The Relative in the Cupboard
The story of Jane Sefton alias Jane MacCartney
There are 3 creased and torn letters which tell a piece of my family’s history and speak of a woman’s life lived in South Australia and Van Diemen’s Land during the mid-19th century. Letters which had been kept neatly folded in a jar and are known to have been kept in a cupboard for over 100 years. The story of those letters was told to me many years ago by my Great Aunt Rebecca. My Aunt was born in Liverpool in 1898. She would recall to me how her close knit family had spoken of the relative who had left Liverpool for Australia, with a black mark, in shame, and with a stain on her character. The family through the years had spoken that they knew their relative had done something wrong, had caused a family scandal, that she had left for Australia. But as with all skeletons in cupboards through the course of the subsequent years the story as too why and what happened was no longer discussed and in time all but forgotten.
Read more: Jane MacCartney
(conduct record, indent, description list)
