| [Index] |
| Ada Mary LAUGHER (1873 - 1954) |
| Children | Self + Spouses | Parents | Grandparents | Greatgrandparents |
| Ada Mary LAUGHER (1873 - 1954) | Charles Henry LAUGHER (1827 - 1892) | Charles LAUGHER (1796 - ) | ||
| Mary HUGHES (1798 - ) | ||||
| Eliza UNDERWOOD (1836 - 1898) | Samuel Humprhies UNDERWOOD | |||
| Elizabeth (UNDERWOOD) | ||||
| b. 1873 at Queensland, Australia |
| d. 1954 at Brisbane, Queensland, Australia aged 81 |
| Parents: |
| Charles Henry LAUGHER (1827 - 1892) |
| Eliza UNDERWOOD (1836 - 1898) |
| Events in Ada Mary LAUGHER (1873 - 1954)'s life | |||||
| Date | Age | Event | Place | Notes | Src |
| 1873 | Ada Mary LAUGHER was born | Queensland, Australia | 1873/C1506 | ||
| 02 Jan 1892 | 19 | Death of father Charles Henry LAUGHER (aged 64) | Queensland, Australia | 1892/C3727 | |
| 1898 | 25 | Death of mother Eliza UNDERWOOD (aged 62) | Queensland, Australia | 1898/C4386 | |
| 1954 | 81 | Ada Mary LAUGHER died | Brisbane, Queensland, Australia | 1954/B3642 | |
| Personal Notes: |
|
Courier Mail 19 Aug 1954
LAUGHER. — The Relatives and friends of Mrs. M. E. Laugher, Mr. and Mrs. C. Thurecht, Mr. and Mrs. R. Laugher, Mr. and Mrs. O. Laugher and Families, Mr. Renton Laugher are invited to attend the Funeral of their beloved Sister-in-law and Aunt, Ada Mary Laugher, of 45 Benson Street, Toowong, to move from St. Thomas' Church of Eng- land, High Street, Toowong, on con- clusion of Service, commencing at 1.30 o'clock. This (Thursday) After- noon, for the Toowong Cemetery. E-mail from Leigh Chamberlain "The park has been here in Toowong for nearly 50 years, and has never been officially named. We applied to have the park officially named after Ada Mary Laugher. She is Linda Underwood Ducat (nee Laugher)’s aunt, and sister of Linda’s father Charles Underwood Laugher. Ada and her sisters originally lived on one of the three properties which now make up the park, and many people remember her. The Brisbane City Council referred to the park as the Benson Street Park. They resumed all the land after Ada’s death, and they took their time about it, and it took years before the estate could be finalized. Bob Laugher said they took so long his father had died, but eventually his mother received her share. Our president said that this was no name for a park as it was more of a locality address. Besides, we have no clue as to who Benson was. The BCC compiled a list of names in the late 1930s and renamed many streets in Brisbane. Benson, as far as we know, has no connection to Toowong’s history. The park’s new name was passed by BCC cabinet in January this year. It is now officially Laugher Park. I have been getting assistance from Adrien Laugher (and his son Damian) and from Adrien’s sister Dianne Moore and her son John. They are descendents of Frederick Valantine Laugher (yes, they misspelt ‘Valentine’ on the birth certificate). Also I made contact with Bob Laugher, of Woolgoolga. One of our members actually lives there. Bob bought up some photos for our project. His grandfather was James Laugher. He is Phil’s son. I have a few details of Linda Underwood Laugher, but the details that John Moore gave me re biographical facts for her descendents are different from the Ancestry.com family trees I have seen. I am keen to verify the facts and also to fill in the gaps in the family for a book I am writing about the three sisters. There is a lot of misinformation about Miss Ada Laugher. A historical group maintained she was a professional photographer who worked for the Brisbane Courier. This proved not to be true. She was an amateur photographer but she worked as a clerk for the Brisbane Courier. However she did win prizes in competitions and we have the results of one that she entered. So she was very good. Elderly people remember Ada but they were not born when her eldest sister Janie was alive and both she and the other sister Rosie would have become unremembered but for our project. So now we have found out about Janie and Rosie we have now decided that the park is named after the three Misses Laugher, and not just Ada. We knew very little about the three ladies, except Ada was mad keen on cats. We have a reminiscence about her and her cats. There were six cats and they lived in a cattery and she brought them inside two at a time, and rotated them. Ada lived next to the Brisbane-Ipswich Railway Line and on a busy main road which leads to Qld University and really that was the only way she could prevent them being skittled by a car or train. However, after working on the newspaper articles we have been able to find I now know that Janie was a feminist activist, and was very active in the local Toowong Women’s Electoral Lobby, and worked with Miss Griffith (the sister of Sir Samuel Griffith) to achieve the vote for women. Along with a small coterie of ladies, the three girls were the backbone of St Thomas’s Church’s workers, and Janie and Rosie in particular did a lot of fundraising for the church and the missions. (Ada worked.) They were invited to garden parties at Government House and at Bishopbourne (the official residence of the Anglican Archbishop of Qld) because of their community work in Toowong. Rosie had won prizes for her needlework, and Janie had worked as a draper’s assistant, and I suspect that they held working bees sewing for fetes and bazaar sales. Ada used to help with the church’s Annual Sunday School picnics (and at least 200 children turned up, so it was no mean feat), and Rosie was a member of St Thomas’s Dorcas Society (a charitable organisation) and the Ministering Children’s League. She seems to have been passionately fond of children. It is so sad she could have none of her own. The interesting thing is that Ada’s property had two houses on it, (described as ‘gingerbread houses’), and a little shop (described as a ‘quaint funny little building’). We have a photo of one of the houses but not of the shop. The girls weren’t well off, and Janie had an accident where she fell at the Central Railway Station in 1909 and she had to give up work. I am not sure if she had a payout from Qld Rail or if she was on a pension. There was a court case but I can’t find the file (the court building in Brisbane was burnt down in an arson case in the mid 1950s and a lot of civil records were burnt). Rosie had an undisclosed illness which flared from time to time, and she was committed to Goodna Hospital for the Insane on two occasions. She never worked as a result and lived on an invalid pension, but before she was able to get the pension I suspect her brothers helped support her and Janie, hence the fact they never had a brass razoo between them. Then in 1930 Ada was forcibly retired early from her job as a measure in the Depression so they were in a bad way financially, poor things. And so it was Charles and James, as well! During WWII Ada let her shop at a nominal rent to the Toowong Red Cross. The Red Cross made boiled fruit cakes which they sold to relatives of service men and people bought the cakes and posted them overseas to their relatives in the war zones, and via the Red Cross to prisoner of war camps. Ada had a nephew called Noel Morton Laugher, who was adopted by Charles Underwood Laugher and Sara (Sissy) Laugher. Noel was on the Perth which was sunk in the Sunda Straits. He was captured by the Japanese and sent to work on the Burma Railways. He was a very big man and a good life saver. I think his lifesavings skills probably saved his life when the Perth went down. Do you have any photos at all? I am hoping that a photo of Ada and her sisters Janie and Rosie survived. We need one for the signage. I would also like to obtain any memories of the family to supplement the gaps in the little book about the sisters and their family which I am writing. I have a lot about Frederick’s life story and that of his descendents but we are very light with facts on with Charles Underwood’s descendents, and with James’s descendents." |
| Source References: |
| 18. Type: E-mail Message, Abbr: e-mails general pool, Title: e-mails general pool |
| - Reference = Leigh Chamberlain (Name) |
| - Notes: My name is Leigh Chamberlain and I am secretary of a local history society in Toowong, Brisbane called the Toowong and District Historical Society Inc.
We have successfully had a local park officially named after the Misses Laugher, Ada Mary, Rosie Underwood and Janie Underwood Laugher. The girls lived on a property which is now part of the park. The signage in the park is being officially unveiled in September October (date actually yet to be decided). We are liaising with the local ward office of the Brisbane City Council. The park is on the corner of Benson Street and High Street, Toowong. I have been researching the girls’ family history with the assistance of some of the descendents of the Misses Laugher’s brothers, Frederick Valentine Laugher and James Laugher. So far we haven’t managed to contact any descendents of Charles Underwood Laugher, particularly those of Charles Bertram Blackett Laugher and Linda Underwood Ducat (nee Laugher). We have an address for Noel Laugher’s brother-in-law but there are no direct descendents for him. |