The First Born Sons

By Raymond Boyd Dunn

What family secrets are being revealed as Billy traces his ancestry back to the original Billy Rickards? Is there a Marriage Certificate missing somewhere among the branches of his family tree?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raymond Boyd Dunn
• Release date: Feb 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465787040

Raymond Boyd Dunn

Raymond Boyd Dunn is a "born and bred" third generation Australian. After his retirement Raymond Boyd became a grey nomad, and, with his wife, spent some time touring this vast country of Australia. He was born in the small Burnett Valley town of Monto, Queensland, and for his entire life has answered to the name of 'Boyd'. Apart from his travels he has lived all of his life in Queensland, and after satisfying his thirst for seeing first hand this wonderful country we live in, settled on the Sunshine Coast to spend his remaining years in the sunshine near the beach.He commenced his working life as a Bank Officer and resigned after thirteen years to become self-employed. At various stages he has owned a Corner Store, a small Supermarket Chain, a Butchery, a Milk Run, a Printery and a Cattle and Grain Farm. He has been involved, in various capacities, in Cricket and Tennis Clubs; Jaycees, Lions and Rotary Clubs and Aero Clubs. He was a Cricketer, played tennis, tried to play golf, and was a keen long distance runner.Upon taking a well-earned retirement he wrote his unpublished autobiography, which was for distribution among his family of six children and numerous grand-children. A visit to Cooktown, where he learnt of the Palmer River Gold Rush, was the incentive to keep writing and produce his first novel 'Palmer Gold' He then settled down to write novels, producing two more books to complete a Trilogy...'An Australian Ranch' and "Carly and Sam...Will and Effie'. There followed numerous short stories, and other novels: 'Lord of the Manor in Australia', and 'The Vintage Years'. He continues to write whilst enjoying life in the sunshine on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

Book preview

The Firstborn Sons

(The Rickards Family Story)

by Raymond Boyd Dunn

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Raymond Dunn

As this book is of the Australiana genre, all spelling has been checked in Heinemann’s Australian Dictionary.

Prologue

My name is William George Rickards. You might already know a little about me if you read the story of my train trip to Darwin on the Indian Pacific and The Ghan from which I recently returned. (Once upon a Time on the Ghan).

But just in case you haven’t ─ I am a partner in an Accountancy firm in the beautiful city of Toowoomba. I was born at Dalby in 1975. I am still single in this year of Our Lord 2004, with only a slight chance of rectifying that status in the near future to the satisfaction of my mother. I have two sisters (Margaret and Jane) and one brother (Jack). I board in Toowoomba with Margaret who is married to Webster Johnson, a motor mechanic, and they have two children. My other two siblings are also un-wed, and live with my parents, George and Bertha, on Bethrick, their cattle and grain property north of Dalby.

My purpose in writing this is to tell the story of our family, trying to separate the facts from the fiction, as passed down from generation to generation.

The story began in 1874 on the Palmer River goldfields, where my Great, Great, Great Grandfather, also named William Rickards, met my G-G-G-Grandmother, Elizabeth. They were the original settlers on Bethrick, which was originally a sheep raising property. Their story is told in the trilogy of books, 'Palmer Gold', 'An Australian Ranch' and 'Carly and Sam...Will and Effie.''

I will endeavour to relate the rest as told to me by my Great Grandfather, Samuel Rickards. Unfortunately, Samuel died just a couple of years ago at the ripe old age of ninety-seven. In his younger days he knew the original William and his son Will, who was his father. It’s a pity he couldn’t have lasted a few more years to help me with this story. As it stands, I’ll have to rely on my memory of the many tales he used to tell me, both when I was a youngster listening in awe with mouth agape I should imagine, and later as a teenager, before I left the family hearth to find my own way in the world.

Samuel was old when first I knew him. To me, at such a young age, he appeared ancient. He would have been in his mid seventies then, which I suppose you could call ‘old’ when you are only young yourself. In all the time I knew him he didn’t seem to have aged, except in the last year of his life, but I suppose that could be said to be in the eye of the beholder.

As was the custom with all the first-born sons, Samuel lived on Bethrick all of his life, until failing health forced my father to take him in to a Nursing Home in Dalby for the last few months of his life. His own son, Raymond, my Grandfather, my father’s father, was the ‘black sheep’ of the family, but more about that later. He was killed during the Korean War in 1952, many years before I was born.

When Samuel’s wife, Mabel, passed away with cancer at the age of sixty-eight in 1973, only three weeks after my parents’ wedding, he moved out of the homestead into one of the cottages with his two unmarried daughters, leaving the homestead for my newly-married parents to move into. There are three cottages on Bethrick besides the homestead, which were occupied at various times by one or other of the married sons and daughters, or the married ringers.

I’m afraid I am going to break a tradition ─ which is that the first born son of each generation takes over the running of Bethrick ─ because of my chosen career of Accountancy. My brother Jack had to step into the breech. My father was disappointed when I showed no interest in being a farmer/grazier, but was consoled by the fact that what I lacked in enthusiasm was more than compensated for by Jack’s overwhelming love of the land.

Samuel had only one son, Raymond, and four daughters. Raymond had only one child, George, with his young love, Elsie. Fortunately for me! George is my father.

Samuel was the eldest child of Will and Effie (nee Pearson) Rickards and was born in 1905 in the Dalby Hospital.

Even though he wasn’t my grandfather I used to call Samuel ‘Gran-pop.’ My grandfather, Raymond, was killed twenty-three years before I was born, so you could say that Samuel was ‘Gran-pop’ by proxy. I became very close to Gran-pop while I was growing up. The stories I will relate are based on the stories he told me, and embellished by my imagination.

```````````````````````````````

Chapter 1

Young Samuel Rickards, aged eight years, and his brother Jack, two years his junior, had reached the wooden swinging gate to Bethrick, the sheep property of 15,000 acres which was their home. Samuel, by right of his seniority, sat in front of Jack on the horse, which they rode bare-back and double on their way to, and now from, school in Jimbour.

Samuel leaned down from his position in front to unlatch the gate so they wouldn’t have to dismount, and was urging the horse forward so they could open it and pass through, when they heard the sound of an automobile approaching from behind them. Jack swung around nearly unseating both of them in the process, and shouted, It’s Mum and Dad with the new Chevy car! Open the gate right up, Sammy.

Alright, you don’t have to yell! I can hear you!

They both slid off their mount after the gate was opened, and stood holding it so it wouldn’t swing back again. Their parents had been taken into Dalby the previous day to