The Martins:
Fortunes of Gold
Emma May Martin
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In the 1890's Hopetoun was the service town for a vast, low rainfall belt that was being opened up amid great expectation. Alas, the planned for closed pipes are only now being installed after nearly 130 years. Undeterred, Joe built this double shop and adjacent shed in Hopetoun and ran a lucrative plumbing business building much needed water-tanks, tin-trunks and other metal goods from one of the shops.
Joe advertised for a wife and quickly married an unrelated Martin, Sarah-Ann. She was clearly an enterprising match for Joe and opened a green grocery and refreshments store in his other shop. She also won a medal for the best cow at the Hopetoun agricultural show, aided no doubt by the fact that her father had been a dairyman.
Sarah-Ann's portrait is next to the photograph of Joe. The artist is unknown but has painted in the modern French Impressionist style. That there is a portrait rather than a photograph of Sarah-Ann suggests the family photos may have been taken after she died, when Emma May and her twin sister were just seven years old and their brother Clem was four.
Edward & Mary-Ann
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Further tragedy struck on the day of his funeral when one of his young boys also died. Their graves are amongst the earliest in Stawell cemetery.
Clement Martin
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