Person:Sarah Porter (56)

SARAH ANN was born at Geelong on 1st June 1856, the first child of Richard and Phyllis. She married James Groves in 1879 at St. Mary’s Anglican Church Smythesdale. James was born at Carngham in 1845, the son of Thomas and Euphemia or Phoebe Groves, nee Walters. Thomas’s occupation being a Sawyer. It is believed James was taken at a very early age into the bush and tethered to a tree while his father worked.

At the time of marriage James was a grocers’ assistant in Smythesdale and Sarah a general servant also in Smythesdale. They set up home in the area and worked a small mixed farm while raising a family of nine, one child having died at the age of seven months. The children all attended Smythesdale State School.

As well as helping with the farm work for more than twenty years Sarah had taken a keen interest in catering for the Prince of Wales Masonic Lodge. Her grandchildren remember seeing the white table cloths being starched and ironed with flat irons for the tables. Other memories of visits to grandma were seeing eggs being preserved in Ovo, bread being cooked in a special brick oven outside the house, and cream being skimmed from the milk to make butter before the days of the separator.

In other walks of life Sarah was always eager to do her part as a citizen and was keenly interested in the work of the Church of England until ill health prevented her taking an active part.

James died in 1919 and Sarah carried on with the help of her son Fred, until her death in 1937.