She was the first of their children to be born in Noumea, where she arrived on September 24, 1871.
In the footsteps pf her two elder sisters, Aline was raised to be musical, and was a talented pianist like her sisters and mother.She was educated at the St Joseph of Cluny school in Noumea, and was bilingual, speaking English and French equally well.
Aline was only 12 years old when her father and sister Ruth both died in 1883, and was 18 when her mother was institutionalised with mental problems in 1889. She remained in Noumea with her sister Minnie.
Aline and Minnie both travelled regularly to Sydney to visit their mother, and Aline also travelled to England, there being a shipping record in 1908 of her boarding the ship 'Orient' at London to sail back to Australia.The last record of Miss A. Hughan making the trip from Noumea to Sydney was in February of 1909.
For many years I could not find out what had happened to the adult Aline, and I fervently wished that she had married and grown old with a large and loving family
around her...something that had been denied her sisters.
Of course, I should have known that no member of this family would have been granted a fairy tale ending...I finally located Aline's death in England in 1914, and so I duly sent for her death certificate.
I couldn't believe what I was reading when it arrived...poor Aline had died at the Brentwood Asylum at South Weald,Essex, on July 4, 1914. Her cause of death was given as "chronic nephritis, six months", and her occupation as " spinster and teacher of French and Elocution from Ossett Union Work House (previous address unknown)"
Another sister dying alone without family around her...or without children to carry on her family's story.