joan niewand

You may recall a few years ago I gleaned basically everything there was to glean re: Una Niewand nee Dempster but this morning for no reason other than I am a procrastinator par excellence I did a quick google search on her daughter Joan. I was shocked to discover Joan exists online. She died in 2004. Edna Walling, who was apparently a good friend, took this picture of her sometime in the 1950s. It's in the NGV.

Not too much more to say except she was on the committee of the Murtoa Girl Guides in 1939 according to the Melbourne Age of13 June 1939 p. 12. Seems possible. Also, she wrote this letter to the Age in July 1949 (published 4 July, p. 2):

She was rebuked a couple of days later in the same paper (6 July, p.2) by someone called Buchanan saying she was confusing primitive areas with national parks. 

It's a good surname Niewand and I like it. I wonder how they said it and actually I wonder how they say it now. 

una dempster

I was quite tickled a few years ago when my father told me a story his mother had told him, about her friend Una Dempster who used to come and visit her (they both lived in Hawthorn) and would sing-song her own name as she came to the door, 'Una Dempster, Una Dempster'. Oddly enough although I liked the story I had a complete mental block on her last name, and when I dropped in on him this afternoon I got him to remind me and this time I wrote it down, deciding that - knowing absolutely nothing about Una Dempster except that she was my grandmother's childhood friend and she sang her own name - I would see if I could discover more. 

Una Ethelwyn Dempster b. 13 April 1906 only daughter of Arthur and Gertrude Dempster of Wellesley Road, Hawthorn. She had a brother, John. She married Harold Niewand in October 1928 and they went to live in Murtoa which is between Horsham and Minyip. Almost exactly a year later they had a daughter, Joan and a son (name unknown) some time later. Una Niewand died on the 24 April 1954 in Rupanyup. 

Strangely my father said today that maybe his mother had made the story up about Una Dempster singing her name but I said really out of the two people, Una Dempster and Mavis Heilman(n), one of them had to have been adequately imaginative to conceive of a girl who sang her own name so why not give the honour to Una. 

My father also said that if Una was still alive she'd be 114, good guess, but actually she died before she turned fifty.