Cedric John (CJ) Brinsmead
Cedric John (CJ) Brinsmead was born on October 21st, 1886, their son Henry Brinsmead and his wife Jemima Baker and the grandson of William and Ann Brinsmead, early settlers of the Geelong area. CJ was born on and spent his early years around William and Ann's original homestead, Allens Week Farm. This was next to Lake Connewarre in what was once Kensington and is now known as Leopold, just South of Geelong.
CJ and Laura, by the time of their silver wedding anniversary, had 54 living descendants. After leaving the Geelong area, they moved into the interior in Victoria, then to Tasmania, then into what has become the centre for this line of the family near Murwillumbah in the Tweeds Head region on the boarder of Queensland and New South Wales.
Early Years
CJ's father Henry worked the family homestead, Allens Week farm. Grandfather William lived there until he retired to Geelong. Uncle Reuben stayed in the area until 1895. In addition to the main farm, the family had another farm about five miles down the Queenscliff Road called "The Bush Farm".
CJ attended a little country school about 3.5 miles from the farm, to which he walked each day. He told his children the teacher was cruel and often caned them. He left school when he was about 13 years old because he preferred working on the farm. Despite this, he is said to have continued to read and study, becoming a lover of books as well as a proficient farmer and breeder of fast horses. His early years, traced through directories and local records, show him farming in Leopold in 1909 and 1914.
Around 1905, Henry purchased another farm down on the Great Ocean Road in the Otway Range near Apollo Bay. It is reputed Henry would ride there, even at an advanced age. However, it was CJ who went down to manage and work this new farm. It was a successful venture which, by growing crops like potatoes and onions, greatly increased the family revenue. While CJ was farming in the Otway Range he met a young lady working as a postmistress. Laura was described as having a petite figure, hazel eyes, brown hair tied in a pony tail and a very bright scholastic mind, all of which appealed to CJ. After the Otway farm was sold and CJ went back to work the bush farm, he kept writing to Laura.
CJ's family had promised him that they would sell a plot of land so that a home could be built for him on the Bush Farm land. This never came to pass, so CJ proposed to Laura anyway.
Marriage to Laura Elsie Goullet
The young postmistress was Laura Elsie Goullet. Her father, Frederick Thomas Goulett was of Huguenot origin. Her mother, Suzanne McPherson came from a Scottish shipbuilding family. Laura, one of eleven children, was the postmistress for Skene's Creek and Apollo Bay. The couple married in Melbourne on March 13th, 1913.
CJ and Laura set up house in the two room shack on the Bush Farm which they cleaned and painted. In 1914, Laura is listed in the directory as living in Marcus which is about 5 miles south east of the original Brinsmead homestead at Allens Week farm, down the Queenscliff Road towards Ocean Grove. One of Laura's early sucesses with CJ was to persuade his to stop smoking.
In 1919, the couple are living at 112 Garden Street, Geelong, CJ as a farmer and Laura performing home duties. By 1924 they are living at the corner of St. Alban's Road and Kilgour Street in Geelong although this may be the same location as the intersection is right by Garden Street.
Children
Over a period of 19 years, CJ and Laura had a total of nine children. One died in infancy, but the other eight all survived both their parents. They were:
- Thomas Goullet, born on May 22, 1914, in Geelong
- Hope, born in 1915, in Geelong
- Rosamund Ruth, born and died in Geelong in 1917
- Reginald Henry, born on April 13, 1918, in Geelong
- Noel Furguson, born in February, 1927
- Roma
- Laurence McPherson
- John Browning
- Robert Daniel, born in 1933, in Hawthorn, Victoria
Move to Nhill
Given his sister's resistance to his moving back to Allen's Week farm, CJ took a trip to the Wimmera region, and decided to move there. The house in Geelong was put up for sale. CJ bought a team of light draught horses and trucked them by rail to Nhill. He arranged to live on a share farm by Mount Elgin, about 10 miles outside Nhill. They must have moved that year, because they are also listed as living in Mount Elgin, Nhill; about halfway on the Western Highway, between Geelong and Adelaide, just North of what is now Little Dessert National Park. This was the flat wheat farming area of the Wimmera region. In 1931 the couple are living in Mount Elgin. Laura and the children stayed in Geelong until the house was sold.
Move to Ferntree Gully, Flinders
In 1936 and 1937, they are living on Gladstone Road, Dandenong, on the East side of Port Phillip Bay, South-East of Melbourne. In 1942 they are in essentially the same location, where CJ is listed as a gardener living at "The Patch". The electoral register lists the address as Fertree Gully, Flinders, which is just to the North of Dandenong.
Son Reg described CJ this way, in an interview with Reg's wife's biographers:
...[CJ] was a restless wanderer. The family lived in a tin shed, and from earliest childhood Reg would experience privations which, throughout his adulthood he would assiduously seek to avoid. "My father would stay on a farm for a while, but when it all became too much, he'd gather up his things and look for a greener pasture, leaving Mother to pack up and organize everything - and there was one child after another,' he recalled. 'By the time I married, we'd walked away from a lot of farms. I think the main reason I became a teacher was to get away from all that, all the dawn-to-dusk labour - and the poverty.'
Move To Murwillumbah
CJ's Banana Farm was featured in a June 1947 article in an Australian Women's Magazine describing a long rural postal route. By 1946, CJ and Laura are living in Murwillumbah, along with their now adult sons Laurence and Noel; all three men listed as farmers. In 1954 they are all, along with Laurence's wife Verna, living at Numinbah, Murwillumbah.
1973 - Diamond Wedding Anniversary
CJ and Laura Brinsmead's 50th Anniversary In March, 1973, CJ and Laura Brinsmead celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary. There was a large party with most of their children and grandchildren present. for the occasion.
Death
Laura died on December 20, 1979 just two days after her 90th birthday. She is buried in Murwillumbah's Lawn Cemetery. Her obituary, apparently published in the Seventh Day Adventist newsletter, read in part:
Sister Brinsmead was baptized at Geelong by the late Pastor Ben Cozens. As a charter member of the Geelong church, she sold her pony and buggy to help finance the first Geelong church building. Present at the Murwillumbah Garden of Remembrance were her husband of sixty-seven years, Cedric, her eight living children, Tom, Hope (Mrs. Cedric Taylor), Reg, Roma (Mrs. Austin), Lawrence, Noel, John and Robert, along with many of her thirty-two grandchildren and thirty-three great grandchildren. Her family and friends gained comfort from a message she wrote before her brief final illness, and were challenged by its concluding sentence: "The Lord is soon coming, so be ready."
Laura's children, influential in the development of Banora Point in the Tweeds Head area, arranged to have two streets, Laura Street and Elsie Street named after their mother.
CJ died eight months later on August 12, 1980 and was buried the next day, also in Lawn Cemetery. He was 94. Again the large family attended the service. His obituary added:
Cedric John Brinsmead, patriarch of the Brinsmead family, passed away ... after a brief illness. He was baptized in Geelong in 1915, and was well known in Victoria and the Tweed District of New South Wales....Brother Brinsmead's faith in a crucified, risen and soon-coming Saviour brought comfort to all.