Elizabeth and Edward were the parents of three children:

ALMA JEAN Born 9/1/1910 at Ballarat -
Married Herbert Stanley HUMPHREYS-19/5/1928

IDA EMMA Born 13/10/1915 at Bendigo.
Married Harry Allan REID 1/3/932 -Declared presumed dead, missing in action 1942.
Married John Edward BAIRD-31/8/1936

WESLEY EDMONDS Born 20/6/1917 Bendigo - Died Melbourne 25/5/1979.
Married Peggy (Margaret) MARTIN 6/3/1943.




Edward and Elizabeth with Alma, Ida & Wesley (taken about 1928 or 1929)

MEMORIES OF GROWING UP: IDA EMMA (WATSON) BAIRD.

WRITTEN: 27/5/1992.

Edward and Elizabeth Watson with Alma

My earliest memories are of living at 675 Spencer Street, West Melbourne, that's where I first started school which was in King Street, North Melbourne.

The house at 675 Spencer Street

I was born at Bendigo and was there until the age of two or three because my brother Wesley was born there too. We had an older sister Alma who was five years older than me. I was born in 1915, she was born in 1910.

Alma Watson aged 6, Ida Watson aged 1 taken 1916

We lived in West Melbourne because the doctor said I wouldn't survive in Bendigo as it was too hot and I was taking kidney fits..

Dad was a first class engine driver and was stationed at North Melbourne Loco yards, so that's why we lived close to his work.


Alma 13, Ida 8, Wes 6.

We had a beautiful double story home, it would be a mansion today. The front room was a ballroom, lots of bedrooms. Mum used to rent out rooms and flats.

My mother's sister Olive and her husband Jack Grenfell and son Albert came to live opposite in another lovely old home which was the Millar Street Methodist Church's parsonage; so that meant there was Alma, Ida, Albert, three months younger and then Wes, so we had the same great times together.

We used to be near the Cable tram lines that ran down Abbotsford and Spencer Street, so us kids (I'll bet Bert thought up the idea) used to get a lid off a nugget tin, add a piece of string through a hole, then put a washer on the end of it and insert it in the tram line where it would sail merrily along the cable. Great fun for us kids.

We all had whipping tops which we would whip up and down the street until our arms nearly fell off.

Bert and Wes had billy-carts. Poor Wes was always the 'patsy', Bert would put him in and shove him off down a hill. One day, the cart got out of control, poor Wes sitting in the cart, rushed down Spencer Street , around the corner and finished up at North Melbourne station which was always busy, and where a man always had a horse and pie cart! You'd never believe it, but that billy-cart with Wes in it went right under the horses legs, leaving a very startled horse and carter.

Alma, Wes, Ida & Bert and the famous Billy-cart

Another time we had large iron rims off horse drawn lorries, larger than a hula hoop and we used to bowl them along with a stick, down the same hill and got away. It went hurtling down the road and jumped the rail fence and finished in the rail yards. We didn't stay around to see the result of that ---

We lived at Spencer Street a few years and Mum didn't think West Melbourne was the best of places to bring children up so we went down to Cluden Street, North Brighton, where Mum and Dad had a large poultry farm although Dad still worked on the engines.

A Mr Powell used to call each week for eggs, and while he was getting the eggs the horse bolted. A boy caught the horse and Mr Powell gave him one egg as a reward. From then on he was known as 'one egg Powell'.

Alma also had a pet lamb there that we kids used to tease until it got old enough to butt us when it saw us coming. Poor lambie finished up at the butchers for five pounds, which Alma bought a camera with.

We used to be very close to Aunty Oll and Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack came and built an extra room on the house for us and the Humphreys came to do the plastering. They had quite a few sons. One, Herbert, must have been keen on Alma. He used to keep coming back to see if the plaster was drying out all-right, so they kept going together. One the corner of Cluden Street and Hampton Street was a park which had a huge drain that ran right under the road and came out a good way down on the other side. Bert, Wes and I used to walk the full length of those tunnels. When I look back now, I realise how lucky we were there were no flash floods.

Mum and Dad used to dress poultry for sale, we never had a car or cart. Dad had a bike. We used to walk miles to deliver dressed chooks and eggs. I can still remember the lovely fluffy ducklings swimming around in water, turkeys and incubators hatching out hundreds of chickens.

We then moved back to West Melbourne where Alma and Herb were married in the lovely front room. Alma was 18 and I was bridesmaid. I was about 13. I had a lovely crushed strawberry dress, I thought it was beautiful. Alma and Herb went to live at Black Rock and Wes and Bert used to go down there for holidays. Alma used to send them down the street to buy the paper each day and after they got the paper, Bert says to Wes "You do what I do, then run". Bert grabs an apple from the fruit shop next door, Wes does the same and sends the lot flying. The bloke came out in a high old dungeon. Next time Alma wanted them to get the paper they said they couldn't go in there any more as the chap caught them slipping a comic inside the paper.

Alma and Herb had a shop in Queensbury Street about six doors down from Errol Street on the right hand side. There was a lane at the side of it going towards Curzon St. The shop was between Errol and Curzons Sts. Herb used to ride a bike from there about a mile past the North Melbourne Station to deliver two bottles of milk.

In Spencer Street at the back of our yard was a large lorry yard. The old drunks used to wander up the back lane and go in there to sleep it off sitting next to our fence. What kid could resist that, we would get paper bags and fill them with water and drop them fair on their heads and then bolt.

Mrs Gelly used to live next door and never looked after her yard, there was dried grass a couple of feet high and it was summer. Dad said "That grass is dangerous and could catch fire." Once again we kids obliged and set fire to the grass. We didn't sit down for a long time after that effort. We must have been cows of kids, we didn't like Mrs Gelly so we would eat our sandwiches and throw the crusts on her verandah.

I was only very young going to school and some girls asked me to go pollie picking with them. I didn't know what it meant but went along. I found out that you nipped into a persons house, pinched their flowers and bolted. One day the other girls bolted and I was left standing there with the flowers in my hands, so got hauled up to the school and taken to the head-master. I've still not forgotten how dreadful I felt that day.

The little corner shop which had everything you could think of. We kids would gather around and say : "If the window was broken we would have this and this". Poor old Wes being about four, up with a brick and put it fair and square through the window. I can't remember how our parents got out of that one. I'll bet we didn't sit down for a while. In those days there was no sparing the rod. Mum used to have a real long cane that came from a cane factory, we all felt its sting when we needed it.

On the back of the house at Spencer Street was a roof over the back portion of the house. As it was a two-story house the roof was very high, so we kids used to climb through a window and sit on the roof. You could sit on the roof and see large ships coming up the bay. Of course, we always leaned over Mrs Gelly's side wall and had a spit - nothing like it when you are kids. Then there was poor old Ada. Today we would say she was handicapped. She was mentally retarded. Their house and verandah were right on the street. Although she was about forty, she would sit there all day with a doll in her arms. I hope we weren't unkind to her, can't ever remember being so but her people must have been wonderful, they kept her home and looked after her.

We have many happy memories in Mother's family. There were seven adults and all their children. Every Christmas and New Years Day we all met together with our Grandparents and had wonderful feasts - always a game of cricket after dinner which every one joined in. My grandfather had been a Methodist Minister and was such a kind gentle man. He died in his chair about to tie his shoes up.

My grandmother lived longer. She had beautiful wavy hair. Every year she made another nice gown with pink feather stich on the neck and cuffs to be laid away in. The last one was then used as a night gown. They were truly lovely, good living Christian people, whom I can look back on with pride.

Alma Humphreys wrote: "I will always remember the cream horns they used to make at Yendon. Ken McGregor used to keep nit while I pinched biscuits out of the pantry. There were big tins of them, home-made and like all kids we were always hungry, and all the shining silver on the s ideboard, gravy in the gravy boat. Grandpa carved the meat, Grandma ser ved the vegetables f rom the vegetable dishes. All willow pattern, no not willow but blue. I remember when Grandpa took us around to collect the eggs, he'd say "look in some sheds, you might find some." The chooks ran wild. He was a dear old chap, always had time for the children, told us stories and made cat's cradles with string. I still remember the earthenware pipe with bits of China stuck on it in the hall to put the umbrellas in.

(Ida continues:) Of course, there was another side to us coming from a staunch Methodist family, my Grandfather christened Bert and I on the same day at the Methodist Church in Natimuk near Horsham as there is only three months difference in our ages.

We went to church Sunday morning, Sunday School in the afternoon, church again Sunday night, Christian Endeavour Monday night and socials Saturday night, so we had a good grounding in the church - Anniversary Days we always had a lovely new dress, new hats and all sat up the front and sang - and who can forget Harvest Festivals when a table down the front of the Church was laden down with fruit and vegetables and all the good things the earth could produce. Sheaves of wheat were tied to the pews and girls would walk down the front carrying sheaves of wheat and the congregation would be singing "Bringing in the Sheaves. The annual concert at the end of the year was when we would receive lovely books for attendance and good behaviour etc. The way my mother and aunts would cook for special teas that were put on in the church was remarkable . We had one old man we used to call Daddy Pervis, he would step out of his pew and walk down the aisle singing - really carried away - My Dads bald head used to really glow in the mirror above the organ.

My father's parents lived on a farm at Yendon, Grandpa died when I was very young and Grandma when I was 12. She would come to stay and give us two shillings to buy chocolates for her but between the shop and home there were not too many left.