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| Adele Colin plus kids referred to in this post |
The information I have of the family in Western Australia is from my Aunt Lenna, my father's sister. She very kindly wrote a quite detailed account of the family and the quotations are from her letter.
Thomas Edward Copeland, my grandfather, attended the Ballarat School of Mines. It appears that his brother Frederick did too as he gives his occupation as assayer.
Thomas may have gone on to university, Adelaide being more likely than Melbourne. At Ballarat, on 11 January, 1888 he was given a Bible with the following inscription:
"Presented to Mr. Thos. Copeland by the Teachers of the Dawson Street Congregational Sunday School of friends and the Choir, on the occasion of his leaving for Adelaide, with the kindest regards and best wishes for his welfare and happiness."
He married Lenna Grace Birch in on 11 April, 1901 at Perth. The Birch family were Western Australian pioneers. The family were Congregationalist so it is likely that they met through the church.
"Thomas Edward worked in Ora Banda, Cue, Day Dawn, Menzies and I think Kalgoorlie, during his life as a metallurgist. All these places are still going but mostly ghost towns now. He used to go prospecting quite a lot; he was a very honest man and never took any of the gold he handled, that much I can remember.
"Lenna Grace was a very keen piano player and singer and I can remember when I was about 11 or 12, while your father was a baby, mother and father singing duets. Father had a lovely tenor voice. Gerald inherited his voice and used to sing with the Kalgoorlie Choir or Musical Society...
"As a family, my parents and Theo, Gerald and myself left Ora Banda and went on to an orchard at a small town called Balingup. That was good for twelve months and then the First World War came and we were not able to send fruit away and we went broke. Father then went to work at Fremantle Smelters assaying and it was then that Trevor was born and died and your father came along.
"Then we shifted to Perth, but after mother died father went back to Menzies and worked for quite a while, until his health gave up and he retired."
The family were Thomas Theodore, called Theo, Lenna, Gerald Ware and Colin Wilson. Two boys, Eddie and Trevor, died in infancy.
Note from Ken: I remember that "Uncle Theo" came to Wantirna South when Colin died....
Theo and Lenna stayed in Perth and to my embarrassment I do not know all the details of their children and grandchildren.
Gerald Ware was a pilot in World War Two and died over Germany. His grave is at a war cemetery near Hamburg.
Colin Wilson met his wife, Adele Norris Copeland, in Melbourne during the war, married and had four children Gerald Walter, Ross David, myself and Kenneth Roy.
Colin Wilson Copeland was born at Fremantle on 23 April, 1920. "He started school at Richmond Hill School in East Fremantle on the day the school opened for the first time; he was six in April.
"We as a family then moved to Perth. Colin's elder brother worked in the P.M.G. and went to Derby and Fitzroy Crossing. Father worked at the Customs Office as a chemist.
"Colin went to Highgate Hill school then Perth Boys School. Cannot remember dates but Colin worked to learn radio mechanics at Nicholsons Music Shop in Perth; he also worked for another firm. He left work and enlisted in the army a couple of days after he turned 18.
"Colin was very keen on radio and he built one, and he and a few friends used to get on their bikes, in North Perth, and then get me to turn on the radio as loud as possible. They would ride like mad to see how far they could go and still hear the radio music. The neighbours used to get very cross and complain, but they still did it mainly on Sunday afternoon...
Note from Ken; I remember Mum (Adele) telling me once that Colin was good with radio's ;"he even built one into the doors of a wardrobe".
"Sorry I can't remember many things for you about your father; I should as I brought him up, our mother dying when Colin was nine years old."
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