Shep's Place Family Tree

"My father, when he married my mother 1887, worked at Bass's, a large jewellery store at the Beehive Corner in Adelaide where Haigh's Chocolates is now. He was later made the Manager. Mr. Bass gave them a beautiful ‎(one dozen each)‎ canteen of sterling silver cutlery for a wedding present. He also gave my father, for my mother, a lovely ring of ruby & diamonds at the birth of their first child, & a ring of diamonds & sapphires when the second was born. A kind of bonus. It was only when my grandfather wanted to retire from the Gladstone Hotel that he asked my father to take over for him & much to my mother's sorrow it was agreed to. They exchanged houses just as they were, that was the agreement & the beautiful set of cutlery was left in my parents' home at Kensington, their town house. Half this set was taken by my father's step-mother ‎(Louise Schegel)‎ when she went back to Germany to live after the war, that is, the First World War, & the other half she gave to Aunt Ida, my father's sister who went to Western Australia to live with my cousin Roy Kernot & his family. She in turn gave her half dozen to Anne Kernot, Hurd Kernot's eldest daughter who was married to & divorced from Dr. Hamilton. ‎(At the Sandeman 60th. wedding anniversary she said that about 1912 when her younger sister Adele was a little girl 4 or 5 years of age, that Katie & Oddie leased the house at 58 Second Avenue, St. Peters, & took a shop at Semaphore & lived in that area. It is presumed it was a jewellery shop.)‎ It was while living there that the Muller family met the Caseys & became friendly with them. It was Lucy Casey who married Rupert Muller as his second wife many years later. Ida continued that her father lived "with us" that is, the Sandemans from 1934 until 1939 then boarded at Magill Road, Norwood until his death. Between my mother's death in 1928 & our arrival back from England in 1934 he still lived at St. Peters house at Second Avenue. The name "Korff" of Gawler where great grandmother Charlotte Muller died at Gawler is familiar. I remember Korff cousins visiting our family." ‎(Note: "Hurd" was Edwin Hurd Kernot)‎.

These reminiscences do not altogether tally with recorded facts, as H.W.A. Muller was at the Farina Hotel, then 1895 at the Gawler "Commercial" before taking over the Gladstone "Commercial", which his father owned. William, his father, was living at Kensington in 1997 when his youngest son A.L. ‎(Bert)‎ died in W.A. and he died there in 1898.

On returning from the north. H.W.A. purchased 58 Second Ave. St. Peters date unknown, but the two youngest children, Ida and Adele were born there in 1902 and 1907 and his wife died there in 1928.

His wife, Catherine ‎(Katie)‎ Campbell Ferguson whom he married in 1887 when he was 22, was a grand daughter of Daniel Ferguson ‎(1796-1864)‎, pioneer of Glen Osmond, who reached S.A. on Dec., 1st 1838 from Dumfrieshire, Scotland with his family, including Katie's father James ‎(1828-1875)‎, by the "Catherine Jamieson". Katie was the 5th of 6 daughters. She had the Celtic colouring of black hair and blue eyes. At the outbreak of the 1914-1918 War the 3 sons of H.W.A. enlisted. So did he and he must have falsified his age as he was past 50. Persons of too close a German descent were suspect at that time so H.W.A. stated that his father ‎(born 1832, Osnabruck, Germany)‎ was born on board a ship in Australian waters when in fact it was his mother who was born at sea in 1841. He joined a Light Horse Regiment and in the family photograph with his sons, all of them in uniform, he had sergeant stripes. When Katie died at the St. Peters house in 1928, she and H.W.A. were taking care of their son Rupert's boys. Rupert's wife had died in 1923. H.W.A. continued at this house for some years, lived with the Sandemans for a period and finally boarded, first at Kensington then at Norwood. Shortly before his death he rode his bicycle one day from Norwood to Campbelltown to the home of his son Harold Muller and gave him the large family Bible. He died in his sleep at the house where he was boarding at Magill Road, North Norwood on Aug. 11th 1939. He was 75. He was buried with Katie at the Payneham, Cemetery.