Emily Adeline Dover (1890 – 1983)

Emily was born in Blayney on 26/11/1890.

​

She married to George Douglas Platt on 21/02/1917 in Murrumburrah.
George was born in Taree on 26/05/1890.

​

They had the following children:

  • John Platt (1917 – 1917)

  • George Edward Platt (1920 – 1986)

  • Daphne Joyce Platt (1921 – 1978)

  • Doreen Mary Platt (1925 – 1925)

  • Mary Platt (1926 – 1926)

  • James John Platt (1927 – 1937)

  • Jean Patricia Platt (1931 – 2009)

​George died in Prince Henry Hospital on 26/04/1946 and is buried at Botany Church of England.
Emily died on 07/07/1983 in Doonside NSW.

Story by “Tophamrobyn01”  – Ancestry 08/01/2014.

Despite some detective work, relatives and I have not been able to find where or who bought Emily Dover and George Platt together.  Emily’s sister Martha married her husband Rod Larkin in Murranburrah and another sister Hilda and her husband Bert Spur also lived there for a time. so there must have been Harden/Murranburrah  is where George & Em raised their family.  Emily did say at one time that due to George’s on-going ashma attacks his doctor recommended ‘a dryer climate’. Perhaps he moved to Harden for this reason.

Meet and marry they did.  Happiness was still held at bay as their first two children did not survive.  Another child Doreen was born with placental cord problems and only lived 3 months.  Georgie Platt must have seemed like a miricle and blessing with his birth and survival.  Daphne followed.  Another boy James followed by young baby Jean.

George snr’s life was dogged by ill health.  Often he was too ill to work.  Emily told of the kindness of his employers, the Cohens.  The Cohens owned a grocery store.   At times when George had missed work, the Cohens would knock on their front door to deliver his pay.  Much appreciated.
George was so ill with pneumonia he was hospitalised in 1937. Young James Platt was 10 years old in 1937.  With George in hospital Emily was in charge of home and family.  James asked to be allowed to join some friends and go swimming in a local weir after dinner.  He was given a definate no!  Perhaps he couldn’t swim.  Perhaps Emily didn’t want James going with a mixed age group of youths, some older, some younger.  Fate will have its way.  James went swimming and drowned that day.  Drowned while his dad was in hospital.  Drowned while his older brother George was involved in a bike race which would take him close to the weir.  Poor dear George was actually dragged from the race and dived repeatedly for his brother’s body.  He could not find James’s that day.  That was done later.  A Coroner’s Inquest returned a verdict of Accidental Drowning.  Emily kept James school books and special things almost to the end of her days.

Nan never spoke about James and her family never spoke to me about their sad loss.  I was told “not to touch” the school books out of sight on the top of Nan’s old fashioned dark wooden wardrobe.  George and Emily eventually took over running the Cohens Grocery Store.  The depression, too much credit given led to financial disaster.  They lost all their personal belongings.  With such heavy hearts must they have boarded the train for Sydney.  Sydney would hold employment for George jnr., Daphne and Jean.  Emily also found a job.  Sydney would also provide a house in Kensington and it wouldn’t be long before the war, love, birth and death came into their lives again.

John Platt (1917 – 1917)

John died shortly after his birth on 07/04/1917 in Murrumburrah.

George Edward Platt (1920 – 1986)

George was born in Harden on 01/06/1920.

​He married to Rose Emily Morgan in 1947 in Kogarah. Rose was born in Bexley on 07/08/1924.

​They had 1 son:

  • John Edward “Platty” Platt (1947 – 1994)

 George died on 05/08/1986 in Ramsgate.

Rose died in Bexley on 21/09/1998.

Daphne Joyce Platt (1921 – 1978)

Daphne was born in Harden on 13/04/1921.

She married to Leslie Clive Topham in 1945 in Sydney. Leslie was born in Goulburn on 05/02/1913. Leslie died on 03/04/1998 in Adelaide.

After the divorce with Leslie, Daphne remarried to George Constantin Popescu in Sydney in 1966. George was born on 11/06/1924 in Calafat, Dolj, Romania.

Daphne died on 12/05/1978 in Sydney.

George went back to Romenia where he died in 1998.

Doreen Mary Platt (1925 – 1925)

Doreen was born in Jan. 1925 and died in Mar. 1925 in Murrumburrah.

A story by “Tophamrobyn01” – Ancestry.​

Doreen’s short life meant a lot to her mother and father.  Her actual birth took Emily by surprise when she went into labour.  A close relative of Doreen’s father was staying in the house at Harden, more than likely to assist with the expected new arrival and the other children.  Although Emily requested that the doctor be sent for there seems to have been a delay.  This delay, in Emily’s opinion, caused the tradgedy that followed.  Doreen was born with her placental cord placed so that it restricted her breathing.  When the doctor arrived and attended to the baby and Emily he had to inform Emily that Doreen would not live more than a few weeks.  In my grandmother’s words “I nursed her for 3 months” before she died.  There was so much sadness there and more than a little blame, perhaps unjustl.  My grandmother Emily believed had the doctor been called immediately as she had requested more than once, Doreen would have had a chance of survival.  Factual or not, Doreen was obviously much loved for her short, little life.

Mary Platt (1926 – 1926)

There is a BDM entry for a death of Mary Pratt in 1926. Is there a confusion with Doreen Mary???

James John Platt (1927 – 1937)

James was born in Murrumburrah in 1927.

​He accidentally drowned in the railway reservoir at Cunningar on 28/11/1937.

Jean Patricia Platt (1931 – 2009)

Jean was born in Harden on 15/04/1931.

​She married to Ron Kenneth Williams in 1954 in Randwick. Ron was born in 1930.

​They had 3 children.

​Ron died in 2005.

Jean died in Botany on 17/08/2009.

Written by TophamRobyn01 – Ancestry.

Les and his two sisters lost their mother Clara due to the Spanish Flu. This flu was epidemic and Clara died in 1919.  I don’t know who raised the children or what help their father Edward Topham received from his family and his deceased wife’s family, the Hockeys. So a sad beginning and I pray there was joy in all their lives. I know for a fact Les was a celebrated bike rider (the pedal variety). For years my mother kept a large scrapbook with newspaper clippings of his early successes. Due to their separation this book was taboo to me. However I managed to sometimes scramble up and quickly look through. Can’t remember much but an early newspaper photo of Les in 1930 bike outfit, with his bike and blond hair. Les’s life changed when he went to the middle east to fight with the Rats of Tobruk. He was wounded, patched up and sent back to the front The front was a rocky desert with no where to hide. But beat Rommel they did. After the Allies’ success in the Middle East Les’s battalion was sent to PNG to flush out the Japanese. He broke down with war neuroses and was hospitalised. He married my mother in St Mary’s Cathedral Sydney. A quiet private wedding. No photos I have ever seen. May 1945. I was born in March 1946. I do have memories of Les in my early childhood. I know I loved him and used to check he was pushing my pram and not anyone else. He had problems and never came to terms with life after the war. Certainly a wife and child, I believe, was too much for him and he “bolted”. Adelaide is where he lived when I wrote to him some forty years later. We met up in Sydney. I told him I had never had bitter memories or thoughts of him but that I had missed him and watched ANZAC Day marches on TV every single year thinking (somehow) that I would see him. I wouldn’t have recognised him of course. He apologised to me, gave me his war medals and photos of his mates and himself in battle in the Middle East. It seems that was all he had and I think it truly means he never recovered from war neuroses. A sad loss to me. Rest in peace my father.