Moonee Valley Family & Local History Blog

If you love pictures of historic Melbourne, check out this site: http://www.hiddenmelbourne.com.au/OldMelbourneScenes This interactive site uses high resolution pictures, panoramas, photos and maps from the State Library of Victoria collections, like this one. http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/88101 You can click through to find lots of fascinating images of different sites in the early town and then rapidly growing city. Below, for example, is a view from 1855. http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/106370 And here is Melbourne by 1881! http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/69723   Definitely worth a look. Thanks to Barney Meyer for creating the site , and to State Library of Victoria for collecting and digitising the wonderful images.

Came across this gorgeous new book this morning...   Called All the buildings in Melbourne... that I've drawn so far , by artist James Gulliver Hancock, it is brimming with lovely artworks of iconic and interesting buildings from all over town. It is brand new and lovely, and so unsurprisingly we have a queue of folks waiting to borrow our copies. You can add yourself to our request list via our catalogue .

One of my library colleagues has recommended the Dead & Buried podcasts , a new series of interviews about all kinds of diverse and intriguing aspects of Melbourne history, including crime, civil disobedience, love and loss.

Looking for something to do this weekend? Want to discover more of our great city? Get along to one of the many buildings open this weekend as part of Open House Melbourne 2016. With building like Willsmere Asylum being open for the first time and the new Peter Mac Cancer Centre, this is a great chance for you to see part of Melbourne's history and some of the amazing architecture around Melbourne. For information on what's open and to get tickets to some events, visit:  http://www.openhousemelbourne.org/ 

The Community Heritage Collection has just purchased the September volume of the State Library of Victoria's La Trobe Journal. This volume focuses on Victoria in the First World War and what life was like back home during this time. La Trobe Journal no. 96 State Library of Victoria ( www.slv.vic.gov.au ) This is a must read for those who are interested in learning about how Melbourne was divided around some of the big issues of the war, like conscription, women's rights and Australia's involvement in the war. With topics being writing by some leading academics this book is a must read for any local history buff. We have a copy in the library available for load, however if you are unable to make it into your local Moonee Valley Library branch you can download chapters of the journal online through the State Library's website. La Trobe Journal at Moonee Valley Libraries State Library downloadable chapters

Soldiers resting in Trench, 1915 Sourced: Australian War Memorial ( www.awm.gov.au ) I had two grandfathers who served on the Western Front. To try and picture what they experienced, I imagine some trenches where they lived on and off for weeks, months and years. They are surrounded by rats, lice, rotting corpses and partly covered sewage. They and the people around them may not have bathed for weeks. They have poor shelter and endure freezing winters and summers filled with carrion flies. They have seen their friends die. Several times an hour a shell containing high explosive, shrapnel or sometimes poison gas, which could kill or maim them or gradually send them mad, is fired randomly in their general direction. Sometimes they have to kill other people. Then one day in 1918, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, it all stopped and they could go home. Partly because of what they did, I have never had to experience such things. That is one of the reasons why I re...

Villers–Bretonneux Military Cemetery Sourced: Department of Veterans' Affairs ( www.dva.gov.au )  It used to mean just downing tools at work at 11:00 for a minute or so. It became memorable when we visited the Villers Bretonneux war cemetery to see the three graves and a wall memorial (no body found) of wife's forebears.  The beauty of the place belied its awful legacy, reinforced by the pock marks of the violence of the second world war. We were both proud of the care bestowed on the fallen and saddened by the spectacle. And this is only one of the many war graves scattered across the fields of Europe and elsewhere. I reflect on the many who returned damaged in body and mind, broken souls for whom the armistice would never bring peace.     

Being a teenager in the 1970s and living in the long shadow of the Vietnam War, Remembrance Day and Anzac Day seemed wrong. I could not understand why we would glorify war. I would not give it any of my time. To some degree my sentiments were reflected by the wider community with the minute's silence of Remembrance Day being something we did because we 'had to' not because it held any meaning.  An Australian soldier receiving medical treatment while being evacuated, Vietnam 1966. Image taken by: Blanch, Kenneth Ray Sourced from: Australian War Memorial ( www.awm.gov.au ) With age and greater understanding, my sentiments have changed, and whilst I still despise war and its legacy of death and damage, I admire its participants, their courage and sacrifice. I now live with a stalemate wherein I feel uncomfortably compelled to honour what I most abhor.  I now take pause and observe the minute's silence in gratitude for my freedom and with thanks to those who wo...

The image of the red poppy is both simple and poignant. The waves of red inspire the silence and reverence that this day deserves. And yet. The waves of red also represent the blood spilled, soaked into lands far from home. So many lives demanded as sacrifice for our sense of liberty and freedom. But are we actually free? International governments and the military Corporation spend billions of dollars creating ever new technology and we, the people, have become numb to stories of war, genocide and terror. The simple red poppy once symbolised the remembrance of the Great War – the war to end all wars. Sadly, that was not true. When I was a younger person the red poppy symbolised sacrifice and hope. Now that I am older, I cannot support an image which, to me, represents corporate sponsored death. I give a minutes silence to the victims of war, not the soldiers.

Lone Pine Cemetery 2000 Image Sourced from Department of Veterans' Affairs ( http://www.dva.gov.au/ ) Coming from an Italian background, I don’t have a direct connection with Remembrance Day having no family members involved in Australian theatres of war. My earliest memory of it, however, comes from my primary school experience. I remember being quiet and trying to think of fallen soldiers while the Last Post played through the classroom speaker. In later primary school years, we went to the War Memorial on St Kilda road and being told about the ray of sunlight that shines directly onto a particular spot at 11am on 11 November. I was so impressed by that. Much later, as an adult, my husband and I visited Gallipoli in 1987, before the days it became a pilgrimage, of sorts, for young Australian. We were driven around by a young Turkish man who still spoke about the respect the locals have for the fallen Australian soldiers. It was heartbreaking to see the artefacts in the ...

When I was at Primary School in the late 60’s, Remembrance Day was always marked with a minutes silence. I had no real sense of the importance of that silent minute until more recently when I unearthed stories of my own families involvement in WW1 and WW2. For me and my family, Remembrance Day is a chance to remember uncles lost in faraway places and a grandfather I never met who, as a stretcher bearer, helped probably thousands of men on the battlefields of Gallipoli and the Western Front. I also remember and think about my father who served in the Pacific in WW2. I think about the stories he told me as an older man and I am thankful that my own sons have not had to spend their 20s fighting in far off places.  Buglers sounding the "Last Post" 1943 Sourced from Australian War Memorial website ( www.awm.gov.au ) The minutes silence no longer seems to be marked as it once was, but I try to stop what I am doing at 11am on November 11th and think about my family. I ...

Light shining down into the Shrine of Remembrance Sourced from Shrine of Remembrance website ( www.shrine.org.au ) Remembrance Day has always been important to me. I think that the moment’s silence at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day, the anniversary of the signing of the document that ended World War I, is an appropriate way to honour those who have died in any war. I can remember being awed as a child when I was first told that, once a year, on 11 November at 11 a.m., a ray of sunlight shines through an aperture in the roof of the Shrine of Remembrance to light up the word "Love" in the inscription “Greater love hath no man” on the Stone of Remembrance. I attended Remembrance Day ceremonies with my family and as a student with my school. For most of my life, no matter where I was, there would be an announcement asking for a moment’s silence, usually followed by a reading of the poem “For the Fallen” by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times n...

Captured German trench near Pozieres 1916. Image sourced from Australian War Memorial ( www.awm.gov.au ) For me, Remembrance Day has both personal and historical significance. My paternal Grandfather served in “the Great War”. He was wounded at Pozieres, on the Somme, and his death, some forty years later was partly attributed to his war service. His death had a big impact on my family, emotionally and financially, as my Grandmother was left with 8 children, the youngest only 8. He was the only grandparent I never knew and I’ve always felt a sense of loss regarding him.  Remembrance Day historically signifies the Armistice at 11 o’clock on 11 November 1918, when hostilities ceased and the Great War ended. It was a time to remember all those who had been effected by this war but has become something larger in the years since. I think it’s a day to remember all those effected by war and to hope that peace may prevail instead of conflict.  

Maybe this could occur, but I suspect not! Travelling to the city each day for work in the 1960's, finding myself out of the office on an errand at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month when the whole city came to a standstill. Everything came to a halt, the trams in Swanston Street, pedestrians and all the vehicular traffic... The noise of a busy city absent, complete quiet for 2 minutes, is lodged in my memory. A silent tribute. A sign of respect for the fallen. My viewpoint looking down Swanston Street from Lonsdale Street right the way down to Princes Bridge and beyond, a city frozen for those few moments, unforgettable. Will it ever happen again in a city of nearly 4.5 million people?  Image sourced from: State Library of Victoria ( www.slv.vic.gov.au ) Annette is an obsessive family history researcher and regular patron at Sam Merrifield Library.

Earlier this year Nathaniel Jeffery developed http://1945.melbourne/ , a website where you can see what Melbourne looked like 70 years ago and compare it with the Melbourne we all love today. Using aerial images created by the former Department of Crown Lands and Survey in 1945 just after the conclusion of the Second World War, he has been able to create this website. If you're interested in finding out what your suburb used to look like, or like me if you want to know if your suburb even existed (mine didn't) you can visit his website. If you want to get even more in-depth and view the maps as individual images you can visit the Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning who have put up the maps online and free to download. just select what area you wish to view then click on the scale that your suburb was taken in and select the area you wish to view. To view the sliding map of Melbourne and Victoria from 1945 and 2015 visit: ...

Brave the cold this week and join in the celebrations of Melbourne Rare Book Week this week until the 26th July. Programs run throughout the week with author talks, exhibitions and programs all through the CBD. The celebration of all things rare books ends in the Melbourne Rare Book Fair from the 24th till the 26th of July at Wilson Hall, The University of Melbourne. Entry to most events and the Book Fair is free so brave the cold this week and uncover some literary treasures Find out more at: http://www.rarebookweek.com/