U is for Uncle John

Three men named John Moxon

Either during World War 1 or soon afterwards, John Bruce Moxon's grandmother Ellen Mary Moxon (nee Egan) left Wrightville for Sydney with her five daughters so that they could benefit from a secondary school education.  The girls went to Fort Street Girls High School and matriculated, with two obtaining teaching positions and the others also taking up interesting work.

The youngest girl was born in 1913.  When she was 11, her mother Ellen adopted a baby boy and named him John.  That was in 1924 when Ellen was 51 and living in the inner city.

There was no formal adoption process in New South Wales before 1931 and his mother and older siblings never discussed his possible origins with young John. They saw it as their mother's job, if at all. The girls' father Harry Moxon was not around to raise him because he had settled in Lake Cargellico by 1921 and remained there for many years.  The two boys, born in 1900 and 1902 had left home.  John spent much of his childhood living on his eldest sister’s farm near Port Macquarie. His mother died when he was 19 or 20 and may have been ill during his teenage years.

The family story, never discussed with John, was that he was the child of a young girl who worked in a greengrocer's shop and that either she was Greek or the father was Greek.  The next generation, more recently mused that maybe he was the son of one of the older girls who were 18 and 16 at the time of his birth.  This scenario was not unusual in those days. In fact, until the 70s, many young people found out that their oldest sister was really their mother.

John grew up, married, and had two children. He was marketing manager for Sidchrome Australia.  Prior to that he worked with his oldest brother Percy at his spare parts business at Enmore and had served an apprenticeship with the NSW Railways.

He never discussed his parentage.  In fact, when his brother Herbert John (Bert) Moxon was in his early 80s and showing signs of dementia, John knocked on his door and door and Bert said “who are you? Oh, you’re the young boy my mother took in!”.  The rest of the family was aghast.  It certainly was a conversation stopper.

However lacking in curiosity John was, his daughter was the opposite.  She wanted to know her origins.  She asked her father to take a DNA test but he adamantly refused.  She asked me what she could do.  I suggested that she take a test and maybe she could get some answers.  Not as good as having her father test, but better than nothing. 

When the results arrived, her DNA showed she was 25% Greek, so either her paternal grandfather or grandmother was definitely Greek but probably not both of them.  She had been told about a possible father with a Greek name by one of her older cousins and I found (in the electoral roll) that there was a fruitier working in the Haymarket, near where Ellen Moxon’s family lived in the early 20s. He later married and moved to Western Australia.

The next objective was to check whether she was related to her Moxon cousins.  She had been very close to some of them including her oldest cousin who set us on the family history journey in the 80s.  We held our breath waiting for a gedmatch.com match between her and John Bruce Moxon (Bert’s son)  or one of the few Moxon first cousins who had taken a test.  These included the daughter, Wendy of the oldest sister.

There were no matches.

This was sad.  His daughter was their popular cousin.  But it ruled out one of the Moxon girls being his mother.

Nevertheless, John Moxon was a dearly loved member of the Moxon family.  Since retirement, John Bruce Moxon and I have had lunch with him regularly at his local club.  In recent years he had been admitted to a residential care facility in the inner west but was still fairly mobile.  He passed away on 2nd February this year.

The photo above was taken at John’s 80th birthday party in October 2018. The other John Moxon is John’s second cousin from Orange, New South Wales.  It was the first time that the three John Moxons had met.