The Blacksmith’s Daughter – Foreword

My name is Fay Berry (O’Connor) and I am the Blacksmith’s daughter.

I am the youngest of four children and the only daughter of Jean Mavis O’Connor (Williams) and Maynard O’Connor, both born in Pinnaroo in the Murray Mallee.

My dad became a blacksmith, learning his trade from Jimmy Hanton in Pinnaroo and eventually building his business in Adelaide, South Australia.

When I was born, therefore, I became

The Blacksmith’s Daughter.

Two years ago, I decided to write “Fay’s Story.” I wanted to write the story of the first 21 years of my life. I began writing, but soon realised that before I could really write my own story it would be necessary to write the story of my ancestors and how they all came to Australia in the first place. I needed “context” to my own story.

I began to explore my roots, expecting the task to take me maybe a month or two but in the end, it took me over a year before I had completed the research.

I developed a ‘proper’ family tree using the MyHeritage family tree building software.The job is and never will be complete because it is a task that just seems to grow and grow, “like Topsy,” my Mum would say.

Some of the clan names I already knew, but there were some clan names completely new to me. I knew about the Dangerfield’s, the O’Connor’s and the Williams but then there were the Thoday’s, the Cooper’s and the Laube’s, all new names to me.

So I began to write about the clans who populated my family tree, picking up information from the word of mouth, stories told me by family members and relatives and from diaries and from the internet.

‘How much better it would be,’ I thought, ‘if I could actually meet all my past family ‘heroes’ and talk to them face-to-face.’

My solution was to ‘turn back the hands of time’ and ‘visit’ my ancestors in my imagination and ask them all the questions that I, and maybe you, would want to know.

So that is how I came to write “Runaway from Santipore,” the story of the various clans in my family tree, and after that, I wrote 52 chapters of my own story which I have called,

“The Blacksmith’s Daughter.”

because I am my dad’s, the Blacksmith’s only daughter.

I have had so much fun writing both of these stories. I hope you enjoy reading what I have written almost as much as I have enjoyed writing them..

Fay Berry 28th Nov 2012.