Elsie Baker

  General Notes:

(1)Places of Abode. a. Slack Road, near Old Road, Blackley. ( Manchester A-Z Street Directory, Map 40-2c.) b. Acton Street. c.Barwick Place. d.Pickering Street, off Rochdale Road.
I attended Burgess Street Girls School. ( off Rochdale Road.)
I played and relaxed and strolled in Queens Park, Harpurhey. ( Manchester A-Z Street Directory, Map 40-4c.)
I attended Sunday School at the Wesleyian Methodist Church, at the end of Pickering Street, across Rochdale Road.

(2) 23 January 1932, at the Methodist Church, Orange, Elsie Baker, weaver, of Orange, New South Wales, Spinster, born Dukinfield, Cheshire, England aged 23 years, daughter of Charles Joseph Baker and May Ann Longden married Raymond Wallace Cole, carder, of Orange, New South Wales, Bachelor, born Molong, New South Wales, aged 19 years, son of Frederick Charles Cole and Theresa Purcell. Celebrant Wesley Stokes. Witnesses Alice Baker and Leo Pattison.

(3) My children Leslie and Stanley were born in the Private Hospital in Anson Street, Orange. Anne, Margaret, William and Francis were born in St Agnes House, known as Nurse Morgans, on the Bathurst Road,Orange.

(4) In January 1934, the workers at the Amalgamated Textile mill at Orange walked out in protest over wages cuts. The strikers, most of whom were women ( and mostly young) stayed out for three weeks in a dispute that reverberated all the way to the Trades Hall in Sydney, cost 78,000 pounds in lost wages and ultimately resulted in the removal from office of the state secretary of the Textile Workers Union.
The first confrontation of the strike took place on Monday, January 8, when a picket was set up at the mill gates at the 7:30am start time.
One mill girl was escorted through the gates by her father, one report has it that she was taken against her will, crying. The father, on leaving was set upon by a group of women strikers and emerged scratched and bleeding. The local paper ( The Orange Leader ) reported that he manfully 'warded them off with open hands to the best of his ability.'
Elsie Cole lives in flat at Glenroi Heights, an estate of mainly Housing Commission homes at the south eastern end of town. She came to Orange in 1931 and worked as a weaver at the mill. Elsie went on strike though remembers being reluctant to participate in picketing. "I kept away from it." she said.
Nevertheless she agreed with the strike. "Something had to be done."
Elsie remembers things getting better when her husband enlisted in the Army in World War 2, bringing in a steady income. "It was lovely to be able to dress the children." she said.
Elsie and her husband split up after the war and she continued to work at the woollen mills and raised her six children. "We're a very close family."

(5) Eulogy offerred by J.Greg Kelson, 21 August 1991, Uniting Church, Millthorpe.
As the family historian I could tell you of the generations of the Baker family, the genealogy of Elsie Cole, but that is another story for another place. I first met Mrs Cole, I guess about 43 years ago at my grandfathers farm at Berkeley Vale on the Central Coast. I learned then that Mrs Cole was my Auntie Elsie and that is the form of address that I knew, not knowing that 10 years later, I would meet her children and be accepted by them and marry her eldest daughter, Anne.
Some years ago Auntie Elsie was invited to give a talk, in the Chapel where she worshipped. The theme of this discourse was "Courage", and the subject she based this talk on was her father. A young man with a wife and eight children who decided to sell all he had and leave the country of his birth, leave all his family and friends and migrate to Australia, unknown to himself, the uncertainties, the challenges. This discourse was truly a testimony of her father's courage and she concluded with a prayer that she too would have courage as exemplified by her father.
Let me expound on the "Courage" of Mrs Cole. As a young woman she too left her family to seek employment , came to Orange where she married and had a family of four sons and two daughters. Soon after the birth of her sixth child, she was left alone to raise and provide for them. She became not only a mother, but father, provider, comforter and teacher. She labored long with never ending love to honour this obligation to her children. Unlike her father, who had a wife and a brother to call upon for assistance, Elsie had to and did it all alone.
Though she was short in stature, she walked tall, never deviating from the truth and right, she had "Courage" more than enough. She is proud of her family, all have married and have families of their own, respected members of their individual industries and the community where they each reside.
Today we mourn the loss of this woman, but tomorrow I willrejoice and be thankful for the influence she has had on my life, the lives of my family, and my friends, and I testify to you she surely is a daughter of God. Amen.

Elsie married Raymond Wallace Cole, son of Frederick Charles Cole and Theresa Purcell, on 23 Jan 1932 in Orange, New South Wales, Australia.³ (Raymond Wallace Cole was born on 18 Dec 1912 in Molong, New South Wales, Australia,³ died on 26 Aug 1972 in Paddington, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia ³ and was buried on 28 Aug 1972 in Botany, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia ³.)