The Lutge Family in Australia

Joyce was the older child of Denis (Dinny) Lutge and Margret Shaunghnessy.  Joyce was born on 6 February 1919 at Mosman.  Dinny and Margaret married in 1917 following the death of Margaret's first husband, Frederick Walkley in 1913. Frederick and Margaret had two children - Margaret Anne (1906 to 1979) born in Balmain and Marie Ivy (1906 to 1978) born in Mosman.  Dinny and Margaret had a son, Denis James, who was born on 11 November 1920 and died 11 days later. Margaret died on 11 April 1926 and the death was registered at Darlinghurst.  Joyce was just 7 years old when her mother died!  Dinny died on 18 February 1953 when Joyce was 34. Joyce married Victor Leslie Kelly in 1940 in Mosman.  They had one child, Denis John, known as John about 1942.  Victor enlisted in the Second World War and died in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp on 12 September 1944.  This is the only photo I have of Joyce with Victor from the Australian War Memorial collection. After Victor's trag

On a lighter note, we find many references to John Henry's work as "The Poundkeeper" for Mosman Council.   John Henry was born in 1866 at Cumberland Street in The Rocks.  When he was a youth, the family moved to Military Road Mosman.  His father, Peter Benson, ran a stevedoring company with Richard Moran.  John Henry worked as a stevedore in the Lutge & Moran business.  The partnership was dissolved after Peter Benson died in 1890. In 1895, John Henry entered the NSW Police Force.  His initial placement was in Balmain.  After a couple of years, he was moved to Moree with his wife, Matilda, and young son, Cliff.  Their next son, Kelvin, was born in Moree in 1898.  John Henry left the police force and returned to Sydney in the early 1900s with his family.  They settled in Gerard Street Cremorne where the youngest child, Helene, was born in 1906. John Henry started working for the Mosman Municipal Council.  In 1914, he was appointed "The Poundkeeper".

From an early age, I knew that John Henry Lutge, my great-grandfather, had been drowned in the bombora off Dobroyd Point opposite Balmoral Beach.  Growing up in Mosman, Balmoral was our local beach and the story was repeated many times by my mother, Beryl.  She was only 10 months old when her grandfather died.   This event appears to have changed the life of the Lutge family.  John Henry's wife, Matilda, sold the family home at 84 Gerard Street, Cremorne, within two years of John Henry's death and lived with her daughter, Helene, and granddaughters.  Helene's husband, Elton Phillips, died in August 1930.  The extended family lived at Northbridge and later Willoughby. John Henry and Matilda's oldest surviving son, Cliff, lived with his family at Roseville.  The youngest son (my grandfather), Kelvin, lived with his family at 82 Gerard Street, Cremorne. My mother had no memory of meeting Matilda, her grandmother, her uncle or aunt or their families.  I