The Telegram

My first job after finishing school, while waiting to be old enough to start nursing training, involved receiving telegrams via telephone and typing them for dispatch at the PMG office in the heart of Melbourne. This bustling workplace had a workforce of around 50 individuals, predominantly women, who operated the telephones. You paid by the word sent, so they were usually brief.

Today, the memory of receiving telegrams has primarily faded from people's minds. In fact, my last encounter with a telegram was during my first wedding in 1973.



                  

  Grace Sandra perished last nights tragedy, heartfelt sympathy broken hearted writing love Stan

This telegram my grandmother kept in her box of keepsakes for 40 years; the day it arrived, she went into shock, and her hair went white overnight.

 Grace Rebeca Spooner, my mother's eldest sister, married a dashing young airman from Perth who arrived in Mildura to undergo training at the airfield during World War II. They married in Mildura in September 1946, with her three sisters as bridesmaids and my father, Cliff Hamilton and Uncle Herbert Spooner as groomsmen. Following the war, they returned to Perth to live at Mt Barker. 1949, they welcomed their daughter, Sandra Joy Haese, into the world. Grace was coming home to visit family so they could meet Sandra and attend the double wedding of her sisters Valda and Hazel. There was so much excitement in the family.



Tragedy struck on June 26, 1950, when a Douglas DC-4 Skymaster aircraft from Australian National Airlines departed from Perth, Western Australia, embarking on an eight-hour journey to Adelaide, South Australia. Unfortunately, just 22 minutes after take-off, tragedy struck as the plane crashed 35 miles east of Perth Airport. Regrettably, all 29 individuals aboard lost their lives in this horrific accident. This catastrophe remains the deadliest civil aviation accident in Australian history.

This tragedy affected the extended family; Hazel decided not to marry and went to Perth for 6 months with my grandmother. My great-grandmother Grace was also heartbroken; this note she wrote for the newspaper memorial was found in her papers after her death.

Hease nee Spooner

in treasured memories

of our darling Gran daughter Grace

and her darling baby Sandra Joy

who was accidentally killed in air plane

on June 26th 1950 over in West

at night when shadows are falling 

and we are all alone - there always comes a longing

if you could only come home

God gave us strength to bear it

courage to meet the blow

But what it cost to lose you both

No one will ever know

inserted by her loving grand ma

gran pops Auntie Rosie uncle paddy




The shock still reverberates through the family; I would not have been the eldest granddaughter if Sandra had lived. My mother and her sisters were very close, and although only the youngest sister, Lylia, is alive today, she has portraits of her three sisters on the bookshelf in her nursing home room, and she talks to them and introduces them to her visitors.

I now have a first cousin once removed called Grace, who named her daughter Hazel. The family circle continues.