Hamilton

Mildred Gertrude Courbarron was born at Waverley NSW in 1889 to Irish girl Mary Morrissey and Augustus James Hamilton-Courbarron (known as James). Her exact day of birth is unknown at this stage as her parents failed to officially register her birth. One reason for this may have been because Mildred, and her brother James born 2 years later, were both born before their parents marriage. Unusual for the time but not entirely uncommon.

Mildred began school at Waverley before completing her education at Waverley Ladies College at age 15. Her early years were spent living at Waverley before the family moved to Bondi where they nicknamed their new house ‘St Ernans’: it was named after the home, St Ernans, in Ireland in which her paternal grandmother Mary Hamilton was born. The house at Bondi was a terraced house typical of the period and it looked nothing at all like the original St Ernans House.

Mildred’s father, Augustus J H Courbarron, was a sea captain who had charge of a ship which saw him visit many countries around the world. He was rarely at home but during the times he was in Sydney he was remembered as a fond father.

Mildred had three siblings:

James - born 1891
Mary Ellen (Molly) - born 1897
Frederick - born 1900

Upon the death of her father in 1904, it appears that Mildred travelled with her mother Mary to northern NSW where her mother had family. This area, Kempsey, appears to be where Mildred met her future husband Patrick Hopkins given that Kempsey is the same region as his birthplace of Bellingen. Mildred and Patrick were married at Bellingen in the Catholic Church in 1908. In 1909 their first child, a son named Vincent, was born but died soon after birth.

Patrick and Mildred travelled around northern NSW as Patrick sought employment as a logger in the timber industry, eventually settling further south in the Sydney suburb of Paddington. In the 1920’s they moved to a house in Chatswood where they lived until their deaths.

Patrick died from a coronary aged 57 in 1946, Mildred died after a stroke in 1963. They are buried together at Northern Suburbs Cemetery, North Ryde Sydney.

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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.

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