FIVE GENERATIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22004, 10 January 1935, Page 12

FIVE GENERATIONS

NEARLY A HUNDRED YEARS

PIONEER AUSTRALIAN FAMILY

Five generations of an old Australian family assembled at Guildford, near Sydney, lately. Mrs. Sophia Jane Teage, who will be 98 in June, is the daughter of a Monaro pioneer settler, Mr. James Martin, who was born on a vessel as it was going into Sydney. Mrs. Teage is ill fairly good health, and is able to take a walk with assistance. Her memory is fairly good. Mrs. Teage said she was born at Catheart, a small town north-east of Bombnla, New South Wales, where her father had taken up about 40,000 acres of land. His employees were ticket-of-leave-men. Her family lived in bark huts, and sometimes had to dig their way out through the snow. There were occasional journeys of over 300 miles to Sydney with cattle, and the children were sometimes taken in a spring cart, sleeping at night under the bullock waggons. When she was about 12 years old Mrs. Teage was thrown off a horse and her skull was fractured, and the mark of the injury still remains. After attending school at Concord, she went back to her mountain home. At 21 she married and went to live in Sydney. Sheep were then running on the present Hyde Park. Mrs. Teage said that her mother was 105 when she died. Her first husband was Mr. F. H. Hill, an Englishman. She had 11 children, five of whom are alive, the eldest, Mr. Francis Henry Hill, being 72. She - was about 85 when she married a second time, Mr. Teague being her first admirer. " And when she was 85 she could dance all night," said her daughter, Mrs. Dickson. Mrs. Teage has 33 grandchildren. 50 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.