Frank McNamara front - James McNamara Mary Ann O'Brien rear The McNamara Family - In the Footsteps of the Pioneer Pastoralists Minnie McNamara front Jack McNamara rear
Jack McNamara and Frank McNamara mail round at Jandowae
McNamara Family group photograph by Walter Perroux Toowoomba circa 1895
McNamara Family group photograph by Walter Perroux Toowoomba circa 1895
 
McNamara Family group photograph by Walter Perroux Toowoomba circa 1895
 

FROM THE ASHES
This battered photograph is considered to be a unique find and is thought to have come from the collection of Sabina Fontaine nee McNamara who died in Proserpine (Qld) in 1969. It is the only known surviving group image of members of James McNamara Senior and Mary Ann Fuller's family. Miraculously it was saved from destruction in an incinerator following a family clean up around 1980.

Opinion is divided as to the names of the children depicted with parents James and Mary Ann McNamara. Some believe the oldest female, back left, is Sabina (b 1873) with Mary Ann² (b 1885) sitting beside her mother. Others believe the young female in the front row is Minnie May (b 1890) with Mary Ann² in the back row beside her father James Senior. The three young males are believed to be Charlie front left with William beside him and Jack back right.

When interviewed in 2001, Ivy Kuridala Rose Lee, the youngest child and only living member of Sabina and Gus Fontaine's family was unable to identify any of the children.

Perhaps the best clue lies in the frame itself. The embossed lettering, Walter E. Perroux, Toowoomba Queensland indicates that the photograph could only have been taken sometime after 1895 when Perroux, a well known early Queensland photographer opened a studio there.

It is highly unlikely that the young female in the back row is Sabina as she married Gus Fontaine at Dalby in 1892 aged nineteen and moved from the area shortly after. By process of elimination the young girl in the front row must be Minnie May. As no other image of Minnie has ever been found it makes the group photograph a unique piece of family history.

When Minnie May was committed to Willowburn Special Hospital in 1922 the McNamara family was acutely embarrassed by the social stigma of having their youngest member confined to a mental institution. They went to extraordinary measures to conceal the family secret which included removal of all her photographs. So effective was the cover-up many mourners at her father's funeral in 1942 believed that she had passed away some years before.

In 2002, a photograph was discovered at "Strathgyle", Bell  (Qld) which has a striking resemblance to Sabina Fontaine nee McNamara. Ivy Lee nee Fontaine is certain that this picture of a twenty to twenty five year old woman with obvious McNamara family features is not her mother and believed it could be Minnie May McNamara.

The debate continues over the family members shown in the two images and the issue may never be resolved.   
    
Family photographs and information on this web site have been generously provided from "The Kitty Creevey Collection" by Kevin Creevey, Jandowae - Queensland and the McNamara Family's "Strathgyle Archives", Bell - Queensland.
Copyright © 2009 John A McNamara.
All rights reserved.