Looking for Rose Paterson: How family bush life nurtured Banjo the poet by Jennifer Gall
National Library of Australia Publishing, 2017. ISBN 9780642278920
Highly recommended. Themes: 19th Century Australia; Pioneer life;
Women in Early Australian history; Banjo Paterson. This is an
absolute gem! Jennifer Gall discusses the life and letters of Rose
Paterson, the mother of Banjo Paterson, and has allowed us to enter
into the daily life of a woman of wit and incredible fortitude. Rose
was born in 1844, and the times were very different for women.
Jennifer Gall makes comment on the strengths and circumstances of
this amazing woman - one among many of the time - whose documenting
of her life and family circumstances in rural NSW, in her letters to
her younger sister, gives us a glimpse of the limits and
restrictions of women of the times, and also their joys. Because of
a series of difficult financial circumstances her family wealth was
not what she might have expected. She was bound to be financially
dependent on her husband, with a continuous responsibility for
making a home suited to raising a growing family, and having sole
responsibility for the education and welfare of those children while
her husband was away. Into this social position, with the added
impositions of limited healthcare, domestic burdens, and implied
loneliness, we meet a woman of intellect, who is a faithful and
lively correspondent to her sister.
Jennifer Gall has unwoven the one-sided conversations from the
thread of her letters and put them into a historical framework, but
she has also revealed the attitudes and humanity of the mother of
one of Australia's iconic Bush poets. The collection of photographs,
art reproductions, historical sources, Banjo Paterson poetry
references and excerpts from the letters (alongside copies of those
Primary sources) is a historical treasure. And this is so
pleasurable to read! The discovery of Banjo Paterson's influences
and his upbringing is worth reading, as is the brief glimpse into
farming, childbirth, education, social life and women's rights from
the very personal perspective of one woman in the late 1800s.
Carolyn Hull