20/52 Textile. Grace Jackson. 1910 - 1987

 20/52: Textile: Grace Jackson

After my father’s sister, Datie, died, the cousins gathered at Fommie’s place and sorted through her effects, choosing the pieces we each wanted. One of the pieces that came to me was a book of lace knitting patterns. This book became important in my knitting life. When I first started working as a high school teacher, I suffered from insomnia and I needed a hobby that engrossed my mind in a meditative way, and the lace knitting book fitted the bill perfectly. I had to concentrate meticulously on each stitch, each row. If my mind wandered I would make a mistake. Curiously some years after this i was visiting my mother’s sister, Judy, in Adelaide. I had the lace knitting book with me and Judy had some visitors for dinner. They recognised this book because it was they who had given the book to Datie. It was an amazing cooincidence. 

I start this blog with a great sense of inadequacy. I do not know enough about Grace Jackson - Datie. I know that my cousins know a lot more and I know letters exist and that I don’t have them, yet. The prompt ‘Textile’ could fit many other ancestors but it seems to fit Datie best of all. I have made up my mind to just write down what I know today. I can up date this later after I find out  more about her. 

So here goes. I loved this aunt. In fact I loved all my aunts and each of them was special in her own way. Datie was the eldest sister of my father and both my parents were rather snooty about her. She was fat. She was eccentric. She had problematic relationships - but so did my parents so I don’t know why they thought they could look down their noses at her.  She was a great practitioner of textile handicraft, lace knitting, tatting, embroidery. All her nieces have beautiful linen table clothes embroidered by Datie and I use it often and think of her.  She was a keen bird watcher and Penny has a lovely embroidery of an oystercatcher. 

                                           Christmas Dinner on the Datie’s table cloth, 2021

So this much I know. There is very little to be found in TROVE because Jackson is such a common name and she married several times, so changed her name and I don’t know the name of her first husband. Further,  there was a famous singer called Grace Jackson at the same time in Australia.

Grace Barbara Jackson was born in Manchester in 1910. Her mother, Annie Eliza Prince,  had been a maid and her father, Francis (Frank) Jackson, was a chauffeur. They migrated to Australia in 1914 because Grace was asthmatic and the air in Manchester, home of the cotton mills, was toxic. The doctor advised it. They came out from London on the Osterley, leaving London on the 14th of August, 1914 and arriving in Adelaide in October. Grace was four years old so old enough to know what was going on. Also on board with them was Auntie Janey her mother’s younger sister. They were third class passengers. 

In 1918 her sister Florence, (Fommy) was born and in 1921 Edward Arthur, (Ted). They lived in Mitcham. It is thought that it was Ted’s attempt to say ‘Gracie’ that led to the family name Datie. 

Gracie probably attended Mitcham Primary School, one of the oldest state primary schools in Adelaide. I wonder what she made of Empire Day as it was celebrated at the school in 1915 when she was five years old. In 1916, when Grace was in grade 1 or 2, the Register reports that the school was overcrowded with 76 children over 4 grades, with three teachers, were being taught in one room, the Junior Room. a room designed to accomodate 44 children. In those years the school was raising money to contribute to the Plum Pudding Fund, to send puddings to soldiers at the front. Datie would have attended Empire Day, Anzac Day and Arbor Day celebrations. She probably also went to the Mitcham Methodist Sunday School and was one of the girls and boys who sang ‘Song of Australia at the fund raising concert in June, 1918. 

She went on to study at Unley High School, Julia Gillard’s school, and would have been there in 1925 when a new wing was opened by the Minister of Education.  A Miss Grace Jackson is mentioned as a fortune teller at the Unley High School  fête, in 1923. Could it be our thirteen year old Datie?  In 1926, Grace’s name appears in the paper in the Leaving Examinations Honors list. She passed Latin. It doesn’t appear that she passed any other subjects, or perhaps that was the one she achieved an honour for. 

I don’t know what happened after she left school. In 1939 she is listed in the Australian census as living at home, working as a teacher. What I do know is that she met my mother teaching at Methodist Ladies College during the war. My mother’s fiancé had died and Datie introduced her to her brother, Ted. Ted and Gracie were both interested in left wing politics. Neither of them joined the Communist Party but they were sympathetic. They were both involved in left wing theatre in Adelaide. After that, Datie married someone and it was an unhappy relationship. I think he broke her heart.  

                                                   

Datie and Ted, my father.

In 1962, as Grace Barbara Jackson,  she was accepted by the NSW Department of Education as a teacher. By 1963 she had married Walter Kirkwood and is listed in the census living in Bellengen. Datie taught at Coffs Harbour High school and one of her students was the Australian folk singer Judy Small. When Judy introduces her song about Jessie Street she pays tribute to her teacher, Mrs Kirkwood, who taught her about Jessie : ‘What! You’ve never heard of Jessie Street?’ 

In the 1963 Census Walter is listed as ‘no occupation’. He wasn’t really suited to her, I do remember that. We visited her in her lovely house in Mylestom, near Coffs Harbour. It was by the river and a short walk from a surf beach. Walter used to collect pippies on the beach for bait. He was an ex policeman and had a flash old car which Datie referred to as ‘the sacred cow’ because it was never driven but stayed in the garage. 

 Datie was an enthusiastic and innovative cook. Today we would call her a ‘foodie’. My mother looked down her nose at Datie. She was fat and my mother was critical of that, and of her interest in food. I remember her making peach parfait in a tall glass with layers of cream. 

My mother was also critical of her fabulous textile arts projects. My mother liked practical knitting and sewing and made most of our clothes. Datie’s tatting, crochet and lace knitting projects which required skill and a high level of focus, my mother didn’t have time for! But I absolutely understand Datie’s love of fine textile craft. 

I especially understood it in my first year of teaching at Wynyard High School. I can identify with Datie on many levels: my romantic heart broken, my job impossibly hard, I needed something to occupy my mind that wasn’t my messed up life: Lace knitting hit the spot.