Anzac Day Stories

Honouring the brave men & women who represented their country during war.

LEST WE FORGET - ANZAC DAY 25 APRIL

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Cecilia May Delforce

Cecilia was the youngest of six children born to Samuel Delforce and Lydia Elizabeth Ogden of Augathella on the 7th September 1912. She had 4 brothers, Samuel Jnr, Andrew, Austin, and John William and a sister Emma Lydia. Cecilia's parents Samuel and Lydia where married in Augathella in Western Queensland in 1897. His 11 siblings were living and working the rich mining area around Merriwa near Newcastle and Samuel was working in 1910 at Augathella as a shearer. The mystery is why did Samuel leave NSW where his parents had lived all their...

By Helen Stillman
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Private Francis McMahon Trooper 89 10th Lighthorse

This story is about my Great Uncle Francis McMahon born 21 May 1894 in Tongala, he was the sixth child in a family of seven born to Thomas and Elizabeth [Alice] McMahon nee Cahill. Thomas was Irish and Alice was born first generation Australian to Irish parents. His parents baptised him at St Mary’s Catholic Church, Echuca on 17 June 1894. In 1906 at the age of 12 years Francis and his siblings were orphaned the family was divided. Some of the older sibling had already left the home and were working and living in West Australia, NSW and Victoria the remaining younger children went to live with their Uncle John Cahill a farmer in Tongala Victoria...

By Tara McMahon
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Thomas Rutherford

In 1999 while visiting my dad’s family in New Zealand, I was handed a little piece of paper with Thomas Rutherford 5207 written on it. I was asked to find out what I could about this man, though they didn’t think I would find anything. He was my great-grandfather. I found out that he served in the 1st Battalion A.I.F and was killed in the early hours of November 5th 1916 near Gueudecourt, France during an attack launched by the 1st Battalion along with other Australian battalions. They attacked the Germans on the front line near Gueudecourt. After three failed attempts many men were lost and the attack was called off....

By Leeta Rutherford
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The 6th Field Artillery Brigade of WW1: Corporal White and the ‘Fair Dinkums’

Stephen William White was born 18th Nov 1883, Glanville, Port Adelaide, a third generation ‘colonial’. He was the first member of his family to travel back to Europe since his great grandparents arrived in the colony of South Australia sixty six years earlier. At 31 years old, White joined the first AIF on the 13th July, 1915....

By Samantha Battams
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