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KEENAN FAMILY  in Australia

Grace Catherall (nee Keenan) (1871 - 1915)

Last updated 27/11/2019

Australian Generation:   First
Parents:  Henry John Keenan and Nancy (Anne) Jane Gamble
Born:  1871                       (Registration number 18284/1871 - District: Tumut)
Married: John Henry Catherall in Tumut district in 1887 (aged 16), (Reg No. 7308/1887)
Occupation: 
Residence: Batlow (NSW), Margaret River (WA), South Africa and Batlow
Deceased: 1915  ( aged 44) (Reg No. 18063/1915) Goulburn district NSW.
Buried: 

Children:

  •   Sydney Stuart Catherall  -  born 19/8/1901, at Durban, South Africa. Died, Batlow, 4/3/1909. (Reg No. 406/1909)

  •   Eric Harold Catherall  - born 1895.                     Died, Batlow, 4/3/1909. (Reg No. 407/1909)

Note 27/11/2019:   An entry in WikiTree (wikitree.com/wiki/Catherall-19) states, amongst other things, that Eric was born in 1895 in Jumbunna, Victoria (registration 4449, 1895); that he is buried in the Batlow Cemetery;

 

"Grace, the youngest daughter of the original Keenan family (Note by Peter Keenan: Grace (b.1871) was not the youngest; the youngest was Mary (b.1876)) , married John Catherall and accompanied him to South Africa.  After several years there her health broke down and she returned to her mother at Batlow to recuperate, bringing with her their two sons, Eric (14) and Sydney (11).  Tragedy befell the family whilst at Batlow, as both the lads became the victims of a shooting fatality (Note by Peter Keenan:deaths occurred in 1909) and their mother never recovered from the shock, passing away not long afterwards" (Note by Peter Keenan: death occurred in 1915). Extract from 1949 newspaper article by George Keenan.

 

See reports on the tragic shooting death of  Eric Catherall and Sydney Catherall published in The Tumut and Adelong Times  on 5/3/1909 and The Tumut Advocate and Farmers and Settlers' Adviser on 9 March 1909, and The Tumut and Adelong Times on 5/3/1909 and on 12/3/1909.

 

See transcript of letters written by Grace in 1898 and 1900.

 

In the early 1890s Grace and Jack Catherall lived for a while with Grace's uncle, Stewart Keenan, and his wife Isabella Keenan (nee Gamble) at the Glenbourne Homestead in Margaret River, Western Australia.

Grace suffered serious health issues in the final few years of her life. In 1913 a niece (Ivy Keenan of Batlow) wrote to her Aunty Elizabeth Kerr of Lislea, Northern Ireland, saying:
"(My grandmother - Ann Hopson nee Keenan nee Gamble) took her daughter, Grace (who has been an invalid for several years) away to home where she has to leave her. Poor grandmother has had a terrible a burden looking after her, waiting on her hand and foot, even to cutting the food up for her, and she has not been to bed for nine months, but sat in a chair by the fireside all night. And grandmother had to be up and down all night, looking after her after (... illegible ...) and as she is in her 69th year it is too much for her to do. Grandmother was well but was worrying herself about having to part with aunt Grace...."
For the whole letter see page Ivy1892.htm


 

From WikiTree (wikitree.com/wiki/Catherall-21)  >>>>>.  John Henry Catherall  was born about 1863;  died Sea Point, Western Cape, South Africa , 8/11/1923;  probate date 21/7/1925;  registry: London; husband of Grace (Keenan) Catherall - married 1887 in Tumut, NSW; father of Eric Harold Catherall and Sydney Stuart Catherall.