Facts By The Chapter

Being a biographical novel based on the lives of Alice and Thomas Tobin, my paternal grandparents, The Undertakers’ Mother is a dramatisation of events that actually occurred in their lives. However, I’ve also deviated from known happenings by introducing fictional characters to add colour and interest to the Tobin saga.

Designed for family members, this web site should demystify the interactions between real people and fictional characters and happenings. You can follow the stories of the various characters starting from the family trees and clicking through to family stories, written accounts, certificate information and other facts including photographs. Alternatively, to find facts relating to specific chapters, scroll through the following list with links to the various certificates, stories and details of where the facts were obtained.

I am indebted to Libby Tobin and Andrew Barfoot for providing me with unlimited information of their family tree research of the Tobin and O’Dowd families. Both family trees were a great starting point for my own research, and help to give legitimacy to the biographical content of the book.

Denise Tobin Shine
March 2012

  1. Alice at Sixteen – 1889
    • Thomas and Catherine O’Dowd – Baptism record (Thomas Dowd); Shipping records and Marriage Certificate for Thomas and Catherine (Mannix) O’Dowd.
    • O’Dowd Children – Mary, Julia, Catherine, Alice, Francis, Kate Margaret & Eleanor – birth certificates.
    • Catherine O’Dowd, aged 6 – Death Certificate.
    • Maggie O’Dowd’s Prize at Presentation Convent (Windsor) St Kilda – in possession of Nola Henderson, Maggie’s granddaughter.
    • Family Anecdotes.
  2. Thomas leaves Home – 1884
    • Tobin Family Ireland – Family Tree
    • Michael Tobin’s Death at 24 – as told by Jarlath Tobin (1943 – 2011)
    • Margaret Tobin Barber – Tobin Family in Australia Marriage and Death certificates, Queensland, Australia
    • Julia Tobin Clavin – Tobin (Clavin) Family in USA Marriage Certificate to James Clavin, (Dublin); Birth certificates of children – Mary Ellen and James; Death certificate – Julia (USA); Death of James Clavin as told by Jarlath Tobin
    • John Robert Tobin – Old Letters from Ireland No. 4.
  3. The Dundrum Escort – 1888
  4. Maria – 1888
  5. Emigrating to Melbourne – 1889
  6. Settling Down in Melbourne – 1889
    • Williamstown Arrival Date – as per Thomas Tobin’s Notebook
    • Thomas and Maria settled in South Melbourne – Ellen’s Birth and Death Certificates.
  7. Marvellous Melbourne Sinks into Depression – 1889 – 1893
  8. Arrival in the West – 1895
  9. Fremantle Retreat – 1896
    • Historical characters – Paddy Hannan, Clara Saunders, C.Y. O’Connor.
    • Thomas’s Letter to John R Tobin from Canning River – Old Letters from Ireland.
  10. Travelling the Countryside – 1896
    • Oblate Priests – Fathers Thomas Ryan, Daniel O’Ryan and Roger Hennessy.
    • Governor of Fremantle Gaol – Superintendent Jack Stone.
    • Toodyay Gaol – a place of interest for Phonse Tobin (1980) because he knew his father had escorted prisoners there.
    • Dr Birmingham – Maria’s doctor on her Death Certificate.
    • ‘Thomas’s dream’ – (Patrick Tobin’s heroic rescue of three children who nearly drowned in a lake) – as told in Jarlath Tobin’s Ancestor Stories.
    • Fremantle Gaol Pay records – showing Father Roger Hennessy as Chaplain.
  11. Fremantle Tragedy and a Proposal – 1897
    • Maria’s Death Certificate Swan Street Fremantle
    • Skinner Street Cemetery – See Thomas Tobin and Maria Christie
    • Sisters of the Apparition conducted the parish school in Thomas’s time in Fremantle. Some years ago, the property was purchased by Woolworths. A plaque in the footpath remembers the work of the Order.
    • With the possible threat of welfare officers seizing Winnie and John as neglected children, the Parish Priest told Thomas he should marry again. At some stage, Thomas must have told him of the O’Dowd family in Melbourne ‘with all the girls’. Phonse Tobin’s Recollections.
  12. The Letter – 1898
    • The family story of Thomas Tobin writing to Thomas O’Dowd, asking for his daughter Alice’s hand in marriage, is the Pivotal Point of The Undertakers’ Mother.
    • Mary O’Dowd and Joe Fitzgibbon – Marriage certificate.
    • During the 1890s Depression in Melbourne, people were dying of hunger in areas of great poverty. Soup kitchens sprang up in many places including South Melbourne.
    • Alice had a boyfriend whose name was Charlie ? – Family story.
  13. Alice’s Trip – 1898
    • Shipping Records to Fremantle show Alice’s name only (no other O’Dowd passengers) on coastal ship S.S. Wollowra. Her arrival date was March 4th 1898.
    • Coastal steamers like S.S. Wollowra left from Queen’s Wharf on the Yarra at the end of Queen Street.
  14. Alice’s Courtship – 1898
    • Mrs Mary Tully of Peak Villa, Glyde Street Plympton (Fremantle) – Wise’s Postal Directory – Fremantle Friends.
    • Glyde Street is stated as Alice’s present address on her Marriage Certificate; Cantonment Street with several boarding house addresses in 1898 was Thomas’s present and usual address on the Marriage Certificate.
  15. Fremantle Wedding – 1898
    • Thomas and Alice (O’Dowd) Tobin – Marriage Certificate shows April 20th, 1898.
    • Patrick Carroll and Ellen Tully – witnesses to Thomas and Alice’s marriage.
    • Rosanna Carroll – appears on Mollie’s Birth certificate. Fremantle Friends.
    • Thompson Road (Rocky Bay), North Fremantle – address on Mollie’s Birth Certificate.
  16. A Quest and a Birth – 1898 – 1899
    • Thomas’s house moving – Phonse Tobin’s Recollections
    • Julia O’Dowd’s generosity to a girl with out any shoes – True and much-loved story told by her grand daughter, Dorothy Murphy Joyce.
    • Mary Julia (Mollie) Tobin – Birth Certificate.
  17. Home’s Where the Heart Is – 1899
    • Travancore Plains was a property in Western Australia during the 19th century.
    • Francis O’Dowd married Mary Jane Lonie, in June 1899 – Marriage Certificate shows they were married in the presbytery at Sacred Heart Church West St Kilda.
    • Julia O’Dowd married Peter Murphy in September, 1899 at St Joseph’s South Yarra – Marriage Certificate.
    • O’Dowd Family Feud – Francis and his parents had a falling out that apparently never resolved – O’Dowd Family story and Francis O’Dowd’s Story
    • Alice’s Homesickness – Phonse Tobin’s Recollections
  18. Family Happenings – 1900 – 1913
    • Both Julia and Maggie had Irish brogues – according to granddaughters, Dorothy Joyce and Di Lyttleton.
    • Kathleen Murphy, Julia’s first baby was born at Canterbury Road – Birth certificate.
    • Ellen (Nell) and Ben Shanahan’s early attraction – family story shared by Mary Stanley, their granddaughter.
    • Thomas and Alice in Kilmore – Leo Tobin’s comments.
    • Tobin Brothers – Leo, Joseph*, Alphonsus and Bernard*, Noel, Thomas O’Halloran and Kevin – Birth and baptismal certificates and *Death certificates and Thomas Tobin’s Notebooks.
    • Ellen (Nell) O’Dowd married John Benedict Shanahan in January 1906 in St Joseph’s South Yarra and Maggie O’Dowd married Roger Morris in October 1907 in St Joseph’s South Yarra – Marriage certificates. Shanahan and Morris Family Stories as told by Mary Stanley and Andrew Barfoot – grandchildren of Nell and Maggie.
    • Maggie’s Handmade Lace Gown – Maggie O’Dowd’s Dress.
    • Father Collins – Noel Tobin’s Recollections of Early Tobin Family
    • Halley’s Comet – Fiona Shine’s Project on Phonse Tobin, 1989
    • Archbishop Daniel Mannix – Leo Tobin’s comments, 2006
  19. From South to Melbourne North – 1914
    • Catherine O’Dowd – Death certificate 1914; Leo Tobin’s comments; Catherine O’Dowd’s Will.
    • Phonse and St Augustine’s Orphanage – Phonse’s Truancy – Fiona Shine’s School Project 1989 and McKillop Family Services.
    • Francis Fitzgibbon – Death certificate.
    • Noel’s Recitation on St Patrick’s Night – Family Story.
    • Winifred Tobin married John Kelly in April 1917 in St Brendan’s Flemington – Marriage certificate.
    • Baby Catherine Tobin c.1917 – Thomas and Alice in South Melbourne / Funerals.
    • Thomas O’Dowd – Death certificate 1919.
    • Winnie advertised in Irish papers seeking news of family members, c. 1919 Old Letters from Ireland and America.
    • Winnie’s only baby John Kelly died at 10 days old, after being born at 6 ½ months gestation, in September, 1920 in Sydney. Death certificate.
    • John R. Tobin (Thomas’s brother), John Brendan (Thomas’s nephew) and Mary Ellen McCarthy (Thomas’s niece) – Tobin Family in Ireland; Tobin Family in USA and Search for Our American Cousins.
  20. The Empty Nest – 1943
    • Alice’s home ownership – Contract of sale.
    • Summary of Alice and Thomas’s life, her siblings and their adult children – family stories and family tree information – Andrew Barfoot’s O’Dowd Family Tree.
    • Founding of A.V.Tobin – Undertaker/Tobin Brothers Funeral Directors – verbal and recorded family accounts as per The Undertakers’ Mother text.
    • Marriages of Tobin sons and subsequent birth of grandchildren as per Libby Tobin’s Tobin Family Tree and various family stories.
    • Dr Mannix’s appearance at Ave Maria – Remembering Grandma and Grandad Tobin – Leo Tobin (1932 – 2010).

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