On a buttered roll with this technology (I hope).
Aunty Marie Rudginger visited recently from Albany W.A., and stayed with Betty and Ken before attending her granddaughter's wedding in Wagga Wagga. The significance of this lady in your lives should be brought to the attention of you younger Roffs. Firstly, she knows the Waifs, and has a story to tell, but that's another story.
Marie is Ken Seage's cousin, her mother and Dad's mother both being Bernasconi's, and the children of John Bernasconi who, in the 1880's sometime, along with his brother, married a pair of Newton sisters, the progeny of Adam Newton, Baker, 28 King Street Sydney. (There is a Newton Lane off King Street named in his honour - check it in the street directory, or have a night out at the Japanese restaurant that now occupies the site.) Adam Newton, baker, fathered 7 children with wife Elizabeth, but he died I guess quite young, and left Elizabeth a youngish widow. So she married William Roff of Glebe, and bore 2 more children with him, Fred and Jack, the latter of course the father of Neil and Betty. Elizabeth sounded quite a lady, running pubs, then the bakery when Adam died, and raising 9 children in her spare time. Alas she died when the Roff kids were very young, Jack barely 2 years old, and so they were put in care of the elder Newton siblings, notably an Aunty Eva. Another story.
Back to Marie, remember Marie? Story about Marie. She was orphaned at an early age too, and so she and her siblings were also farmed out to relatives here and there, one of whom was Catherine Bernasconi, the youngest of John Bernasconi's daughters, aunt to both Marie and Ken, and often referred to in our generation as Aunty Doll. Doll took over the errant operations of her father's newsagency, errnat because he was trade stock, his father a gilder, and he not very good with accounts and books. The remnants if the newsagency still stand today as a Chinese laundry diagonally opposite the new look Redfern Oval park, but with 'Sydney Morning Herald' painted on the street awning. Daniel and Alaine know the Redfern territory, and I have witnessed first-hand Daniel speaking Redfernian. Anyway, in taking over the newsagency, the story goes that Aunty Doll enlisted the help and support of a young Jack Roff of the Newton side of the family who was 'doing his articles' (a term Mum used) on his path to being an 'articled' lawyer. The Roff-Newton clan were close to the Bernaconi's, it seems, so Marie and Neil and Betty used to kick around a bit in their younger days. Marie recalled that she, being quite petite in height, would insist the lanky Neil Roff walk in the gutter as they strolled the promenade, to even things up height wise. Family friend, pillar of society, Jack Roff was asked to be MC at Marie's 21st birthday as her own parents were not around, and Jack was a natural at entertaining a crowd. As people entered the party, Aunty Doll on door duty, and perhaps adept at speaking Redfernian herself, announced to a shyish (?) Neil Roff 'Here is someone tall for you to dance with, Neil' and placed the vivacious Eileen Forrest on his arm for the evening. And so your dynasty started. Eileen worked with Marie and a bevvy of others at the tax department. So the story goes.
Betty might be looking a bit weary in the photo-this is early September- but she had just returned the day before from a week in hospital, courtesey of a fall in her quest to answer the phone (own up if it was you calling), where they prodded and probed her throughout the week deciding on a course of action for a suspected break, but in the end sent her packing otherwise untouched. Dad looks glad to have her home.
I aoplogise for the grainy quality of the photo, but in meeting Aunty Marie at the airport, my car window was smashed in the Secure' operated carpark and my computer carry bag extracted which would have disappointed the extractor as it did not have a computer in it. But it did have my camera, and the memories of kimi and my trip to Trufflestan earlier this year. This kind of thing never happened in the Camry, the perils of having a new and opulent looking vehicle. So for now I rely on the mobile phone to record my life's journey. Regards
