Christina was one year old when she arrived in Australia in 1873, the year G.A. Hansen discovered the bacterial cause of leprosy. It was not until the 1940s successful drug treatments started to become available, long after Christina had died of leprosy (Hansen’s disease) in 1903, aged 32.
Twenty-seven years later leprosy’s impact on the family would be repeated.
Married in September 1895, Christina (aged 23 or 24) and David Taylor (19 years) had two children. Ethel May was born in 1897 and Leslie in 1899. The family lived in Lismore, though Ethel was born in Cowra and Leslie in Lismore.
The children were born near the middle of a period that saw employees pitted against employers, the creation of unions and labour parties, reduced immigration, economic depression then drought, increasing rabbit numbers and declining sheep numbers, women’s rights and federation. The following recovery and reconstruction was around a new political landcsape and continued reliance on Britain for finance and population.
According to her death certificate, Christina’s last period of illness was almost 3 years. Her last days were spent at the leper lazaret of the Coast Hospital in Little Bay. Just like her mother, Ethel May also spent her last days at the same lazaret, though with only about two months illness, and both are buried at the nearby cemetery.
David Taylor was 27 years old when his wife died. The children were 6 and 4 years respectively. Twenty-two months later (October 1905) he and Florence Ball (age 22 or 23) were married at Casino. The occasion was reported in the local newspaper as: “Weddings.” The Richmond River Express and Casino Kyogle Advertiser (NSW : 1904 – 1929) 27 October 1905: 4. Web. 10 Oct 2018 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article123871217>.
David’s second marriage lasted almost 4 years, until his death in 1909 aged 33 years, leaving his two children in the care of Florence.
Ethel May Taylor (age 20) married Patrick Bede Wall in 1917. Their first of three children Aubrey Lyle was born in 1913. He is not mentioned on Ethel’s death certificate. Leslie Noel was born in 1918 and Phyllis in 1919. All three children had partners and are now deceased, though there are living grandchildren to Christina. Aubrey served in the Australian Army during WW2.
Just like her mother, Ethel was 32 years old when she died of the same disease in the same hospital.
Leslie ‘disappeared’ in the 1930s according to family oral history, but no real facts are available and researching such a common name is problematic.
Leprosy can still be found in Australia, so can rabbits and sheep, conflict between employees and employers, debate about immigration and basic human rights, drought, and politics that seems to still have no appreciation for the impact of policies on what kind of Australia will be passed to future generations, but less reliance on Britain for finance and population.