In Memoriam

My grandfather passed away August 2, 2014, leaving behind two daughters, four grandchildren, one great grandchild and a tonne of memories and stories.

Revitalise

When Mum and Dad got home from Europe, the garden in a sorry state; the reticulation had failed so we had patchy grass, a sad looking herb garden and a few dead prize plants.

It wasn't too much of a surprise as our garden water is pumped from a mill stream which can run dry over summer and some plants end up dying anyway, despite Mum's hawk-like attentions. It was devastating for Mum though as it was somewhat more severe than usual.

By the time I returned a week later, some things were in the process of being revived.

Dissecting Documents

Starting a new life halfway around the world, in a time before the internet and digital files, you would have had to make sure you took all the necessary documents with you; Job references, proof of education, proof of identity, birth certificates, death certificates...

Many of these documents were indeed brought out by my grandfather. There are wads of job references, not just for himself but surprisingly, also for his late father. Documents documenting his mother's places of residence since her marriage to Joseph. Certificates of education, later translated from the original French into English in my grandfather's florid hand.

Documents that don't appear as yet to have made it to Fremantle include my Grandfather's birth certificate.

Another set of documents that did make it though, neatly bundled together, was the marriage certificate of his parents Joseph Armarego and Assunta Morello,

also, the death certificate of Joseph Armarego.

and a couple of documents that identify Assunta as the sole executor and beneficiary of her husband's estate.

This in itself seems a little strange. Why were these documents seemingly more valuable that they were brought to Australia but copies of the boys' birth certificates were not?

The answer is actually present in an accompanying letter, written by Assunta's son Oswald to the Department of Social Services.

Being a British subject by birth herself and widow of a British subject by birth, Assunta was eligible for a Widow's Pension, not just in the British colony of Alexandria, but also once they landed in Australia.

This collection of documents was necessary to prove her eligibility with the Australian Department of Social Services.

I don't know whether her application was successful, I never knew the circumstances at a time when I could ask.
I would assume she did, not only because they seem to have been a determined family (see the correspondence of the journey out), but because I've only heard stories of my grandfather supporting her financially for the first few years after their arrival here. It was this  later fact that stopped Oswald and Violet from marrying the moment Oswald arrived, but were instead forced to wait a few years. 

A Colour of Mourning

My Grandfather passed away two weeks ago and as the news was published in the newspaper and Facebook, the sympathy cards and flowers slowly started arriving.
Each and every one was beautiful from close friends and family, and family we had never heard of on the other side of the country. What intrigued me most though was that each bouquet of flowers (including the potted rose bush) comprised of white flowers, not a medley of cheerful coloured ones, just white.

I'm not complaining.
In fact I'm strangely pleased.
I mean, I know Black is the official colour of mourning (still) and black flowers are virtually impossible to get. And white is the next neutral, black-related colour that is most easily available in flowers.

But though lesser known, White is also a colour for mourning, and has been for a long time.

White was used for children and unmarried women (virgins?), a symbol of their unblemished reputation and social virtue. It's not in the slightest bit relevant to my grandfather, and I doubt he would have appreciated this lesser known historical tradition. But still...
As illustrated through the rings below, the iconography remained the same, but the colour of the enamel differed. Both rings date to the 1780s. As an aside, the illustrations under glass on each ring were likely draw using the hair of the deceased.

Historically, white has also been the colour of deepest mourning among Medieval European Queens. Louise of Lorraine, wife of Henri III of France wore white after the assassination of her husband, and became known as Reine Blanche (The White Queen).

Louise's sister-in-law Mary Queen of Scots is pictured above dressed in the white mourning expected of a French Queen. She had been Queen of France for 17 months and was mourning the death of her husband Francis II, in addition to her father-in-law Henri II and her mother Mary of Guise.
This custom in France influenced the Queen Mother's wardrobe several centuries later when she made a State visit to France whilst still mourning the death of her mother.
It was a tradition at the Spanish courts until the end of the fifteenth century.
Juliana of the Netherland's daughters wore white to their mother's funeral.

Though the flowers were not ordered with me in mind, I appreciate the historical elements they unintentionally depict.

Natural History Museum - London

I want to introduce you to one of the museums in London. A very specific one that occupies pride of place on Cromwell Road.
It's not the Victoria and Albert, London's exhibitor of historical fashion.
It's the other one.
The Natural History Museum.



I assure you, its not just anyone I drag to this museum, (one of) my favourites in London. Though I do ensure it takes its rightful place on the 'must see in London' lists of many of my family and friends. However the reason for this, is not the result of the museum's content alone. It is the building itself that holds my gaze the longest.

Scant Memories

Sorting through my possessions, I recently stumbled upon a gift from my Grandpa. Its rather simple, a pen drawing of a giant panda leaning towards me delicately painted in watercolours. And its a memory of my Grandpa.

The sad thing though is that its one of very few memories, and a referred memory at that. I've no idea how I got it or when he did it though its been sitting on my bedroom wall for most of my childhood. I've been told it was by him and now recognise his style.
He was obviously an artistic man, there's proof enough of that shared out between the extended family.  Illustrations pop up (and are now shared digitally), and more than one of his naturalistic wood carvings grace the lounge room bookshelves. My father and aunts still occasionally talk about the books he wrote and illustrated for them, but the Grandpa I knew personally was never artistic. In fact the only hobby I remember him indulging in was that of pipe-smoking. For most of my childhood he lived in Tasmania on a beautiful wooded property in the north overlooking the beach, but I do remember him staying here with my aunt for lengthy periods on more than one occasion. We were only little at the time, and there was always the encouragement to get to know our extended family. It was just that with Grandpa, it was as though he was never really interested in us at all.

I have two memories of Grandpa. Both are hazy at best and unfortunately neither portray him in a very positive light. The first is of him shuffling around my aunt's kitchen area. Its so insignificant that I can't tell if it really is a memory or whether I've projected his habits onto a place I know he was associated with. The second is clearer. Its of Grandpa standing in our meals area in front of the bookcase. I distinctly picture the bookcase, more than I do the people, as though the height of the case defined the parameters of my view. And then I remember him going outside through the side door to have a smoke as he wasn't allowed to smoke inside. To this day pipe smoke reminds me of him, the only scent I can associate with him.

My grandpa died in 1997 and I remember being told by my father on the way to school. It was the first death in my life and my reaction to the news was being astonished that I felt absolutely nothing. I processed the information as you would any other unalterable fact and just got on with the rest of the day. Its sad that a grandparent could create so little memory in his own grandchild.

With the passing of time

We used to catch up every Christmas. Once a year, every year, my Mother's aunts, cousins and their children would descend upon my Granddad's place and for seven hours would interact as though we'd never been apart. This was only a small part of the older generations, the part still talking to each-other and willing to endure again the tradition of Christmas Eve together. Of the children, there were 11 of us then, all just kids, with about eight years between us and together we instinctively resumed the teasing and petty alliances that had formed the memories of last year's Christmas Eve. We knew each-other at that age: we were young enough to truly focus our attentions on the small swing-set placed on one corner of the backyard and squabble fiercely over the placement of baby Jesus in the manger when midnight arrived. We were also clever enough to know which traditional desserts required our undivided attention as like each-other they only appear at festive times of the years when the grandparents had taken the time and effort to create them especially for us.

As the years progressed, misunderstandings arose and the petty alliances of the children transferred to the grownups. Christmas Eves dwindled until the cousins stopped coming and it became just my extended family. Children grew up, finished school and then finished uni and are now heard to be travelling the world and starting their own families with their own traditions. Cousins maintained their feuds, divorced and came to terms with the idea of dating anew and becoming grandparents. And the grandparents themselves just got older and frailer and smaller.

Now, we catch up almost every year, once a year. We congregate outside and exclaim at how the children have grown, how much they look like Uncle R or Cousin E. Cousins swell in pride at their childrens' accomplishments, how well they did in uni, what graduate program they've successfully gained admittance to and how successfully their love lives are blossoming into fruition. About once a year, my Mother's aunts, cousins and their children descend upon a local church and a service is held in memory of one of the grandparents.

Museo Massimo - Rome

Actually known as Museo Nazionale Romano and located within the Palazzo Massimo, this museum is one of my top recommendations from Rome, and sprang to mind again when my sister requested suggestions for her own imminent visit to this city of old Julius.

As mentioned in a previous post, this museum was a god-send after the disappointment of several others, but raiding my photos I felt the need to showcase a few more of its utter delights.



Though at first glance this appears very much to be a garden room, for the most part, the plants reproduced have an association with funerals and the hope for immortality. Included are Oleander (its toxicity making it a symbol of death), Arbutus (used in funeral rites to protect the dead), Date palm (possessive of powers of regeneration), Box (associated with the god Hades), Coronary Chrysanthemum (a component of funerary garlands) and among others the Opium Poppy (a close relation of death).

I wish I possessed the skills to paint something as detailed as this. It is a familiar scene though, similar to the one I am fortunate to see every time I look out of the family room window onto the back lawn.





The Greek Prometheus who angered the gods by stealing their fire to give to the mortals. As punishment he was chained to a rock and daily, Zeus' eagle would descend upon him and pick out his liver. What impresses me most about this myth though is the medical accuracy of it; even then, the Greeks knew that the liver was the one organ that could regenerate itself, to be eaten again the next day.

My darling friend N is not the most accepting of any ducks due to the indecent behaviour of the ones patrolling UWA, so this is for her, with my love.

While these ducks are beautiful in their detail and realism, they are but a small part of the border of a far more impressive mosaic, portraying most possibly a scene on the river Nile.

Would I be a sadist if I contemplated including a few of these in the tiling of a guest shower? 

The Bodies in the Museum

29 August 2012

Growing up, I remember my school library having this small but informative book on bog bodies. It was hidden amongst a collection of other books of weird historical facts, well away from the history section, in an aisle of the library few people frequented, and I liked it that way.
I got it out repeatedly, for the bog bodies intrigued me. Not so much because they had benefited from a natural form of mummification, but because of what their preserved state could tell us about the lives of them and their communities, and because of the mystery around the ritual behind their deaths.
Preserved bodies can tell us enough about who they were, from the age and gender, determined the bones, to the social status and occupation through the bones and the grave goods. They also answer the 'how' and the 'when' but they fail to address the 'why', and sometimes this is the most intriguing question.

What there is to seek

Sailing around the Greek Islands, I always felt the need to explore more than just the beaches and bars that each destination had to offer. While I don't regret the beaches visited or the bar we drank in, the Greek islands meant far more.

They were a connection with the past, not just with the world of the Ancient Greeks, but with my own past, with the myths I'd read though-out my childhood and with the events I'd studied in depth through my final years of school. I knew the legends of Thera, the volcanic tourist destination who had blown it's top and possibly wiped out civilisation on Crete. I knew of the island where Theseus dumped Ariadne having decided she was of no further use and where Dionysus fell in love and married her. The cave where Zeus was hidden upon birth to save him from his cannibalistic father. And of the floating island where Apollo was born before it became the seat of the Delian League.

Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

05 June 2012

In Ancient Egypt, the river Nile created a simple divide of east and west, life and death. To the east the sun rises: life, before dying as it sets in the west.
As a result, despite there being temples located on the east and west shore of the Nile, the purpose of these temples is clearly divided into temples for the living and temples relating to death.

The temple constructed by Hatshepsut, the female Pharaoh is located on the west shore and so it is designated the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut.