Following on from yesterday’s post that I wrote about William Beavis Randell who founded Gumeracha, is his obituary that I found in the South Australian Register on Trove.

I actually found this article last week, but felt that I needed to introduce him before his giving details of his death, so I decided to make this a Trove Tuesday post.

William Beavis Randell is the man who MADE Gumeracha a town.

In 1837 while living in Kenton, Devon, England he and his wife together with their 7 children packed up their belongings and boarded the ‘Hartley‘. William was initially going to work in partnership with George Fife Angas, however this didn’t work out, and instead William Beavis Randell was offered a position of overseeing the agricultural pursuits of the South Australian Company, of which Angas was a founder and chairman. He was one of a number of men who travelled on the same voyage who had been employed by the South Australian Company.

The small town of Mannum, in South Australia in sits on right on the banks of the River Murray, so it’s no wonder that it gets flooded now and then.

In sorting through family heirlooms, I came across a collection of old photos of Mannum in flood. Unfortunately they are undated, but going by the style of photograph, together with reading up about the floods that hit Mannum, I would suggest that these were from the 1890, 1896, or 1917 flood. If anyone can shed some more light on the specific date on them, I’d be forever grateful.

In going through old family ephemera I found this beautiful old Christmas card … and as it’s almost Christmas I’d share it now.

There’s no santa, no reindeer, no snowman, no tree or even ornaments on this card. It is simple and yet very elegant. And I know I’m right in saying “they sure don’t make ’em like they used to”.

This Christmas card (postcard) was sent to my great great grandma Phebe Randell (nee Robbins), at ‘Salem Glen’, Gumeracha