"Come and talk to me, 
 come and tell me your story."
 ~ Goff Letts, Editor, The Donald Times


"You own everything that has ever happened to you.
 Tell your stories.  If people wanted you to write warmly
 about them, they should have behaved better". - Anne Lamott

Immigrant, you shriek - 
 I hear you - 
 I am the land you seek.

In sight of salvation - 
 Miscalculation - 
 Welcome to my deep.

Twelve thousand miles to perish
 Just a shout
 From beach and farm.
 Just a breath
 From fear and harm.

Can you not swim
 Into my arms?

~ Unknown poet, found 2008

A 'picnic by the river' in 1927, when Dorrie Pope [nee Fletcher (1896-1969) discussed with Jake  Fletcher (1892-1970) at their only meeting, the research she had been conducting into the Fletcher  history. It is likely this was a Boxing Day picnic, which was a tradition in them days, amongst  Wimmera people.  Jake's mother, Bess Fletcher (nee Buchanan) had died earlier in 1927, a  pioneer of Mt Jeffcott.

It was not until the mid 1960s that Dorrie's efforts and the information she had gathered, became  popular as she began to write the history of the Fletchers. Jake who had retired in 1957 from a  globe-trotting career, was put into harness as Dorrie's workhorse and writer of letters to  extended family, mithering them for assistance with names, dates and places.  My mother, Edelene  Marjorie Glenn (nee Hook) provided screeds of information in April 1968 that helped jog memories  and pulled old cows from ditches.  Oddly she never told the stories to me!

The primary tree (in scroll form) that focused on a heavily edited patrilineal Fletcher line was  circulated about 1990-1992 by G.K. Hook (1924-2002) of Canberra, ACT (twin brother of Edelene)  This provided basic direct line connections and details to the fifth generation (Baby Boomers) of  the Australian descendants of the sons of Mary Storey -  William, John & Japhet Fletcher - and  forms the core of the digital record that appears here, as at late-May 2019.

Enthusiastic family historian in New Zealand, the late Les Pearce, on the Blackmore side, in  tandem with a letter written 1975 by Mavis Hook-Tootell to Edelene, along with  contributions from distant Hook cousins ~ in particular G.V. Clough of the Goulburn Valley in  Victoria ~ has enabled the story of Albert George Hook and his antecedents to emerge from the shadows of the aggrieved status of G.K. Hook.

Near on twelve years of intensive grass-roots research and cobbling together of three decades of  conversations, personal letters and remembrances, by the data manager of this website, has  expanded to embrace other families that intersect with the key lines of Blackmore-Buchanan- Fletcher-Hook-Hudson-Nicholson.

The Donald-Wimmera Basset family is included as a nod to Marjorie Rye (nee Basset) whose memoirs  provided much flavour as to the Donald community.  Also some Morgan and Meyer identities and there  is a special nod to Mr R.H. Keegan, former selector of Block 14, Parish of Jeffcott, whose  decision to "throw in the towel", lies at the root of the Fletcher-Buchanan stories.

Personal letters between Annie Louisa Hook and her son, Louis, written in 1952, provided more  names of neighbours and friends in Donald: who have also been included, where traceable, to weave  together a glimpse into the halycon days of post-WWII reconstruction and social networks: the  twaddle and gossip!

Additionally, cobbers from WWI and WWII who served with key Fletcher-Hook identities also appear as a complement to the wider 1914-1918 AIF project and the Search for Bobby which occupied Annie  Louisa, Edelene and Louis Hook, casting a deep shadow over their lives, as the Fall of Singapore  had been for the entire nation.

The intention is to provide for present day querents a coherent database of information  and a seed-bed from which future generations can start their search and, hopefully, build on  what was an inspired passion for Dorothy Fletcher in 1927, whose efforts as a female relative, in  service of all the former and future generations is lovingly remembered and honoured.

Please take time to check out the Stories section where I have stolen from the best to flesh out  the zeitgeist of our generations.

NEW ADDITION in the time of CORONAVIRUS : as a adjunct to this database, as at Mabon (autumn equinox 21 March 2020) I have decided to tell my story of the bachelor bogan from Canberra who watches over me and says "you can't write that! what will people think!?!" - Jacob Fletcher - at loveunclejake.blogspot.com 


The Family Genealogy

Compendium of dullness, in your pages
    Name crowds on name; the humble and the great
 Each in few lines receives his equal wages,
    And headstrong passions crumble to a date.
 Here are the founders of a mighty nation;
    Here are the pioneers who won the soil,
 As generation followed generation,
    With axe and plough and with back-breaking toil.
 Here are the women of a hardy people,
    Weakness and doubt yielding to faith held fast;
 The pulled-up stakes; eyes lifted to the steeple;
    Farewells to home; the new homes gained at last.
 Here are the hints of buried old romances;
    The broken families, and the too young dead;
 The autumn frolics and the village dances;
    Roll of recruiting drums, the soldier's tread.
 And here are darker things, now long forgotten;
    The unwed mothers; the deserted wives;
 Misdeeds of rogues far better unbegotten;
    Heartbreak and self-destruction; ruined lives.
 All this and far, far more is in these pages
    If we might clothe with flesh the lifeless names,
 Parade the knaves, the saints, the fools, the sages,
    And resurrect their obloquies and fames.
 Their names, their dates, are entered in a column,
    The unjust here embalmed beside the just;
 And in the pages of this dusty volume
    A second time they moulder into dust.

Donald Lines Jacobus

Disclaimer: The enclosed chronologies were developed for personal use and are unedited and  unchecked by professional genealogists/historians who charge upwards of $15 per hour. Some dates  are from multiple sources and are believed to be reliable (where indicated).  Others have been  obtained from family folk-lore and stories and remain uncorroborated. There may also be errors  committed by the developer of this resource. Credit given to other sources is included where  possible (and remembered): honour amongst tea-leaves and all that. The seasoned family researcher  doesn’t believe other people’s trees ever.  We all do the research over again ourselves to see if  we come to the same conclusions.

Some entries will be meaningless to most readers and relate to private histories, while other  entries are just there for Fun, Because, Why Not?, Bugger All on Telly and I Don't Have  Netflix.....