And the Bride was …..Eliza

I don’t think any Saturday Sepians will have trouble coming up with a nice wedding photo to satisfy this week’s theme.  My choice is the 1901 wedding of Eliza Fricke and Robert Butler  in Central Victoria.  They married at Christ Church in Maryborough then this photo was taken in  the garden of the bride’s home, Park Farm  in Carisbrook.

The wedding of Eliza Fricke and Robert Butler in 1901

I have Eliza’s granddaughters to thanks for this lovely photo of the two families.    Let’s look at the bride’s relations in the photo.

The Bride, Eliza Fricke, born in 1873, grew up at Park Farm in Carisbrook and married to shift a few miles down the road to become the wife of a butcher and farmer at Newstead. She was the seventh child of eight surviving children and we have seen her before playing croquet in the front garden of her home while her father watched on.

 

Alfred Fricke , born in 1867. was the oldest boy and  is seen sitting next to the bride.  As his father had died in 1899 Alfred escorted his sister down the aisle for her wedding..  He now owned Park Farm and wasn’t to marry for another 10 years.   We have seen him before with guests in the garden of Park Farm

 

 

. Eliza Fricke, nee Bosley, the mother of the bride, is sitting next to the bridegroom    Eliza Bosley had come to Australia from Coleford in Gloucestershire in 1863  with two of her sisters.  Both of her parents were dead and she  came to Carisbrook as she had a cousin Edward Aston living there.  There was also another cousin Charlotte Eager and the cousins kept the school well supllied with pupils.

 

Seated on the ground at the right of the photo is Eliza’s brother Charles Fricke, born in 1869.  He now owned the other Fricke farm at Apollo Bay and would marry in tthree years time.  He is my grandfather.

 

 

Seated on the ground at the left side is the youngest of the family, Matilda Louise,  born in 1877 and known as Tilly. She married in 1903  to F,W. Wangman and went to live in Melbourne.

 

 

In the back row  behind the bridegroom is Eliza’s brother  Albert , born 1872.  He had already been married for 3 years.  He started work with the Lands Department in Melbourne, later represented  the Victorian Government in the USA encouraging immigration to the irrigation areas of Victoria.  He was theri Representative for Victoria at the opening of the Panama Canal and finally became Head of the Lands Department in Victoria.

 

Not present that day were another brother and two sisters.  The rest of the people in the photo are Butler relations.

Meanwhile part of Eliza’s life was the Butcher’s van and a visit from a a niece, Enid Fricke, from Apollo Bay, one of many visits between the two families. Before the days of Health and Safety Regulations the butchers did their own slaughtering on the farm then travelled around  selling the meat.

Then from the oldest wedding photo in my family collection to the latest in 2014.  This time it is of the newly married couple with the bridegroom’s family in the shade of some gum trees in the middle of a paddock  on the Bellarine Peninsula.  Grandma is happily clutching grandson’s arm.

You are now invited to  join in more weddings through the links in Sepia Saturday