Like any farm, the O’Connor’s farm at Valencia Creek had a variety of animals. In their letters to the ‘Young Folks’ page of the Weekly Times between 1906 and 1914, the O’Connor children mention not only the farm animals but those living in the wild. And they also show the roles the children played in … Continue reading The O’Connors of Valencia Creek – All Creatures Great and Small
Elizabeth O’Connor (1884-1966)
The O’Connors of Valencia Creek – School Days
With the passing of The Education Act 1872, the colony of Victoria established a system of education that was free, secular and compulsory.1 Children aged between six and fifteen years who lived within two miles by road of a school were required to attend school for at least four hours a day, sixty days in … Continue reading The O’Connors of Valencia Creek – School Days
The O’Connors of Valencia Creek – Life on the Farm
My grandmother Catherine O'Connor c.1905 Aged 16 My grandmother grew up on her father’s farm at Valencia Creek in Gippsland, situated beneath the foothills of the Great Dividing Range and Mount Wellington. Her father, William O’Connor, had been born at Thebarton in South Australia in 1847. His parents, Patrick Connor and Mary White had migrated … Continue reading The O’Connors of Valencia Creek – Life on the Farm