The Kidd Family A Family History
Chapter Two · Thomas & Mary Rebecca Robens

The Independent Sister

Rhoda Blanche Robens

1875–1966

Twenty years on her own account in Surry Hills, bracketed by a season in service at Kelso and a last household with her sisters at Merrylands. She was the only one of the four who lived alone.

Rhoda Blanche Robens, from the photograph of the seven Robens daughters
Born
14 August 1875 · Newtown
Died
12 February 1966 · registered at Parramatta
Trade
Domestic duties; home duties
Lived
90 years

Born at Newtown on 14 August 1875, registration 4286/1875 — the third of the twelve, and named in the index with both parents, Thomas and Rebecca J. Robens.1 Like Alice, Ida and Stella, she never married.

Her documented life runs across more than half a century and divides cleanly into three: a single early sighting in service near Bathurst, twenty years living independently in Surry Hills, and a final stretch back among her sisters in the western suburbs.

1913

Domestic Duties at Kelso

The earliest record of Rhoda as an adult puts her at Kelso, across the river from Bathurst, on the electoral roll of 1913. Her occupation is given in two words: domestic duties.2

It is an isolated sighting, and a startling one. It predates every other address known for her by more than twenty years, and nothing yet found says how long she stayed or what took her there. What it does do is put another of this family in the Bathurst district, and early. Her mother was married at Bathurst in 1871; her grandfather Archibald Joseph Jeffries kept a saddlery there until his death in 1903; her sister Stella would hold one Keppel Street address for thirteen years from 1930; her brother William Wesley would settle at Lort Street and stay for the rest of his life. Rhoda was there at thirty-seven, long before either of them.

1934–1936

Thirty-Five Lansdowne Street

By the 1930s she was in the city, and living on her own account. Sands Directory enters her at 35 Lansdowne Street, Surry Hills, in 1934 and again in 1936, both times as home duties.3

This corrects something that had been assumed. It was taken that Rhoda spent these years in her sisters’ household; she did not. While Alice and Ida were keeping house together out at Baulkham Hills, Rhoda had an address of her own in the inner city and held it for at least two years. Of the four unmarried sisters she is the only one recorded living alone for any length of time.3 Two further households once attached to her name in this period have been set aside as well — one at Canley Vale that has since been shown not to belong to this family at all, and a cottage at Kellyville for which no record has ever been found.8

1943–1966

Back Among the Sisters

By 1943 she had rejoined them, sharing Railway Street, Baulkham Hills, with Ida, and Alice a few minutes off at Cross Street.4 By 1954 she and Alice were at 28 Sheffield Street, Merrylands, in Vera’s house — which Vera had held since at least 1930, and in which she had been widowed that March. There Rhoda stayed.5

She was in that house through two family deaths — Ivy, killed on the road north in February 1955, and Alice, in August 1962. By then she had outlived most of her brothers and sisters, and she went on another three and a half years after Alice.

Rhoda died on 12 February 1966, the death registered at Parramatta under 12001/1966.6 Taking her birth date of 14 August 1875, she was ninety. That figure is given here with a note attached: her own working record left the age open at “in her ninetieth year” because neither date had then been pinned down from a certificate, and an earlier note had given ninety-one. The registration numbers are index entries, not certificates, and the point is not closed.7

The Record

Sources & References

  1. 1

    Birth registration

    NSW BDM index, Rhoda B. Robens, 1875, Newtown, reg. no. 4286; father Thomas Robens, mother Rebecca J. Robens.

  2. 2

    Kelso, 1913

    NSW Electoral Roll, 1913, Bathurst—Kelso Polling-Place, entry 282 — Rhoda Blanche Robens, Kelso, domestic duties. Her earliest adult sighting, and more than twenty years before any other address held for her.

  3. 3

    Surry Hills, 1934 and 1936

    Sands Directory, 1934 and 1936, Subdivision of Surry Hills, entries 4569 and 3953 — 35 Lansdowne Street, home duties. These entries displace an earlier assumption that she was living with her sisters in this period.

  4. 4

    Castle Hill, 1943

    Commonwealth Electoral Roll, 1943, Subdivision of Castle Hill, entries 2822–2824 — Railway Street with Ida May Charlotte, Martha Alice at Cross Street.

  5. 5

    Merrylands, 1954

    Sands Directory, 1954, Subdivision of Merrylands, entry 8030 — 28 Sheffield Street, the home of Vera Annie Grieve, shared with Martha Alice.

  6. 6

    Death registration

    NSW BDM, death of Rhoda Blanche Robens, reg. no. 12001/1966, registration district Parramatta, 12 February 1966.

  7. 7

    Age at death

    Her working record gives “in her ninetieth year” deliberately, to avoid overstating precision: an earlier note had ninety-one, other project data ninety. On the birth date of 14 August 1875 carried here she was ninety at her death, but neither date has been confirmed from a certificate.

  8. 8

    Superseded readings

    Two earlier working notes are set aside. One placed her with her sisters at 8 O’Connell Street, Parramatta, in 1930 and at 50 Buckingham Street, Canley Vale, in 1936 — the Canley Vale household has since been established not to belong to this family at all. The other had her running an independent cottage, “Muir-of-Ord”, at Kellyville in 1943; no record supports it, and the 1943 roll places her at Railway Street.