#berriman

[alwayswonderingandwandering]

berriman & chapman

[ijenkins99]

Digging Around My Family Tree

Who was my Grandfather? Pt 2

Alexander Alfred Tyrie (1889-1979)

In the first part of this post, I described how I pieced together small pieces of information about my grandfather:

Alexander Alfred Jenkins who married my grandmother, Edith Henrietta Berriman, in 1927 was actually Alexander Alfred Tyrie, who came to Australia from New Zealand in 1925 using his mother’s maiden name as an alias.

Alfie, as we knew him, returned to New Zealand in 1929 supposedly to attend to family business with the promise he would return promptly to Australia. At that time my grandmother had an infant daughter and was pregnant with my father. He never returned.

It transpired Alfie had married Annie Wilson in New Zealand in 1921 and had a son with her in 1924. He left Annie in very similar circumstances to the way in which he left my grandmother. It now seems likely his return to New Zealand in 1929 was to file for divorce. 

It might be an impossible task, but I would like to know why Alfie behaved the way he did:

Did being the youngest child of a family of seven contribute? 

Does the five year gap between Alfie and his next youngest sibling indicate he was an unplanned, or unwanted, child? 

Alfie’s mother died when he was 18 years old. Did this affect him more deeply than his older siblings?

His father remarried two years later. What sort of relationship did he have with his stepmother? 

Does the fact that Alfie didn’t go into his father’s Dunedin plastering business like his brothers suggest he had a problematic relationship with his father? 

I don’t expect I can ever fully understand Alfie’s character, but I continue to find snippets of information that add colour and depth to my picture of him. Learning about our ancestors can often answer one question and pose two more:

On 29 September 1929 NSW Police issued an arrest warrant for desertion. The warrant was never served or actioned because Alfie was back in New Zealand at this time.

Edith would have been just pregnant with my father when Alfie deserted. At the fateful meeting after Edith’s death, my father asked Alfie why he wasn’t there for him during his childhood. Alfie’s defence was that he didn’t think he was the father of Edith’s child. Looking at photos of Alfie (left) and my father, with his mother and sister (right), I don’t think there is much doubt. Any possible doubt has been eliminated by recent DNA testing.

Electoral rolls for 1935 and 1938 show Alfie living at 23 Hobson Street, St Clair in Dunedin, a few doors away from his older brother William. He was working as a Warehouseman at this time. 

After the outbreak of WW2 in 1939, the 23rd (Canterbury-Otago) Battalion was formed as part of the 2nd New Zealand Division. Alfie enlisted in the 23 Canto but his war service didn’t last long. On 10 September 1941 Alfie is listed in the New Zealand Herald among the sick and wounded personnel returning home.

The next discovery was a curious one:

As discussed in Part 1 of this post, divorce proceedings between Alfie and his first wife, Annie, were commenced in 1932 but the marriage was not dissolved until 1946. By 1943, perhaps Alfie did believe he was divorced or maybe it was wishful thinking but irrespective of the state of his marriage to Annie, he was undeniably married to my grandmother in NSW.

On 12 December 1946 Alfie married for the fourth and final time to Mary Brown (nee McLaughlan). Mary’s first husband Arthur Arnold Brown had died in 1943 and her marriage to Alfie lasted five years until they were divorced in 1952. Mary’s third and final marriage was to Ralph Murray Holland (1914-1972). 

Mary died on 9 September 2015 at the venerable age of 96 years in Fitzgerald Hospital, Christchurch. Once again, I am frustrated that I learned of her marriage to Alfie after her passing. It is interesting that her death notice, published in Otago Daily Times, mentions Arthur Brown and Ralph Holland, but not Alfie Tyrie.

Alfie’s final years were spent at the original Montecillo Veterans Home. He died on 7 April 1979 at the age of 79 years and is buried at Andersons Bay Cemetery, Dunedin.

I now know most of the dates and facts relating to Alfie’s life but I feel his character and motivations are still much a mystery. It seems Alfie had a great need for companionship but wasn't prepared for the responsibilities of fatherhood. He was a gregarious and entertaining companion but he kept many secrets to himself.

Whatever the truth about Alfie, I can’t deny I carry a significant proportion of his DNA and I’ve passed it on to my children and grandchildren. 

Alexander Alfred Tyrie (29 Aug 1899 - 7 Apr 1979) Rest In Peace.

[ijenkins99]

Digging Around My Family Tree

Who Was My Grandfather? Pt 1

Alexander Alfred Tyrie (1899-1979)

Researching my father's father, Alexander Alfred Tyrie (known by our family as Alfie Jenkins), has been very frustrating. He played no part in my father’s upbringing; we knew precious little about other aspects of his life and I met him very briefly only once in his lifetime.

Alexander Alfred Tyrie was the youngest of the four boys and three girls of Alexander Tyrie Snr (1861-1951) and Jane Jenkins (1860-1917). Alfie was born in Bendigo, Victoria in 1899 but the family soon moved to Dunedin, NZ where he grew up. Alexander and Jane had married in Dunedin and had their first two children there, before moving to Bendigo where the other five were born. The Tyrie family traveled regularly between Australia and New Zealand as did many other families at this time (and still do today). 

Alfie Jenkins (using his mother’s maiden name as an alias) appeared on the far south coast of New South Wales in about 1925. He worked for the next few years on a number of farms around the Eurobodalla area owned by members of the Berriman family. On "Congo" farm at Bodalla, he gained a reputation for being a good and reliable worker. He was also known as a gregarious young bachelor, but we were to learn later this was not the case.

Alfie developed a relationship with the Turlinjah store post-mistress, my grandmother Edith Henrietta Berriman (1897-1962), and on 4 May 1927 they married at the local Coila Presbyterian Church. Alfie didn't disclose that he was already married in New Zealand and had a young family there.

Alfie’s first wife was Annie Porteous Wilson (1901-1975) and their child was David Alexander Tyrie (1924-1994). I would love to have spoken to Annie and David about their life with and without Alfie, but unfortunately they had both died before I knew of their existence. 

So far as I can determine, David never married and had no children. Annie married George Henry Brooks (1894-1962) in 1951 but they had no children, so that line is very much a brick wall in my research.

In 1928 Alfie and Edith had a daughter, Jacquiline Dawn Jenkins (1928-1993). In 1929, after the stillbirth of a second child, Ralph, but before my father was born on 4 April 1930, Alfie left Turlinjah to return to New Zealand on family business. He promised to return to Australia when his business dealings were concluded. 

This was the last anyone in our family saw of Alfie for about 30 years and my father almost never spoke to me about his father. Information gained recently indicates Alfie did not return to Annie & David in New Zealand, but lived alone. His divorce from Annie was heard in 1932 but the marriage was not dissolved until 1946. This becomes significant later in the story.

When Edith Jenkins died in 1962, James Berriman (a cousin of my father) traced Alfie through his war record to pass on the news. Dawn (my dad's sister) and James visited Alfie in Dunedin c.1965 and plans were made for him to visit Australia. This was done and Alfie came to our home in West Ryde. The reunion of my father and grandfather was not a successful one.

That was the only time I met my grandfather; I didn't get to know him then, but I’m intrigued to know now what contributed to his reluctance to settle down and raise a family.

[ijenkins99]

Digging Around My Family Tree

Return from the Dead

Arnold Mordaunt Talbot Berriman (1872-1923)

One of the more curious stories from my tree concerns a distant cousin who came to my attention when I found a newspaper story of his death in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906:

His death notice was published in the Barrier Miner on 25 June 1906:

The death of a loved one overseas would be devastating but when his brother travelled to America, presumably to repatriate the body, Harrold found Arnold was alive, although injured and recovering in hospital:

After a succession of shocks like this I would expect to see a fond family reunion in South Australia, but it seems Arnold stayed in America because the next document I found was a record of marriage to Ella Lucile Hurt in New Mexico, USA on 19 August 1908. The report of his marriage in the Albuquerque Citizen shows Arnold had changed his name to Talbot Arnold Berryman.

Talbot Berryman had an eventful World War 1 history. In 1914 he enlisted in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force and served two years in France before being wounded and discharged. Interestingly, he has provided a date of birth four years younger than fact:

Surprisingly, in September 1918, Talbot was enlisting again; this time for the US Armed Forces. He is recorded as a naturalised American, with no relatives in the US (I don’t know what became of Ella). Once again he has provided an incorrect date of birth (this time one year older than it should be):

Talbot Berryman died in Galveston, Texas on 7 December 1923. In a tragic twist of fate, this was two months after his older brother, Commercial Bank manager Thomas Berriman, was fatally wounded in a violent bank robbery in Hawthorn, Melbourne by the Squizzy Taylor gang. His parents, Thomas Snr and Elizabeth were still living at the time.