Ailsa Daphne (Williamson) Williamson Paul (1924 - 2004)

Ancestors Descendants

Biography

Birth
Ailsa Daphne Williamson was born in Townsville, North Queensland, in 1924, the eldest of two children to Will and Dolly (née Newton) Williamson.^[1]

Heritage
Her paternal grandfather, Ole, due to having been born in Sweden spoke with a fairly thick accent according to those who knew him. Although he died long before Ailsa was born, knowing of her Swedish roots through him and her father had an effect on her.

Also on her paternal side were Scottish forebears. Ailsa had a strong sense of pride in knowing such, perhaps from having grown up parentless. What she did not know was that there were also Irish forebears on the paternal side.

Maternally it was mostly northern English, with great-grandparents from the Yorkshire, Northumberland and Durham areas on the east and Lancashire on the west. What she never knew was the connection to Wales through her maternal great-great-grandfather.
Ailsa's strong feelings about heritage are what led to her later interest in genealogy and family research.

Military Service
Ailsa signed up to the WAAAF on the 23rd March 1942 and served until 10th April 1946.

WAAAF I.D. photo.

Part of her war service was spent in her home-town, Townsville, where she made many good friends. Some of those friendships lasted until the day she died. Ailsa would often tell of how she and her friends would sit and watch the light-display of what was the Battle of the Coral Sea in the evening/night sky; either from the mainland, or from Magnetic Island, just off the coast.

War Service Certificate.

Ailsa also spent part of her war service doing intelligence work on one floor of MacArthur Chambers (now a heritage-listed building in Brisbane, Queensland, in the 1940s the building was used as the headquarters of the Allied Forces in the South-West Pacific), while General Douglas MacArthur and his staff were occupying the board room on the eight floor. More than once she pointed out the plaque commemorating this on the outside of the building, barely visible due to a hand-rail, to her children and later to her grandchildren.

Marriage and Children
Ailsa married Fred Paul on the 2nd August 1948, at the Anne Street Presbyterian Church, Brisbane,^[2] and, after a five-year struggle to fall pregnant (no IVF back then!), had three children in the 1950's.
Fred was transferred to a new (RAAF) posting in the late 1950's, not long after their third child was born, leaving the family behind and never attempted to resume the marriage.

Mother and child.

As a result, Ailsa brought up her three children with minimal financial assistance from Fred (and that only because she went to the RAAF and had (a small amount of) money awarded to her for maintenance of the children; a garnishment of his wages).
The marriage was finally officially and legally dissolved on the 30th December 1982.

Music and Teaching and the Law
Ailsa spent many years working for a local Barrister & Solicitor as his (and later his son's) Primary Legal Assistant (also training secretarial staff and assisting associate Solicitors). Essentially functioning also as the "office manager" Ailsa trained many a young woman in office duties and also some basic home skills (some of the "girls" couldn't even cook toast or boil water).^[3]
In addition to the day work in the Law Office, Ailsa spent a number of years teaching shorthand and typing at the local Technical College a couple of evenings a week, and was also "Akela" for one of the local Cub Packs one night a week.
Ailsa also taught piano and music theory for a number of years under her own family name of Williamson, as that's what her certification was under. She also composed a number of symphonies, or shorter musical compositions (unpublished), under her birth name of Williamson.

In her later years she preferred to be known again by her own family name, but she also retained the use of the Paul last name (because she claimed changing all the government and medical files would be "too much hassle") hyphenating it as Williamson-Paul — especially after her divorce from Fred Paul became final in 1982 (the which knowledge she kept to herself until it was known from other means) — but she continued her music teaching as Ailsa D Williamson.

The Move Back North
Ailsa moved from Victoria (where she'd ended up as a result of Fred's RAAF posting to Point Cook) back to her home state of Queensland in late 1970, having sent her children ahead of her to stay with her brother, his wife and family. Once back home in Queensland Ailsa took on the ownership of a "corner store" (mom & pop store in America) and ran this with varying degrees of assistance from her children, who had jobs of their own by then.
She retired from this in the 1980's and, after some time of semi-leisure, took up teaching again; this time piano and music theory, taking most of her students through the AMEB* exams..
In the 1990's she not only taught children and adults, many of whom became like family, she took on the musical education of her eldest grandchildren; both of whom went on to play other instruments than the piano. Ailsa's eldest grandchild (a granddaughter) went on to take a number of AMEB examinations and became a teacher of music, firstly in Rockhampton, Queensland, and later in Bangkok, Thailand and Victoria, Australia. While Ailsa often lamented that her granddaughter was "wasting her talent", she was extremely proud of her. Several others of her grandchildren similarly showed interest in music, with varying abilities, which also gave Ailsa great delight. (She would have been equally delighted and proud to know that this has carried to the next generation as well.)
* AMEB : Australian Music Examination Board

Sue is our Family Super Star!

Genealogy and Family History
Ailsa also had a great interest in knowing "where she came from". She claimed this was because she grew up as a double orphan (now simply "orphan") with an "elderly grandmother and a spinster aunt". This interest was shared by her own daughter and, later, her eldest (at the time, only) grandson. As a family they spent many hours in libraries and State Archives perusing microfiche and microfilm records of the original documents held in other states.
Sometimes there were surprises, such as finding out that her father had been a "seven-month" child, not her father's brother; or discovering that the grandmother who had brought her up had had a younger sister, born and died the same day, that had never been mentioned; or that the aunt she thought had been her grandfather's cousin had actually been his sister and that the confusion had been because "way too many of them" were situations of two brothers marrying two sisters; that she had actually known her father's mother, but hadn't ever known that she was her grandmother and not her father's step-mother (known as "the Mater", it's a little difficult to determine a relationship when you are very young).
But there were also the delights, such as confirming knowledge passed down—the one aunt she'd known as a child was definitely her grandfather's sister, that she had definitely remembered where her grandfather had been born, that one of the two Scotsmen* "up the tree" who had migrated to Australia had been well enough thought of that two other men were prepared—in 1854, when it would have been a LOT of money—to put up sureties of £50 (fifty pounds) each to enable that gr-gr-grandfather to obtain a "Publican's General License" in Sydney.
Many of the certificates and other family information on her family/family tree research (she said it was up to her children if they wished to pursue the Paul side, as she had no interest in it) were held by her until her death in 2004 (those that weren't were already in the possession of her daughter, where they remain).
* The one Scotsman, wasn't. Due to research carried out by Ailsa's daughter Melanie in the 20-teens, it has been determined, and documented, that one of those Scottish ancestors was actually Irish. Thus the family fills out with Welsh, Irish, Scottish, English, and Swedish, proven for several generations (and still going).

Ailsa Daphne Williamson-Paul née Williamson died on the 10th April ("Easter Saturday") 2004 after collapsing the night before.^{[4] [5]} (It must be noted that her eldest son did not acknowledge the retention of her birth name and her use of it, continuing to refer to her always as "Paul".)

Her daughter and eldest two grandchildren affectionately referred to (and still do) her as ADWP and ToG.

Sources

1. ↑ Birth Registration — Queensland State Government Births, Deaths, Marriages Birth Registration details: Ailsa Daphne Williamson; Event date: 01/02/1924; Event type: Birth registration; Registration details: 1924/C/3164; Mother: Doris Eva Newton; Father/parent: William Robert Williamson
2. ↑ Marriage Registration — Queensland State Government Births, Deaths, Marriages Marriage Registration details: Ailsa Daphne Williamson; Event date: 02/08/1948; Event type: Marriage registration; Registration details: 1948/B/18581; Spouse: Frederic George Turner Paul
3. ↑ Personal knowledge of Melanie Paul, as I was there and I also taught some of those "girls" how to boil the jug, or boil an egg, or how to wash the dishes without leaving streaks on everything.
4. ↑ Personal knowledge of Melanie Paul.
5. ↑ ryersonindex.org

• Family records and birth, marriage, death certificates or certified copies, journal entries, letters, held by family members. BDM certificates, BDM records. (Some of these she left with or to her daughter.)

• ryersonindex.org entry:

Ryerson Index

Surname	Given Names	Notice Type	Date	Event	Age	Other Details	Publication	Published
PAUL	Ailsa Daphne (Sue)	Death notice	10 APR 2004	Death	80	late of Morayfield	Courier Mail (Brisbane)	14 APR 2004

Memories: 2