In Memory of Mary Miller

In the night of Thursday 13 November 1902, an unexplained explosion killed a Toowoomba man in his home. His name was Christy Miller. Now, 120 years later, the case remains unsolved.

As usually happens over time, stories about that night and the following day changed and the facts became blurred. One of his descendants—he was my great-grandfather—I wanted to find out what facts were available.

Sources of Information

With more than a century since then, it would have been a difficult task except for three sources. My Uncle Frank had done his own investigation and collected a record of the family members, a newspaper report, and the coroner’s report. If it were not for his work, I would not have taken on this task.

Peter Cullen, from the Toowoomba Historical Society sent me a few additional items including the two photographs included in this article banner and a map.

The newspaper archive, Trove, contributed a few small articles and notices.

Writing the Story

At the time, I was studying the MA(Writing) and had no experience in writing Creative Non-Fiction or historical fiction. The story of Christy’s death became a study project and my tutors helped me considerably. In my version of the story, I stick to the facts and use creative writing to fill in the gaps.

The facts were cold and hard and needed characters and atmosphere to build them into a readable story. I chose to focus on Christy’s wife, Mary, as the protagonist and write the story from her perspective. The coroner’s report helped to get a picture of her thoughts and feelings as well as her view of the facts.

National Context

Events happening on a national level contributed to the story, in particular the long-lasting Federation Drought that was at its worst. Ironically, it ended a month after Christy’s death.

The Commonwealth of Australia gave women the right to vote and be elected to Parliament in 1902, but that historical development had no real impact on the lives of ordinary women like Mary Miller.

In Memory of Mary Miller

I acknowledge this story is my interpretation of the people involved, their characters and their reactions. However, I have not distorted any facts. They remain true to the statements in the coroner’s report.

Mary Miller was my great-grandmother and she lived through a horrible ordeal. I wanted to honour her in this creative non-fiction.

It is written in second person voice, because nobody could go through an experience like this and emotionally be capable of telling the story in first person, and it needed to be more personal than a third person narration.

Excerpt

The year is 1902 and Australian women now have the right to vote and be elected, but that has little if any impact on you. The drought is in its sixth year, eighth you hear in the southern states, and it is a dry hot November afternoon.

The detached kitchen is sweltering. You finish cooking supper and leave it on top of the wood stove to keep warm while Hannah sets the table. The sound of little Florrie playing in the shade between the house and the kitchen makes you smile.

Out in the front garden, young Fred watches down the road for Jack to get home from the tannery and calls, “He’s coming!”

You walk out of the kitchen taking the path between it and the house to the side garden and push the damp hair back off your forehead. The ground lies dry and thirsty, a veritable dust bowl; the plants in the vineyard sag; the fresh ploughed paddock beyond shows no sign of moisture in the turned soil. This farm at the top end of Green Wattle Gully is suffering.

Read the full story here. It was first published in 2016 in Backstory Journal.