Kerang? Be my Guest!

In 1835, William Guest, a direct relative on my Mother’s side, married Eliza Sweet in Dodbrooke, near Kingsbridge, in Devon. William was a Stone Mason and probably worked at the quarry in Kingsbridge which is still operating today. They had 3 children: Sarah Guest, born in 1835, Joseph Guest, 1839 and Elizabeth Guest, 1842. William Guest unfortunately died young at the age of 30 and within a year, in 1854, Eliza had remarried a younger man called John James Lake. Who knows what personal, social and economic factors compelled them to undertake such an arduous voyage, but on the 21^st February 1855, the family boarded a ship called ‘John Banks’ and set sail from Plymouth. They landed, safely, in Adelaide, Australia on the 29^th May, 1855.

All the family, that is, except Joseph. Perhaps he didn’t like the fact that his Mother had remarried so soon after his Father’s death? (Although economic necessity must have played a large part). Or possibly he didn’t get along with the new man in his Mother’s life? Perhaps at the age of 16 he wanted to strike out on his own, having served as a stone mason’s labourer under his Father? Whatever the reasons, he moved over 250 miles to work at a quarry in Cumbria (again, still operating today) and then later Liverpool and the family was divided; one part destined to live in Liverpool and then, much later through the generations, in Swindon in the UK and the other part to be early pioneers in a new world down under. John Lake was a Farmer. I imagine the new Australia needed plenty of those.

Eliza Lake, (formerly Guest) died in Kerang, in the state of Victoria on 14^th October, 1891. Sara married Charles Thorne and died in Kerang in September, 1900. Elizabeth married John Isaac Moore and died in Quambatook, about 20 miles from Kerang, in 1907.

I have woken very early in a small motel in Kerang, with the names and imagined faces of those distant ancestors on my mind. Kerang is a small, neat place, comprising an orderly grid of streets centred on a cream coloured clock tower. The houses are mainly low bungalows, some of a vaguely colonial type, with verandas, looking as though they might have been built in the 1920s. There are a few shops, 3 pubs/hotels, a primary school, a racecourse and a small hospital. The oldest buildings are confident Victorian structures, which have probably not changed much at all since their construction. There is an old Post Office and a Chamber of Commerce building, so it must have been reasonably prosperous once upon a time. The red-bricked Victorian school was founded in 1874, too late to have schooled the young Guest children. The population is around 3000. It is very strange to be here, seeing these same buildings, knowing that they very likely formed part of the backdrop of the lived reality of those ancestors, seeing the buildings perhaps as they would have seen them through different eyes. To misquote (murder) TS Eliot, it is as though time past and time future are compressed into the moment of time present.

The land here is flat farming land; winter cereals, sheep, cattle, horses. The River Loddon runs alongside the edge of town and there are a 20 lakes close by: Kangaroo Lake, Lake Charm and, tired of naming new things, one called Third Lake, amongst many others How long it took to get from Adelaide to here and what was already here, if anything, when the family arrived, is interesting to ponder. Looking at the farms on my way from Swan Hill, I was wondering if they lived in that place, or over there, or perhaps there, stupidly checking post boxes for names I might recognise, or the landscape for some impossible, enigmatic clues that would speak across time. It is the coldest weekend for 15 years in these parts and grey rainclouds hang low in the sky so the flat featureless landscape looks bleak and dour. I resolve to check the cemetery to see if I can find any graves with names I might be familiar with.

I visit the graveyard in Kerang. It is quite large, perhaps about 1000 graves, jostling together in a sociable sort of way, without any obvious grouping by date, but subdivided by denomination (Catholic, Church of England, Methodist, etc.,). Although I check all the graves apart from the Catholic area, I can’t find the graves of Eliza Lake or John James Lake, or Sarah, although I did find the grave of what must have been a subsequent child between John and Eliza, Charlotte Lake, who is described as ‘Charlotte Selina (Lottie) Beloved daughter of J.J and E. Lake’, so it must surely be their Daughter? She died in 1908, at the age of 22. What a young age! I didn't research that side of the family, so I'm not 100% sure, but there can't be many people in Kerang with the same initials and second name. The problem is that Kerang is both a town and an administrative district, so Charles and Eliza could be buried in many smaller places hereabouts.

I also visit the cemetery at Quambatook and although it is much smaller, maybe about 50 graves, again divided by denomination, I couldn't find the grave of Elizabeth. Somehow I felt a little glad about that. The cemetery here is in a completely cold and desolate spot, about 3km away from Quambatook, down a small dirt lane. There are a few trees around the outside of the cemetery, but it sits in the middle of very large, open fields. It is very isolated and the wind whistles across the plains. I'd rather she was somewhere warmer and friendlier. It was very strange and haunting seeing the landscape and travelling along the roads that my distant ancestors would have seen and travelled on. The images of that landscape are still with me now.

Thank-you Joseph Guest. If it hadn't been for your independence and obstinacy, in part, I wouldn't be here now, seeing where the rest of your family ended up. Did you maintain contact with them? Or did you just wonder...?

The land North of Kerang town

It's a one-horse, cowboy sort of town. A bleak and bitter Sunday morning.

One of the three Hotels. Farming is thirsty work. Did Charles pop in for a drink on market day?

Victorian High Street

Chamber of Commerce. Built 1927.

Court House. The Court preceedes most other buildings. Must be the importance of law and order in a frontier town?

Kerang Primary School established 1874.

Road to Quambatook

Have fields changed much in 200 years? Probably not.

Quambatook. A half-horse town, formed by very brave people