When I was a boy – and I am now over 70 – I used to look through a trunk of old family photographs. Over the past few months I have finally got down to working out who is who in them.
Many of them – not all – had the names of those photographed written on the back of the photo. These included three of the Fleckers. Yet from my family tree researches they didn’t seem to be related at all.
Last night, after over 50 years, I finally found out why the Fleckers were there. My grandmother, born Alice Hill, used to tell me that she learned the hotel business when she was employed at the South Australian Hotel. She said that the wife of the owner took her under her wing and taught her the trade. She may have told me sometime that they hotel was owned by the Fleckers, but I do not recall ever associating the name “Flecker” with that name until last night.
So the pieces now fall into place. Grandma’s father was W.P. Hill, who arrived in Australia from England in 1866, and set up a (horse-drawn) taxi service between Adelaide and North Adelaide. He later went bush, but returned to Adelaide in 1885 to set up an abattoir at Knoxville. That was in 1885, the same year as the Fleckers bought the South Australian.
As that abattoir grew to supply half of Adelaide’s need for meat, it’s likely that he supplied the South Australian, and it was that connection that resulted in grandma being employed there from the age of about 16, that is, 1888.
Much later, the son of one of grandma’s brothers invented an Australian icon, the Hills Hoist.
While I do not recall ever meeting any of the Fleckers, there are photos of them here indicate that they must have remained close for several years. The main one is one of the Flecker family, with “Mr and Mrs Flecker, Oscar, Rudy, Hugo, Martha (Mrs Dr Arnold) and Victor" written on the back. The other two are one of Alice Olive aged just 17 days, pasted next to one of her Flecker grandmother.
Do you have them? If not, would you like me to send them?
Yours,
Dr Mike McDermott
