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Agnes Elisabeth Zwar – a detailed life story16.8.1865– 28.8.1948 Agnes Elisabeth Zwar was born at ‘Glendale’, the Zwar
farm, on 16th August Agnes was baptized by Pastor Goethe, and her godparents were Michael Zimmer, Anna Zimmer and Maria Zimmer. [… from a statement made by Pastor Hermann Herlitz 6.2.1869] Schooldays
Housekeeper and nurse Agnes then nursed her mother, who had developed cancer, and also cared for her sister Ada who was still at school. Her mother died in 1991 when Agnes was 26 years old. Agnes then kept house for her father, her brother Charles and sister Ada, until Charles married in 1898 (?). Agnes, then her thirties, dicided to go to Melbourne and train as a nurse at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. The Crowls have an exercise book in which she took lecture notes. It is inscribed:
While Agnes was training at the Royal Melbourne her cousin Bernard Zwar (from South Australia) was the Senior Resident Medical Officer for the two years 1900 and 1901. The Melbourne Argus reports on August 6th 1903 that Agnes Zwar qualified in the Victorian Nurses Examination. She was 38 years old. The following year Agnes was back at Broadford staying at ‘Wattle Grove’ with Thomas and Emily Marchbank and her young sister Ada while she waited for engagements as a private nurse.
Between private nursing engagements Agnes would return to Broadford and stay at Wattle Grove. A postcard from Dec. 1901 shows her on a three week assignment at Prahran. She complains about her sleeping quarters. In July 1906 she is off to South Africa to be present at the birth of her nephew Lyall Crowl in October. She returned to Australia with Ada Crowl and Lyall in May 1907 on board the S.S. Salamis. Several years later Agnes was working for the Kaiser family at Glenferrie. (Her uncle Johann Zwar, in South Australia, had married one of the Kaiser girls from Melbourne). In 1910 she returned to nursing. In 1913 Agnes made another trip to South Africa, this time to be with her niece Frances McNab when a daughter Frances Enid McNab (later to become Mrs. Williams) was born. Wattle Grove On the farm Agnes cared for the flower garden and looked after the poultry, which included Indian Runner ducks. She loved fishing and was a most patient angler. Jean Crowl remembers being taken on a fishing trip at Christmas time in 1931. She recalls that her aunties and mother-in-law took it so seriously that no one was allowed to talk. They would fish in the large waterholes in the Sunday Creek as far as 15 kilometres from home. Later, when they had a car they would go even further. On other occasions they would go rabbiting in the Dabyminga area, about 10 kilometres east of Broadford. The rabbit skins were sold, and the meat they could not eat was fed to the dogs and fowls. The meat for the fowls was chopped up fine. The fowls were so keen for this special meal that it was difficult to chop up a rabbit without hitting the eager heads of the fowls. The best winter rabbit skins would realize up to 9 shillings per pound. When her nephew “Noldie” Zwar ran some of his sheep on Wattle Grove, Agnes would go round the ewes every morning in the lambing season to check the lambs. Agnes loved being outdoors. Agnes never married. She was engaged at one time, and the engagement ring was found in her belongings after she died. (It is said that a doctor advised her never to marry; also that her fiancée was a Roman Catholic and she was not allowed to marry him). At times Agnes suffered severe bilious or migraine attacks. She
would retire to her bed for several days with the blinds drawn and
could eat nothing for three or four days. Agnes was a quiet woman by nature. She was ladylike and generous, but there were no extra frills in her manner. She could be described as blunt, but also kind hearted, and was the most practical and down to earth of the three sisters who spent the last 40 years of their lives together at Wattle Grove.
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