Ruby May (Hillman) Daniels (1885 - 1968)

Born 2 Apr 1885 in Surry Hills, New South Wales, Australia

Ancestors

Wife of Henry Herbert Daniels — married 17 Dec 1918 in St Stephens, Macquarie Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Descendants

Died 20 Feb 1968 at age 82 in North Rocks, New South Wales, Australia

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Gordon Murray [send private message]

Biography

Ruby was born in 1885. She attended school till the age of 12, then left to help her mother raise her 8 younger brothers and sisters. She became an accountant, working for one of the large department stores in Sydney. She met her husband Henry (Harry) Daniels when he audited the books in about 1915-6 but they waited till the end of World War 1 to marry, when she was obliged to stop working. She had three children but only Shirley Hillman Daniels survived. "Grannie" put her considerable intellect to work as a punter, knowing the form not only of the horses but the jockeys as well. Her next door neighbour was an agent for an SP (starting price) bookie and shilling bets passed over the side fence. She was not cut out to be a housewife and I suspect that she was unfulfilled in that role. After Harry died, Grannie built two rooms onto our house at 51 North Rocks Road, North Rocks and move in with us in 1957. She was always there for my brother and me when we came home from school. Grannie was called "Chub" by her childhood friends because she was so thin, but as my grandmother she was almost as wide as she was tall (exactly 5 feet or 152 cm, the tallest of her sisters and mother). Nevertheless she was fit, walking every day or so to the shops at Hurlstone Park for groceries and then taking my brother and me for bushwalks when she moved to our place. Grannie told me many stories of her childhood, some of which I will try to remember and include in the appropriate places. Her earliest memory was of the day she and her brother George were attacked by a swarm of bees - she was about 5. Living at Sutherland or Rockdale, she would walk in the local bushland collecting native flowers for home. She passed away in 1968, having had breast cancer that spread.

Sources

• Gordon Murray (grandson)

NSW Birth Certificate 1540/1885 NSW Death Certificate 14178/1968