Ancestor #14 – Annie Edenborough

Annie Edenborough was born on 16 July 1888 at Paddington, New South Wales, the fourth of eight children born to Edwin and Teresa Edenborough (nee Persiani).

Annie’s paternal grandfather was Arthur Edenborough (Ancestor #1) who worked for many years as a tidewaiter for the New South Wales Customs Department, an occupation that was to see him forcibly carried away aboard an American vessel, the Emerald Isle, in January 1851. He was finally released in Honolulu, and with the help of the British Consul there, was returned back to Sydney via New Zealand in June 1851.

Annie’s maternal grandfather, Peter Persiani, was also involved with seafaring: family lore being that he was a sea captain who went down with his ship! He certainly disappeared after his daughter Teresa (Annie’s mother) was born in Sydney in 1862 but whether he perished at sea or deserted his family remains a mystery.

Prior to marriage, Annie Edenborough remained at home assisting her mother with younger children and other domestic duties required in a large household instead of obtaining a profession for herself. She eventually met and married James Dempsey at Paddington, New South Wales, in 1910.

 

Throughout their courtship, James sent many beautiful greeting cards to Annie and, as was the common practice of the day, Annie faithfully stored them in a postcard album that had been an eighteenth  birthday present to her from her older sister Jessie and Jessie’s husband, Frank Booth.

Annie Edenborough with James Dempsey
on her wedding day in 1910

 

and in later life

 

Many of the postcards reveal a wonderful and charming insight into the everyday lives of Annie and James:  both appeared to have a liking for the theatre and many of the postcards mention theatre rendezvous in the city of Sydney.

Ten months after their marriage, Annie gave birth to their first child, Dulcie (1911). Then followed: James (1913), Nancy (1914), Viola (1916), George (1919), William (1921), Jack (1823 and Verlie (1928).

While both Dulcie and James were born at Balmain, Nancy was the first child to be born at Gladesville in Annie’s newly finished home built by her husband. In 2014 that home celebrated its 100th anniversary.