All that’s left
Louisa Lawson (1848-1920) was a poet, a writer and for 17 years successfully ran The Dawn, a journal advocating for women’s rights. For the decade prior she was also a farmer: and here’s all that’s left of the home she made for her children.
Her Norwegian husband built the house – and that chimney – but he was often away, trying to earn money and much of the farming fell to Louisa. In her ‘spare’ time (they also had 5 children) she nurtured a garden. Today the Eurunderee site of Louisa’s farm is a modest roadside memorial to her famous son, Henry.
A briar rose grows through a crack in the paving, beside a picnic table.
It’s unlikely to be a remnant of Louisa’s garden but – in its tenacity and resilience and beauty – it’s a fitting memorial.
To her.
The roadside memorial is at Eurunderee, near Mudgee, in central New South Wales.
“Her Norwegian husband”. When did Peter Larsen come out – as a boy with his parents, or as an adult? He ended up living a very Australian life.
Niels Hertzberg Larsen (1832-1888), was born in Arendal, Norway. Like his four older brothers, he sought a career at sea and by the time he was in his twenties his passport said ‘Master of Navigation’. In 1855, Larsen’s ship docked at Hobson’s Bay (now Williamstown and near the port of Melbourne, for those following along at home) and he left it to try his luck on the goldfields. Eleven years later, when he proposed to Louisa Lawson, he was still not-very-successfully prospecting. He would continue his prospecting, off and on, for the rest of his life. 34yo Niels married 18yo Louisa in 1866 under his own name but by the time Henry was born a year later, Niels had anglicised his name to Peter Lawson. He never returned to Norway.
Great answer thanks. (I’ve swum from Port Melbourne to Hobsons Bay. Lots of jellyfish! And it’s also the setting for the first chapter of Ada Cambridge’s Sisters when the hero (accidentally) drowns his wife).