My mother always enjoyed telling a story and as the year’s end approaches, I am reminded of one of my favourites from her childhood, “Christmas at Grannie Bell’s”.

Pop and Grannie’s 60th Wedding Anniversary. From authors collection.

Grannie and Pop Bell were Mum’s maternal grandparents. Grannie’s parents, Gottfried and Augusta Kuhn were of German heritage, having come to the Colony of Queensland as young newlyweds aboard the Herschel in 1873.^[1] Grannie, Louisa Theresa Kuhn, was born in Townsville in 1877, the third of their six children.^[2]

Pop, Charles George Bell, known as “George”, was of Irish and English heritage, born in Townsville in 1873 to Charles Bell and Mary Ann McCann.^[3] Charles was a carrier who drove a bullock wagon taking supplies to settlers, and explosives to the mines in Croydon, Georgetown, Normanton and Ayr. From the age of 14, George travelled with his father working as “spare boy” driving the spare bullocks and horses.

George and Louisa were married at St Joseph’s Church, The Strand, Townsville in 1897 and soon after, set off on horseback for Georgetown, where George tried his hand at gold mining. ^[4] Their first child William was born there the following year.[5] The mining venture proved unsuccessful and by 1900 the family had returned to Townsville. Over the next twenty years, nine additional children, one of whom died as an infant, were born. My grandmother, also named Louisa Theresa, was their fourth child.

To earn a living, George and his father carried wood for the Townsville waterworks. His Uncle Ted ran the Burns Philp stables and for a time George joined him carrying cargoes from the Jetty Wharf. Later George worked as a lorry driver delivering kegs to pubs for Cummings and Campbell. He ended his working days selling wood to householders for fifteen shillings a load, driving the streets perched high on the load in his horse drawn cart.

In about 1915, George took up a 99-year lease on a block of land in Hugh Street although no record of the lease has yet been found. At the time, the street was just a track and gully. There were neighbours on one side and a vacant paddock where cattle grazed on the other. On the opposite side of the road was a swamp which later became the setting for many of the kids’ adventures.

The house at Hugh Street, Townsville. From authors collection.

The block was large and at one end George (“Pop”) built a house with a concrete floor and corrugated iron walls and roof. Poles and railings across the front of the verandah kept the horse outside. At the back of the house was a shed used to store hay, saddles and harness for the horse and at the front a large, grassed area where the kids played.

Pop had a vegetable garden in which he grew a variety of fruit trees: mangoes, pawpaws, bananas, lemons and rosella bushes. He grew Queensland Blue pumpkins, potatoes, sweet potatoes and long beans, tomatoes and cauliflowers. Grannie made the most of the produce making jams and pickles and later the grandkids helped pick rosellas for her jam. She kept chooks, which supplied the family with eggs.

The house walls were unlined and the rooms divided by cloth curtains. There was a lounge, dining area, kitchen and bedrooms. The dining area had a table with forms on either side and Pop’s chair at one end. The kitchen at the back contained the stove with the bathtub nearby.

Across a corner of the lounge, a piece of timber had been placed to make a shelf. On this was kept the large Kuhn family bible brought to the Colony by Gottfried Kuhn and in which were recorded the births, deaths and marriages of the family. As the Kuhn family was Lutheran this was probably the translated Luther Bible.^[6] Holy pictures were pinned to the walls on either side of the corner. On her marriage to Pop, Grannie had converted to Catholicism.

As the years went by Grannie and Pop’s large family married and had families of their own. The grandchildren loved to visit their grandparents, often staying for the weekend. Here they roamed through the bush and swamp and Grannie always had bread and syrup or jam on hand.

Christmas was the highlight of the year for my mother’s family. On Christmas morning a taxi was ordered to take them to the house in Hugh Street. In the early years, Grannie and Pop’s children with their husbands, wives and children gathered for the day, but as the family grew larger, festivities began in the afternoon.

Before lunch, Pop gave a speech and raised a glass in memory of those family members who had passed away. Grannie gave everyone a small present such as a hanky. A keg was purchased and kept out the back in the kitchen, a wet hessian bag draped over it to keep it cool. If the beer ran out, the hat was passed around and another keg purchased from a friendly publican.

Four Generations: Grannie Bell, Grandma, Mum and Linda. From authors collection.

A large area of the yard had been mown down by the horse and here the many cousins gathered to play games. These were organised by Uncle Charlie, who the kids later said was “a million laughs”, aided and abetted by Uncle Jimmy. They played cricket using an old piece of wood as a bat. They played rounders and Twos and Threes, where the kids formed two lines to play, and Crows and Cranes, where they formed two circles. Both were running and chasing games. As the evening wore on, the little ones were put to sleep in Grannie and Pop’s bed.

Meanwhile, the older people danced the night away on the concrete verandah, where candle wax had been sprinkled to make the floor slippery. Uncle Willie played the piano accordion, Great-Aunty Mary Ann played the concertina and Aunty Lily played the accordion and mouth organ. My grandfather Peter sometimes called the dances. During the evening, Uncle Charlie recited the poems of “Banjo” Patterson, including “The Bush Christening”, all of which he knew by heart.

Grannie herself loved to dance and at the age of 80, recalled the many family gatherings where she danced and sang. On their 60^th Anniversary in 1957, Grannie, referring to their Christmas parties, said “We have dancing on the big lawn in front and oh such wonderful times”. ^[7]

My parents left Townsville in the late 1940s and due to the distance, we only visited every couple of years. One memory that I have of Grannie Bell was being at the home of my grandparents. Our parents had gone out leaving us with Grandma and Grannie. We were in the kitchen when they decided to show us how to dance. As they waltzed, a little unsteadily, up and down the room, my brother and I laughed and clapped in delight. At the age of 86, Grannie still loved to dance.

[1]Queensland State Archives, Herchel passenger list, Item ID 18372, P8.
[2] Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Birth Certificate Louisa Theresa Kuhn, 1877/C/5129.
[3] Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Birth Certificate Charles George Bell, 1873/C/3874.
[4] Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Marriage Certificate Charles George Bell and Louisa Kuhn, 1897/C/2061.
[5] Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Birth Certificate William Godfrey Bell, 1898/C/4381.
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible Translated into German by Martin Luther.
[7] The information in this article came from family reminiscences from my mother and from P. Kenny, E. Coughlan, J. Goulevitch and Uncle Charlie Bell.