Anna Zwar – a detailed life story

Anna Zwar was born at Ebenezer on 13 January 1853 just 13 months after her parents
had landed in South Australia from the ship Helena which had sailed from Hamburg in September 1851. Her sister Maria had travelled out with her parents but two sons born after Maria, died in infancy, the last having been born following a severe storm at sea. He died some days later and was buried at sea off Kangaroo Island.

The family had traveled with a group of 96 Wends from Saxony with Johann as their leader and a spiritual mentor. The voyage went well for the most part and they arrived at Port Misery on 24th December 1851. They at first went to Rosedale north of Adelaide having decided not to go on to Melbourne with the Helena. They were then looking for land to settle such a large group and found that land being opened up at Ebenezer was the most suitable for most of them. After the land was allocated thy moved and built their first house of pug and pine and set about clearing and cultivating the land.

Anna was born soon after they settled at Ebenezer and then Christiana came along three years later. Their mother Magdalena was never a robust person and she died in 1859 from tuberculosis.

Life was difficult for Johann being left with three small daughters and the work of establishing a home and a livelihood in virgin country as well as being a spiritual leader of the community and establishing a church. Magdalena, before she died, had urged him to remarry but he did not do so until his Wendish friends prayers were answered and he renewed his acquaintance with Lydia Anna Kaiser in Melbourne. She was also from Drehsa and the sister of Andreas Kaiser who had come to Melbourne with Johann’s youngest brother Michael on the ship Prisbislaw in February 1850.

Johann married Anna Kaiser in Melbourne in 1863 and they traveled to Ebenezer by ship, train and buggy to be greeted by the young family. Anna proved to be a great help to the family and seven children were added through this union. A photo taken in 1865 shows Anna with Maria(17), Anna(12), and Christiana(9) from the first family, with Johann nursing Johannes and Anna nursing Salome.

For some time after her mother died Anna had to stay home to look after her young sister Christiana and she was possibly eight or nine before she started at Ebenezer Lutheran school and this may have contributed to her being a very independant person in later life.

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Marriage
When she was 23 Anna married Charles Hartman from Germany, a Hiring Stables Keeper in Melbourne. Their son John Charles was born in 1878 and they remained in Melbourne for several years where Charles was a shop assistant. It is possible that during this time she had contact with her uncle Michael and his family who lived at Broadford north of Melbourne.

Their second child Christine Magdalene Hartman was born in 1883 at Kapunda, a bustling copper mining town about 20 miles from the family home at Ebenezer. We have no records of the next few years but understand that Anna went to Western Austrtalia and lived in Perth with John Charles and Christine. There is no record of Charles Hartman except an entry in the S.A. register after his name which says ‘dep.W.A’. There are no letters from Anna to help in her story.

Records show that in 1890 Anna, a widow, married John James Strawbridge, a widower, in the Baptist Church at Kapunda in South Australia. Norman Alfred Stanley Strawbridge was born to them at Kapunda in 1891 and died in 1911 but there is no record of his burial place. Nothing further is known of John. J. Strawbridge except that he died in 1938, as told by the Strawbridge family.

Christine grew into a tall striking looking woman who became an actress and went to Kalgoorlie to follow her career. It was then a bustling gold mining town. Here she met and married John Walker. He died in 1944. They had two children Alexander and Jean. About 1940 Alexander Walker with his wife May Skepper and children Gaye and Russell went to live in South Australia at Glenelg. It was then wartime but after some years they returned to Western Australia for medical reasons. After several years at Armadale they moved to Busselton.

Christine’s daughter Jean Walker worked as a secretary in Perth and married Jack Wynn. They lived at Nedlands and had a daughter Shirley Wynn, a journalist who married John Pennlington (A.B.C.) who was at one time in Canberra. Jean died in 1980.

Christine’s other son Charles Kenneth Walker was born in Kalgoorlie in 1912 but died aged 4yrs.

Christine and son Alexander are buried at Busselton.

Meanwhile Anna, who had moved back to Adelaide, lived in a cottage at Kent Town where she died in 1918. Her son John Charles Hartman who had lived with her till then, married Florence Smith from Robe, South Australia, in1920. They had one son John who died in 1946.

Anna, John Charles, Florence and John Jnr.are all buried in the Magill Cemetery. Anna differed from the other children of Johann Zwar in that she made a life for herself and her children outside the Wendish, German and Lutheran communities. Maybe this was a result of the loss of her mother and not having the same opportunities as the others or because of her father’s second marriage. Maybe there is some correspondence which indicates what her feelings were. If there is it would be interesting to see it.

Compiled by
Margaret Gehling

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