Nancarrow, Joseph Towan - I434

<tng x=434/>

Joseph Towan Nancarrow

<tng i=434>Joseph Towan Nancarrow</tng> married Elizabeth Nicholls on August 4th 1879.

Joseph Towan's life in South Australia

Joseph Towan was born in Plain-an-Gwarry, Redruth on 5th December 1855, and was 17 years old when his family migrated to South Australia.

At once Joseph resumed work as a miner - the traditional family occupation for which he was destined from birth. Here, he found reasonably continuous work at the Yelta Copper Mine, and in later years he was able to form a contract team with his sons.

In 1879, on several acres of land opposite his parents' home in Cross Roads, Joseph Towan built his own house in which he was to live for the rest of his days. On August 4th in that year, he married Elizabeth Nicholls at the home of her father, James Nicholls, another Cross Roads miner.

Joseph and Elizabeth had seven children between 1880 and 1892, losing one of them at a few weeks of age. On 3rd May 1894, 39 years old Elizabeth died at her home while giving birth to her eighth child, a daughter who survived only for another three weeks.

The following year Joseph Towan, 39, a widower with six children, remarried a widow with five young children of her own - Mrs Esther Potter, 30.

Joseph's house was rather small for the combined family. The kitchen was built about ten yards behind the main house. It had a brick oven and an open fireplace, and there was room for old sofas that could serve as day beds for the elderly folk, particularly in cold weather.

Joseph and Esther had five more children of their own, but three died before their first birthday, and only two sons lived to adulthood.

Joseph Towan Nancarrow was a typical Cornishman or "Cousin Jack", and spoke with the rich accent of one. He was short of stature, ginger haired, with the palest of pale blue eyes, and was very witty.

For a trade he knew only mining, although in his later years when work was short, he did supplement his income for short periods as a fisherman, the other age-old tradition of the Cornish, used to living by the sea and being out of work for periods.

He had an inventive turn of mind, often making working model engines, or moulding doorstops in various designs. He loved his garden, and would make "clappers" or "rattlers" for scaring birds from his fruit trees and vines. These contained glass marbles or pebbles and were hung in the trees with a string attached that ended by the back door. When the string was pulled, off flew the birds.

Joseph Towan never failed to attend church, and he participated in both the Christian Endeavour and the Sunday School. A strict and stern Methodist, he once punished young Joseph Henry, who had negligently broken the hinge on the small front gate, by making him stand for an hour or more in the corner of the room while holding the heavy family bible over his head with aching arms.

He died on 9th May 1936, survived by his second wife and the eight children who grew to maturity, and was buried in the Moonta Cemetery with his first wife.

An Obituary appeared for him in the Advertiser on 18 May 1936.

His cottage was still standing in 1985, having been purchased some 20 years earlier by Dutch migrants for use as a holiday home, but was sadly silent for most months of the year.

GEDCOM Details

<tng x=434/>

Researcher

Researched by Ron Roberts, Adelaide, South Australia

References

{{#invoke:Navbox|navbox}}