V is for Vernon

 

Shirley meets Pamella and Lindsay

One of John's Moxon second cousins who he didn't know about till very recently, died in 1950 giving birth to twins.  The twins survived and their devastated father was left with five motherless children.  The father, Harrington Vernon had already lost his first wife.  Losing Miriam (nee Moxon) was too much for him to bear.  Sadly he was admitted to the Callan Park Psychiatric Hospital and the children were placed in a faith-based children's home.

The superintendent and his wife took to the babies and it was arranged for them to be adopted.  How this could occur whilst the father was a scheduled mental health patient is questionable.  When he regained his health he did question the adoption but did not have the emotional or financial resources to do anything about it.  Some trouble ensued and he was banned from visiting any of the children.

Meanwhile, his three eldest children - eight-year-old and four-year-old girls and a boy just two - were admitted to the same children's home.  The older girl, Yvonne was very aware that the twins were her siblings, made sure Pamella and Lindsay also knew, but they were never allowed to acknowledge their relationship. The day they were admitted, Yvonne looked at the Superintendent and said "I know who you are, you're the man who took away our new babies."

Her fate was sealed that very moment: the torment, torture and brutality began for her at that instant and never stopped.

Yvonne was clutching the last remaining belongings of their mother in an old Whitman's tin box containing their mother's meagre possessions including a small bottle of Midnight Blue perfume in a purple bottle with a tassle, perming solution, butterfly clips and a cameo pill box.  All of these things were taken one by one by the superintendent who studied them and then threw them into a black waste paper basket with the cold-hearted comments ..."Umm, you won't be needing these things here".

He then turned to Pamella, as she held her knitted dolly "Mrs Magoofie".  He asked to have a look.  He then smelt it, frowned and chucked her into the waste paper basket, again uttering "you won't be needing that horrible, smelly thing here either."

That was their horrific and traumatic introduction to the faith-run children's home.  The torment remains with Pamella today, as it did with her sister, now deceased.

Until Christmas 2015, they had no contact with her mother's Moxon family.  But idly scrolling through Facebook on her new phone, Pamella noticed a Douglas Moxon and messaged him.  Could they be related?  Douglas didn't think so but gave her our phone number as co-ordinators of Moxons Down Under.  Margaret & John will know, he told her.

Margaret listened to Pamella's story and quickly realised that she and her siblings were related to John.  She also realised that Pamella had a living aunt who was born a year or so later than her niece Pamella. 

The aunt, Shirley was really amazed.  She had heard vaguely that her father had been married before and might have had other children but had not met any.  She and Pamella and later, younger brother Lindsay met each other in 2016 and are now very close.

Pamella has also met many other Moxon cousins, mostly at the Easter time reunion held at Stuart Town near Orange.  One of Joshua's sons, Alfred became a builder there and made his mark in the town, then called Ironbark.