Allan Hamilton Augustus Hopkins - Dorothy Flyght
My grandfather Allan Hopkins married Dorothy Flyght in Willoughby 1929, he was a postal worker and she was a pastry cook. In June 1929 my mother June was born followed by:
Lois - November 1930
Doreen - September 1933
Robyn - September 1947 - died August 2002
They lived in High Street Willoughby until Allan’s death in 1972. Dorothy continued to live in the same house until 1975, she died in Manly 1978.
Allan was born in February 1912 at Main Arm Mullumbimby. At the time of his birth his parents Mildred and Patrick were living in the area, Patrick worked in the timber cutting industry and they moved around the region of northern NSW taking employment wherever possible.
Siblings were :
Margaret Spouse: Kenneth Harris (Bunny)
James (Jimmy) Spouse: Nell (deceased)
Gwen (Gwennie) Spouse: 1) Alwyn Moore 2) Gordon Greentree (both deceased)
Mum cannot tell me where Pop went to school as a child, but chances are high he started school around Mullumbimby and also would have attended school in the town of Berry, NSW, where the family lived before settling in Willoughby.
Dorothy Flyght was born in Chatswood, July 1912 where she grew up. She worked as a pastry cook in the local bakery and also worked in a pub called ‘The Greengate’ at Killara during WWII. She was renowned as a great cook. Nan was also a skilled ‘fisherman’ and it remained her big passion during her life, she was also a fond cricket player and I have a photo of her swinging the bat when she was only 16. Nan was the only person who had the courage to stand up to her husband’s mother, Mildred, and Mum tells me the two women never got along. Nan being Church of England and her mother-in-law being a ‘heathen hating’ RC.
Nan also was part of a long running feud between herself and the local Catholic priest from Willoughby - Father Darby. The two despised each other. Darby was a known drinker and not the most christian of people despite being a priest. The feud stemmed from an incident when Nan took her seriously ill and dying baby niece down to the presbytery one night to have the child baptised and Father Darby, intoxicated, refused to see the child.
Dorothy died in April 1978 from Pemphygus. Allan died in October 1972 from a coronary. They are buried together at Northern Suburbs Cemetery, North Ryde Sydney.
In September 2002 their daughter Robyn was interred with them after her death in Mossman, North Queensland.
Allan Hamilton Augustus Hopkins and Dorothy (Flyght) Hopkins: Sydney 1967.
Popularity: 25% [?]
