John Michael Tobin – son of Thomas and Maria Tobin

John Michael	Born	April 28, 1894 in Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
	Married	Caroline (Carrie) Phelan (1899 – 1971) in 1923 in Melbourne. Adopted daughter, Patricia c.1925.
	Died	about 1973 San Francisco U.S.A.

John Michael was only three-years-old when his mother Maria, died in Fremantle. Like his sister Winnie, he had to adjust to a step-mother (Alice) a year later. In The Undertakers’ Mother he is depicted as being quite pliable to Alice’s wishes. Being many years older than his half-brothers, he was quite close to Leo and his family, but seemingly had very little contact with his other younger half-brothers Phonse, Noel, Tom and Kevin. I cannot remember him ever being part of social occasions, when I was growing up. [Denise]

On leaving school – (he was dux at Sts Peter and Paul’s South Melbourne) – John went to work in the public service where he stayed all his working life. A quiet and reserved man, John wore a uniform at his desk during WWII.

John Tobin married Caroline (Carrie) Phelan in 1923. They adopted Patricia, who met Jim Muguvero in Melbourne during WWII. He was an airman with the United States American Army. Under General Douglas MacArthur, American troops had started pouring into Australia from Christmas Eve 1941. When Jim Muguvero was sent to Sydney c. 1943, he had already fallen in love with Patricia (Pat) Tobin. Knowing he was about to be shipped off to fight the Japanese, he asked Pat to come to Sydney to marry him. With restrictions against ‘non-essential travel’ and a strict rationing of petrol, Pat’s chances of reaching Sydney looked doomed. She sought the help of her Uncle Leo, Thomas and Alice’s eldest son, who devised a means of aiding and abetting the young lovers. The following account is from Leo’s daughter, Margaret Tobin Murray, who knows and remembers the story well, as told to her by her father, Leo and Pat Tobin Muguvero. Although a lot younger than Pat, Margaret remembers Pat as ‘having great affection for Uncle Leo.’

Being an essential service, an undertaker had greater access to petrol than ordinary householders. Filling up his tank, Leo drove with Pat to Wodonga where he’d arranged with friends to help him ‘smuggle’ her over the border into NSW. Any car bearing Victorian number plates could have been stopped thus preventing Pat from reaching Sydney. One friend, Bert Lilley, owned the Globe Hotel in Albury and drove Pat and Leo over the Murray in a fire engine. At this point in the story, some Tobin family members say that Bert then drove Pat and Leo through the night, in his own car to about 20 miles from Sydney, where they took the train into Sydney. (However, Margaret feels they escorted her on the train from Albury.) On arriving in Sydney, Pat stayed with Leo’s sister-in-law, Joan and for her wedding to Jim, she wore a blue skirt and leg-tan, in the absence of stockings. The newly-weds honeymooned in the Blue Mountains. Within a short time, Jim left on the troop ship David C. Shanks and became an Ace Fighter Pilot by shooting down at least five Japanese planes in battle.

After the War, Jim and Pat settled in San Francisco for a while, before being based in Japan during the Korean War. Pat and Jim had three children – Michael, who was born in America, Melinda, born in Australia and Jennifer, born in Japan. They often joked that they had ‘bred the League of Nations.’

After Carrie’s death in 1971, John went to live in the US with his daughter and grandchildren, where he died as the result of an accident in 1973.