Click here to add your own As has been our custom for several years, we use the December issue to recap the stories appearing in the Jerrems Journal for the year.

All the best to the extended Jerrems family on four continents.
Donald in North Carolina US
Ray in Sydney Australia

January 2017 Edition 142: IN MEMORY OF LAURIE GRAY
This family photo shows Laurel and Laurie with their children Paul, Keith, Robert (adopted son) and Ian David, at Saroa(near Port Moresby), Laurie’s first posting. Robert was a commercial pilot killed in a plane crash in 1978. Sadly, Laurie passed away last year at picturesque Gerringong (on the south coast of New South Wales) at the age of 87.
He had had a rich life serving in the Congregational Church Ministry and bringing up a family with Laurel. This article included Laurie’s intrepid Landrover trip to Port Moresby along a disused military road in his bid to reach the hospital before his first son was born.
February 2017 Edition 143: LAUREL GRAY SECOND ARTICLE
Here is a later colourful photo of Laurel and Laurie at a welcoming ceremony at Kwato near Milne Bay on the north side of New Guinea (Laurel is second from the left). The photo illustrates the couple’s popularity amongst the local indigenous population. 

This article continued the story of Laurel and the late Laurie Gray following on from Ray’s previous article. When Laurel received her copy of that Journal she emailed Ray to say “Dear Ray, I was very moved by your latest Jerrems Journal, thank you for honouring Laurie so beautifully and understanding the message of the hat and boots! “. 
 
Encouraged by Laurel’s enthusiastic reaction and from comments by other readers, Ray wrote this article to continue the story of Laurel and Laurie’s adventures, which included patrols into the nearby mountains where boots and hats were so important. 
March 2017 Edition 144: POOR HOUSES AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS

Some years ago one of our readers, Brian Harrison, related to Ray the story of Sarah, the great great great great grandmother of his wife Denise. Sarah spent the last 40 years of her life in an Alms House in Suffolk after her husband William died. 
 
This set Ray thinking about the role of Poor Houses and other institutions, resulting in this edition where he outlined the institutions and some examples of their application to the Jerrems families and other readers. The institutions included Alms Houses, Bede Houses, Women’s Asylums Mens’ Asylums and Work Houses.
April 2017 Edition 145: This photo shows an Almshouse in Bourne, Lincolnshire. 
This was the second article on the subject of Poor Houses and other institutions. These played a significant role in the history of Great Britain, the United States and Australia and help explain some aspects of the ancestors covered in the Jerrems Journal. In this article Ray moved on to other institutions, including orphanages and Lunatic Asylums.
May 2017 Edition 146/7: Arthur Reginald Jerrems and his family

This article comprised a collection of information about Arthur Reginald Jerrems and his family. Briefly, Arthur was the youngest brother of Ray’s great grandfather, Charles Jerrems.

This photo shows an Australian Rules football field with its characteristic oval shape and unique four goal posts.

Arthur’s eleven great grandchildren form, statistically speaking, the most numerous of that generation for all Jerrems families. Arthur was born in Gainsborough, England, in 1852, the youngest of the children of my great great grandparents Thomas Clarke Jerrems (a son of Big Bill) and Elizabeth Jerrems (nee Jepson). He migrated to Australia in 1859 with his mother and siblings. The family settled in Richmond, Melbourne, where Arthur grew up and spent all his life.

Trained as an upholsterer, Arthur was a keen rower and Australian Rules footballer. His first wife was Henrietta Harrison, his second wife was Emily Wilkins.

Sadly, only two of Reginald and Henrietta’s children reached adulthood (Arthur Reginald Jnr, who spent most of his life in a Lunatic Asylum, and Frank William).
June 2017 Edition 148: Arthur Reginald Jerrems

This was the second article about Arthur Reginald Jerrems, concentrating on his son Frank, who initially served in the First World War at Gallipoli. The side photo shows part of the area above Anzac Beach where much of the fighting took place.

Frank was brought in as a reinforcement at Gallipoli, but several months later fell victim to the very poor food and polluted water supply, and was repatriated to Weymouth in England, where he spent several years. In 1918 he rejoined the Australian troops in France and took part in the major Allied Spring Offensive, where he was wounded in the left hand This led to him being repatriated to Australia.
July 2017 Edition 149:

This article continued on from a previous article about Thomas Bellair, who was obliquely connected with Nicoll the Tailor because his son married Jeannie Leonard, who was the daughter of Nicoll’s daughter Emma.

Here is a photo of the impressive Ballarat “Theatre Royal”.

Thomas had a distinguished career as an actor and theatre entrepreneur in Melbourne, having taken lead roles at the huge Victorian Theatre and joining the famous entrepreneur George Coppin in ownership of the ünique Olympic Theatre, known as “The Iron Pot. Finally he moved to Ballarat and leased the Theatre Royal.
August 2017 Edition 150:

This Journal continued Ray’s account of the career of Thomas Bellair.

The photo below shows Thomas’s Commercial Hotel during the 1891 floods in flood prone Wagga Wagga.

In 1860 Thomas expanded his theatre interests by leasing the “Bellair’s Rainbow Hotel” in Ballarat for eight years and in 1861 he married Rachel Proud (pictured). The article included Thomas’s displeasure at the construction of a public urinal in the street outside the theatre.

Later the family moved to Melbourne where at one stage he was a Town Mayor, owning a hotel, and then to Wagga Wagga in south western New South Wales, where Thomas died leaving 13 children.

September 2017 Edition 151: COLONIAL HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA: PADDLE STEAMERS (PART 3)
The above photo shows very graphically a dust storm at Broken Hill, west of the Darling River.

Ray thought that we had been having a solid diet of genealogy lately, so he decided that it was now time for some good old Australian Colonial History. This article was the third in a series, continuing the story of the early paddle steamers on the westerly rivers of New South Wales and Victoria, describing different aspects of that era, including wool wagons pulled by camels, bullocks and horses, and the paddle steamers “Ruby” and “Ëmily Jane”.
October 2017 Edition 152: A DETECTIVE STORY-PART I – The photo

This article revolved around research carried out by our long-time reader

Sandra about her great grandmother Anna. This was a graphic story of Sandra’s detective work, spread out over about nine years, rivalling the duration of research work carried out about Big Bill and his descendants.


Jumping ahead to Anna’s mature years so that you have an idea of what Anna looked like, the people in the photo are, from left to right: Anna, her daughter Sarah Jane (Sadie) Kirkwood, her daughter Mary Catherine Kirkwood (Sandra’s grandmother), and Anna’s husband William Henry Kirkwood (Sandra’s great grandfather).

The article started with Anna’s father, Joseph, who came from what we have dubbed the “Wappenham” line of the Jerrems families. 

Joseph and Sarah married in 1844 and settled in Utica in New York State where Joseph worked as a carpenter. They had three children who died in childhood, then finally had 2 daughters (Sarah Cornelia and Anna) born in 1856 and 1859 respectively. Joseph’s wife Sarah died from consumption (now known as tuberculosis) in 1865.

Thanks to a far-sighted Trust set up by Sarah’s Will, a fund was set aside for the girls, who were fostered by eminent locals Oren and Philander Root, and Nicholas White.
November 2017 Edition 153: THE GOOD OLD DAYS PART 1

Here is a photo of a baker’s cart.

When Ray was young his elderly relatives would refer nostalgically to “the good old days”. They would then compare current days with the old days, very much to the detriment of the current days.

This article contained anecdotes based on Ray’s childhood experiences about bakers’ carts, milk deliveries, ice chests, clothes props, billy carts and clothes wringers.
From our Photograph Archives
Christmas 1947 from our house at 221 Bristol Street Northfield, Illinois.
Mother Joan, Scott, me Donald, Father Donald, and Alec plus our dogs and teddy bears.
 

 We moved to Sarasota, Florida in 1949.