The Reed Family Picture Album (as drawn by Les)

The REED Compendium of Life from 1900 through to WWII
(and some way beyond ...)

43 Crook Street

Ern (an architect by trade) has produced a plan of the house at Crook Street, where most of the Reed children were born. It is reproduced below. Note that in my photo of the present-day 43 Crook Street (actually renumbered now to 35) there is a house to the north of the lane, which Ern states was a paddock extending to Albion Street in those days. Syd remembers as follows:

It was certainly not a large house and it must have been very congested when the move to 11 Downs Street was effected in 1916 or 1917, as the family then consisted of Mum and Dad and six children.

The front room (originally a small living room) had become our parents' bedroom. As a young baby then, I was accommodated in a corner of this bedroom. (Ern believes that such was the case). The girls occupied one of the other bedrooms, whilst the three other boys shared a bedroom. All living, cooking and eating was in the small kitchen, which contained a wood stove. Remember that all rooms in the house were small.

That right of way (still in existence) did a right-angle at to the back of the property such that it ran along the back also. Syd mentions that the paddock was a great place to play. There were many such paddocks in West Brunswick in those days. [No longer! With houses now over the $1.5 million mark, real estate is at a premium.]

The original owner of 43 Crook Street (and its pair next door) was Mr Ashill who terrified the locals by riding a tricycle about. He had come to Australia loaded with money made either in Mexico (silver mines) or South Africa. The large dividing wall between the 2 houses in the "pair" was adjacent to the passageway in both cases. Mentioned elsewhere is the kindness shown by Dad (normally a shrewd businessman) in relation to allowing the Nelder family a rent-free stay owing to Mr Nelder being away in WWI.

Note on Ern's plan the laundry-slash-bathroom. My late mother-in-law once described to me that in those days, the water for the bath would have been heated in the copper. That was why the bath and copper were adjacent. You can see on Ern's plan a place in the corner for fire wood. When we have a "quick shower" nowadays, we easily forget how really difficult it was for those folks to organize their lives. No wonder that everyone shared the bath-water!

Syd recalls pets that lived with the Reeds in those days at Crook Street. There was Jim the cat and Bob the dog. Jim was usually unafraid of dogs, but we have been told often of how he met his match on one occasion. He was in such a hurry to escape that he flew through the window at the northern end of the kitchen. Unfortunately, the window was closed.