Evelyn Jenny Elizabeth (Perrey) Sayers (1913 - 1998)

Born 14 Jan 1913 in Chingford, Essex, England, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Wife of Ernest Frank Westrick Sayers — married 19 Dec 1936 in Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia

Died 9 Mar 1998 at age 85 in Box Hill, Victoria, Australia

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Lauren Thomson [send private message]

Biography

Evelyn (Perrey) Sayers was born in Chingford, Essex, England.

Evelyn (Perrey) Sayers migrated from England to Australia.

Evelyn Jenny Elizabeth (Perrey) Sayers was born on January 14, 1913 in Chingford, Essex, England^[1]. Her parents were Harry Perrey (1889 - 1954) and Eva Clara (Girt) Perrey (1893 - 1971).

She was baptised at the Parish Church of Saints Peter and Paul, Chingford on March 2, 1913^[2]. Her baptism is the only place that the name "Elizabeth" seems to appear.

John Salmon / St Peter & St Paul, Chingford / CC BY-SA 2.0 (2010), via Wikimedia Commons

Her siblings were:

1. Grace Muriel Agnes (Perrey) Setford (1915 - 2001)
2. Albert Harry Frank Perrey (1916 - 1939)
3. Mary Perrey (1925 - 1925)
4. Judith Madeline (Perrey) Setford (1927 - 2016)

Evelyn, Harry, Grace and Eva Perrey, circa 1915

In the 1921 census Evelyn (age 8) was the daughter of Harry Perrey at 33 Alpha Road, Chingford, Essex, England. Eunice Elizabeth (Lane) Beeby (1899-) was Eva's first cousin and Thomas Woods her son.^[3]

Wedding of Evelyn's aunt Grace Girt, and Leance Healy. 1923. Back: Maud Ethel (Girt) Whisson), Alice Rita Girt, Harry Perrey, Eva Clara (Girt) Perrey, Mildred Jean Andrews, Louisa Jane (Girt) Andrews (1891-1978). Middle: Daisy Susannah (Girt) Saunders, Leance Healey), Grace Elizabeth (Girt) Healey), Sarah Ann (Bull) Girt, Evelyn (Perrey) Sayers Front: Unknown, Frank Perrey, Grace (Perrey) Setford

Frank, Evelyn and Grace Perrey at 33 Alpha Road, Chingford

Harry and Eva Perrey and their three children, Evelyn (aged 10), Grace (aged 8) and Frank (aged 6) emigrated to Australia in 1923 aboard the SS Barrabool^[4]. (Lots more info on their emigration on the SS Barrabool page).

Grace, Evelyn and Frank Perrey, estimated 1926

Grace, Judith, Eva, Frank, Evelyn and Harry Perrey - 1927

Grace, Judith and Evelyn Perrey (1927)

Evelyn, Judith and Grace Perrey - estimated 1932

Evelyn married Ernest Augustus "Frank" Sayers at Christ Church, Hawthorn on December 19, 1936^[5]. Evelyn and Frank were second cousins with common ancestors Robert Bull and Sarah Eunice Green. Bridesmaids at their wedding were Norma Cheslyn, Bertha Dell and Judith Perrey.

Evelyn Jenny Perrey - 19 December 1936

Marriage certificate - Ernest Frank Sayers and Evelyn Jeny Perrey - December 19, 1936

Elderly Aunt Judith (the term was a joke used by Judith to differentiate her from her niece Judith) wrote the following about her sister Evelyn:

Both of my sisters were married in 1936. Evelyn, the eldest, had been courted by a second cousin, whose name was also Frank (same as her brother). They had 'kept company' for three years before they were married. Mother would discreetly leave the lounge room exclusively to them when Frank called. She was astounded to learn later that they really had been playing Ludo on those evenings as Evelyn had told her.

The wedding was set for December and much preparation went into it - a white lace gown for Evelyn and three bridesmaids in floral chiffon with wide sunhats set to one side as fashion decreed. The groomsmen wore dark lounge suits and grey ties. I was to be flower girl in a pink frilly dress (I hate pink). I carried a huge basket of flowers which was awkward to manage.

Elderly Aunt Judith also told me that Evelyn and Frank headed off to their honeymoon and returned the next day. With questions..... about what was supposed to happen (my cheeky mind sees the them sitting on the end of the bed waiting for their sexual relations to arrive). Maizer (her mother Eva) had to draw pictures for them in the dirt on the ground. Then they took off to begin their honeymoon.

After their marriage, Evelyn and Frank lived at 25 Dickson Street in Sunshine, Victoria.

Their children were:

1. Richard Sayers (1938 - 1938)
2. Robert Frank Sayers (1942 - 2012)
3. Donald Alan Sayers (living)

Evelyn, Bob, Frank and a cat - 1942

1962 Christmas at Aunty Ev's. From left: Grandpa, Aunty Judith, Aunty Ev, Uncle Tony and Peter Setford.

Eva Perrey (nee Girt) with daughter Evelyn Sayers (nee Perrey) at Bob and Marion's wedding 1965

The Sayers family, 1969. Grandpa's photo. From left to right: Don, Marnie, Marion, Paula, Bob, Uncle Frank, Aunty Ev.

Evelyn (Perrey) Sayers and Eva (Girt) Perrey, 1971

Evelyn was widowed in June 1979.

Evelyn died on March 9, 1998 at Box Hill Hospital aged 85 from a melanoma of the brain. Her funeral was held at Le Pine Chapel in Glen Waverley on March 12, 1998^[6].

The following speeches were given at Ev's funeral. The first by her eldest son, Bob Sayers:

The way that Mum lived her life has been and still is an inspiration to me, to our family and I'm sure to many others.

I'd like to recall the major events in Mum's life. Some of my personal memories and reflections on the way that Mum did live. In trying to go over a life of so long and so active, its difficult to cover a lot of it and I'll just do my best to things that are significant to me, and I trust significant to many of those here.

Mum was born in Chigwell in England and came out to Australia in 1923 with her parents and brother Frank, who unfortunately was tragically killed in a road accident when he was a young man, sister Grace and later when they settled in Hawthorn joined by sister Judith who was born there.

I guess it was also an indication that one of the characteristics which Mum inherited from her Mum, Eva, in she was always looking for new friends and family connections, and I think it was about ten years after they arrived here that her mother Eva had heard that her cousin Gus Sayershad also emigrated to Australia. So she got out the phone book, and there were only two Sayers in the phone book in those times, so she rang both of them and was able to make contact with Gus who was living in Sunshine. And of course as a result of that family connection Mum met my father Frank and they subsequently married and then lived in Sunshine for some years where Don and I were both born. I like to think that Mum always lived in sunshine, in spirit at least, and just judging by the weather today, she still hasn't had enough.

But from there we moved as a family to Glen Waverley in 1952. Don and I in fact attended this school on the corner here for in my case one year, for Don two. In fact we took the opportunity yesterday to have a look over the school and re-kindle some memories that way. [the school that Bob and Don attended is on the same grounds as the funeral parlour]

I'd like to reflect a little bit on some of the things that happened during those first few years that we were in Glen Waverley, partly because of the interest of the people here, but also at that age (I think I was around ten or eleven at the time) - they were the times when I was starting to recall things and to start noticing. I am notorious for not noticing a lot of thing that go on in my life, particularly relating to family and relations, but its been a very meaningful exercise for me to reflect on Mum's total life and the things that she did for us as a family. I recall we lived in a hut, a two roomed hut that my father built out of packing cases in Waverley road while he set about building a house. And being the perfectionist that Dad was, it took a number of years for the house to be completed. But we spent two years in that hut, and for me as a boy it was an adventure. I didn't really reflect on how difficult it might have been for Mum, but I do recall that we were using a hurricane lamp and that we had a primus stove to do the cooking on. Mum and Dad each night would turn the kitchen table into their bed. I remember some little things: we had a small tank of water and during drought conditions we had a plastic bowl of washing water that we were all expected to wash in, and that would go on for some days. I think due to heat and probably overuse of soap on my part ( I think I was interested to see what would happen) it would generally turn to jelly, grey jelly, and Mum would have to throw it out and get into our next supply of water.

The view from Aunty Ev's kitchen (Christmas 1961) - 898-900 Waverley Road, Glen Waverley

Apart from bringing up two boys (which I must admit at the time I wouldn't have considered to be any difficulty at all) Dad was called overseas for part of his job with Commonwealth Aircraft, so Mum was bringing us up and also doing a number of other chores including shearing our pet sheep with the kitchen scissors, building enclosures and generally feeding and looking after a whole menagerie of animals including ducks, guinea pigs, rosellas, galah, the sheep, dog, cat and anything else that we brought home. She also had to (I cant quite remember whether she was just supervising us, or whether she did it herself) dispose of the night soil by digging great holes in the garden. It was before the days of pan service, let alone before sewerage, and we grew great vegetables on that. Looking back, it was probably tough times, or difficult times, but Mum was one of those that liked the challenge and it probably gave her a lot of purpose and I certainly didn't think about those things at that time. But also reflecting on that, I'm sure that many mothers, all mothers, would do those same sorts of things for their children and there are plenty of challenges for a lot of mothers in this world. I was just reflecting on that yesterday, and they went unappreciated a lot of the time, so thank you to all the mothers here.

I guess, skipping on a few years, probably the best thing that Don and I ever did for Mum was to bring home a couple of daughters for her in Marion and Marnie. And they've always been a love for Mum as she's had for the rest of the family and its certainly become an extended family now. She's always shown a lot of love and a lot of interest and had strong connections with family through her sisters, and down the line through our children and grand children.

It was something that always amazed me that Mum had time for everything that she did. I started with family because she was associated with so many other activities. I think even more so, when my father passed away in 1979, Mum could have easily looked and said "Oh my life's changed for ever and I'll take an attitude that I shouldn't do anything active", but Mums not like that and she participated fully in life and almost as if she said "Well this is the second part of my life and I'm going out to enjoy" and certainly enjoy life she did. She was involved always to me in so many different groups and seemed to be on committees in a lot of those cases amongst those of course starting with the mothers clubs at the schools. She was an active fundraiser she had a long association with St Pauls church here and on many of the different groups there. Had of course a lot of friends. I'll mention Delia Arms in particular as one of the first friends made when we moved to Glen Waverley and they've been life long friends since that. There is the Country Womens Association, the Medical Missions already been mentioned and Mum spent a lot of time there. More recent years of course been the Senior Citizens club and Mum served on the committee there and was very active participant and really enjoyed the social life and I guess there was almost a development of other social groups within there including the famous birthday club which celebrated, I'm not sure Ossie how many were in that group, but there was certainly a few and they would take it in turns to celebrate the birthdays and Mums had scheduled the next one at her place.

I think in some ways Mum had become and entertainer she loved to entertain. In more than one way. She would hold dinner parties. It would amaze me that I would go over to her place even in her 80s and she would say I'm having 12 to dinner tonight, and everything got just done by herself. Of course she had a lot of dear friends by this stage it I never heard Mum complain at any time that she had not enough time or was overwhelmed or that there were many things to do. Its already been mentioned that she spent a lot of time preparing goods and making dolls, knitting, seemed to be making jams and things for the Medical Mission and others. She always had a lot of time for other people and charity. And yet still managed to still thoroughly enjoy life.

She, even from the family viewpoint, kept in close contact by mail with family relatives overseas in the UK and Canada in particular.

What I'd like to move on to was the last couple of weeks because I think the way Mum lived out those last weeks was fairly indicative of the way she lived our her life. Those of you that know Mum had a particular sense of humour and Id like to run through some of the things that happened in those last couple of weeks which I thought were pretty illustrative of the fully participating with fun.

You may well know that only about three weeks ago she decided that she would like to go on a holiday with Ossie and Beryl Knights to Portsea. And because she had a doctors appointment scheduled, she said that "I'd better bowl along to the doctor and just check that I have permission to go and so on". Her basically life long family doctor, Gerry Walsh, who'd be known to many of you, and whom I'm very grateful for, decided that because she was having some problems with her knees to give her an immediate scan of the brain. He didn't advise her that she had an melanoma on the brain, this was the day before she was due to go on holidays, but did say that she'd had a bit of a stroke and that was the reason why she was a bit weak knees, but by all means enjoy your holiday. So off she went, and she was really keen to do that. She must have been because my birthday was during that time and surely she would not have neglected my birthday.

Don and I both spoke to Mum during that holiday and became aware that her leg and arm were immobilised. But I couldn't help but be amused, and I can picture this very much in my mind, that Mum at one stage couldn't walk during that brief thing, but Ossie and Beryl and Mum together managed to put a rope on a kitchen chair and to move her from room to room they would haul on the rope and so they got her to bed. She had difficulty of course getting up in the night, so Ossie had arranged for an empty peach tin to be placed along side her bed, so she'd just bang on that tin to call for attention or assistance and I can see them all thoroughly enjoying that. And that's the way Mum lived and I really appreciate that she had that time there.

Don brought her back to hospital here. She instantly started giving cheek to the nurses and the doctors. Her sense of humour caused some confusion amongst the nurses. I recall I went in one morning and said "Hows Mum?', and the nurse said "She's a bit wandering this morning, her minds going". I said "What do you mean?'. She said "Oh she keeps talking about this leg of lamb and bodies in her bed and things like that". I mean I knew Mum the day before referred to her leg, she called the dead leg, as the body in the bed and she felt particularly uncomfortable with this other body there and couldn't get rid of it and she said it feels just like a leg of lamb. I took Auntie Grace into see Mum and Mum looked at Grace and said "I'm glad you're here Grace, there's something I want to ask you". She said "Don doesn't think you'll be very happy about it", and I thought what's she going to say and she turned and said "I want you to ring the undertakers and get them to come and remove these dead bits". She said "I asked the nurses to do it and they said they cant do it". She said "They're my body, its my bits, so I should be able to do what I like with them". She said "I'll get my boys to do it if necessary".

Whenever a doctor would appear she'd have a go at them, and say "Trouble is, all you young men are being trained in universities just to stick needles in defenceless old ladies" and she'd have this great laugh. And when I was leaving the hospital the other day and thanking the nurses, they said "We'll always remember your mum for her laughter and her fun". I guess in some ways her humour was incline to shock at times and I must admit even at times I didn't know whether she was joking or not - that was Mum.

I feel most fortunate to have in Mum a model for living. She lived life to the fullest, and was always full of humour and adventure, dear friends and family, contribution and support. She knew how to live and she knew how to finish in the same manner.

Thank you Mum.

And then her sister Judith (Perrey) Setford spoke:

Well, Bob hasn't left me much to say, has he? So I'll just talk about Evelyn as she affected me.

My sister Evelyn was 14 years old when I was born, and our mother was often unwell and Evelyn was called upon, as the eldest of the four children, to look after me. Mum used to say to me, "It was Evelyn who really brought you up". I was scared of her - I really was. She could be very severe and my best friend Wilma who used to spend a lot of time at our house still says of her "I was so frightened of Evelyn".

But behind her severity was love. When Evelyn married Frank Sayers, I was her flower girl. It was a pretty wedding, Evelyn was pretty. She had curly golden hair and those big blue eyes. She wore a white lace gown and carried a sheaf of Christmas lilies - it was a December wedding. The bridesmaids, three of them, were dressed in floaty chiffon gowns, floral ones, and they had big picture hats - they looked lovely. I was nine and skinny and I wore pink with frills, and I hate pink and I hate frills, and the big basket of flowers that I was suppose to carry was very awkward for a skinny nine year old.

When Evelyn moved to Sunshine, my mother continued to be ill at times and I often used to go and stay with Evelyn, and I remember we were all expected to wash our hands in the laundry. And it always smelled of velvet soap and solvol. And I used to spend a lot of time in there washing my hands and making lovely stiff lava and I'd make castles and pinnacles all along the window sill and along the wash basin, but I don't remember ever that Evelyn complained about that. She did complain when I helped her with the washing up though, because I remember once she said "You can always tell when Judith's been helping with the washing up, she always dries up wet".

And she loved - I can remember a lot of time spent on the lounge room carpet playing pick-up-sticks with Ev. And she loved board games, we used to play Chinese checkers and ludo and snakes and ladders and I loved that, it was great fun. I learned card games from my other sister Grace, but I learned board games from Ev.

Eventually Evelyn had a son. Her firstborn died quite soon after birth. And then after a little while along came Bob and quite soon after that along came Don. Evelyn and Frank never spoiled them, they were rather strictly brought up I thought, but it doesn't seem to have done them any harm whatever, they're pretty solid citizens those two lovely people.

When our mother, in her 70s became too frail and ill to manage in her own home, and she had a dread of nursing homes, and the boys having left home and got married and had their own places, Evelyn took mum in. And mum stayed. She looked after this rather querulous old lady, I must admit, until she died, virtually in Evelyn's arms.

My husband owned a hardware store in Hawthorn and when he died I had to close up the shop and sell the stock. And a lot of people came to help me including Marion, but Evelyn who was in her late 60s by then would drive down from Glen Waverley to Hawthorn to help me behind the counter. She had great difficulty adding up things, and was absolutely hopeless when it came to taking 20% off. But the customers used to help her. But she was there and she was supportive and she was loving and she was a great comfort.

That was Evelyn . Whenever anybody needed help, she was there. She always had time for people. And whatever organisation she belonged to, she pulled her weight. She was honest and caring, loyal, energetic and hardworking. And generous in many ways. My sister Grace and I had a loving and friendly relationship with our big sister and we are very grateful for her life, and we shall miss her very much.

The Herald-Sun - death notices - March 1998

Sources

1. ↑ Birth Registration: "England & Wales Births 1837-2006"
   Volume: 4A; Page: 988
   FindMyPast Image - FindMyPast Transcription (accessed 13 January 2022)
   Evelyn J Perrey birth Jan-Feb-Mar 1913 in Epping.
2. ↑ Baptism: "Essex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1918"
   Essex Record Office; Chelmsford, Essex, England; Essex Church of England Parish Registers
   Ancestry au Record 61699 #4751541 (accessed 13 January 2022)
   Evely Jenny Elizabeth Perrey baptism on 2 Mar 1913 (born 14 Jan 1913), child of Harry & Eva Clara, in Essex, England.
3. ↑ 1921 Census: "1921 Census Of England & Wales"
   Archive: The National Archives; Series: RG 15; Piece number: 08741; District reference: RD 189 RS 1 ED 11
   FindMyPast Image - FindMyPast Transcription (accessed 11 January 2022)
   Evelyn J Perrey (8) daughter in household of Harry Perrey (31) at 33 Alpha Road in Epping registration district. Born in Chingford, Essex, England.
4. ↑ Passenger list 'Barrabool', London to Melbourne, 1923
5. ↑ Marriage Index (Victoria Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages : accessed 13 Jan 2022). Index entry for SAYERS, Ernest Frank and PERRY, Evelyn Jenny; Year: 1936, Reg. number: 12117/1936
6. ↑ Personal recollection of events witnessed by Lauren (Salisbury) Thomson as remembered 18 Jun 2021.

See also:

• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 12 January 2020, 03:49), entry for Evelyn Jenny Elizabeth Perrey (PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:GQQ5-JFQ ); contributed by various users.