A Charming View

Holding the arm of her new husband Ernest John Phillips, Scottish-born Jessie McGeachie (1883-1947), descended the stairs in the garden of her parent’s home Craig Royston in Toronto, with its terraced lawns leading down to the edge of Lake Macquarie. It was the morning of 9 June 1909 and they had been directed to take […]

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En Route

In November 1916, as the troopship HMAT Borda approached Cape Town, Private Leslie Clouten and his mates on board were surely impressed by the scenery – the city at the southern tip of Africa nestled between the shore and Table Mountain, rising behind. His ship had already called at Durban a few days earlier, and […]

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A Tragic Paper Trail

In 1925 William and Jane Clouten of Tacoma added the final letter to this pile of correspondence they had been collecting. Creased where they had been folded for dispatch, the documents’ worn edges and dog-eared corners suggest they may have opened and read many times. Each document was a terrible reminder of the loss of […]

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