Author Description

William and Mary Spelman lived on a small farm near the Ballynagrenia bog in Co. Westmeath - part of the Irish midlands. They had at least 8 children born 1829-50. During the great hunger, though better positioned than the multitude of starving peasants, they did lose a young daughter (small pox). However, the future remained bleak on all fronts. With a million others, the surviving Spelman children left Ireland in the mid 19th century. One by one they migrated, two to USA, one to Argentina and two to Australia. Two daughters faithfully remained with their aging parents. We trace the movements of three of the migrants and record their activities and many descendants. Commencing in 1971, the author visited and interviewed numerous descendants. In Victoria, we see the sisters, Rose and Ellen, during the gold rush, nurturing their young families, struggling through the 1890s depression and the devastating impact of the Great War. We observe the descendants' occupations and community activity, the emergence of sport, access to secondary and tertiary education and to a modern lifestyle our hardy pioneers could scarcely have imagined. The book is illustrated with many valuable old photographs kindly lent by Spelman family history devotees.