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Mavis Germaine Blue was born in ~July 1897, to parents Ada Blue (née Geddes) and Daniel Blue in Invercargill, New Zealand. [1]
Mavis' mother Ada was a well-known singer - known as the Nightingale of Southland, and her father Daniel was a well-known violinist. The year before Mavis was born, her mother Ada was playing the lead female role 'Germaine' in the opera 'Les Cloches de Corneville', so I believe that is where she got her middle name.[2]
Shortly after Mavis was born, it seems that her father Daniel’s health took a turn, a notice in the paper reported that he was advised by his doctor to travel north for the winter to ‘recruit his health’.[3] Ada and her daughter Mabel stayed in Invercargill, living with Ada’s parents John and Martha Geddes in Jackson Street, East Invercargill.[4] Daniel took ill with an “affection of the lungs”, his obituary stated that “he struggled bravely against the in-roads of ill-health, but gradually weakened until the end came”.Daniel Blue’s obituary - https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/SOCR19061215.2.17 Southern Cross, Volume 14, Issue 42, 15 December 1906, Page 8 - 3rd paragraph from the bottom - Papers Past, the National Library of New Zealand Daniel died at his mother’s house in Oamaru on the 10/11th of December, 1906.[5]
In 1900, Ada and Mavis travelled to Melbourne, where Ada took lessons with Madame Miranda - who was considered the most successful singing teacher in the colonies.[6] They arrived back into Bluff Harbour on the 23rd of July 1900 on the ship Mokoia.[7]
After Mavis' father Daniel’s death, it appears that Mavis and her mother moved back to Australia. Their friends threw them a large farewell party at which over a hundred people were present! Ada naturally treated her guests to a song.[8] Ada and Mavis travelled to Melbourne on the ship Moeraki, arriving on the 25th of April, 1908, There were also two Geddes passengers aged 48 and 36, though those ages don’t match her parents, and I can’t pick who they might be.[9]
Once in Melbourne, Ada and Mabel lived at 184 Amess Street, North Carlton, Victoria, Australia.[10] In ~1915/1916 Ada and Mabel moved into her parent’s new Melbourne residence, 35 Hartpury Ave, Balaclava, Victoria,[11] until Ada's death on the 10th of June, 1917 in Victoria, Australia.[12] Mavis was just 19 years old when her mother died.
Mavis died on the 26th of July, 1971 in Ormond, Victoria, Australia, and was buried alongside her mother and maternal grandparents in Plot 904 of the Prebysterian A section of the Coburg Pine Ridge Cemetery in Coburg, Moreland City, Victoria, Australia.[13][14]
According to her probate registry, Mavis died a Spinster, so it appears she never married, and had no children. [15]
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