Children of Joseph and Harriet Watson

Alf lived next door to us at Mt. Barker S.A. & when I was 2 he gave me a coloured ball, twice as big as a tennis ball, for Christmas. I thought it was a HUGE beach ball.

He was very quiet old gentleman, of large build & quite tall & had a grey beard. He also like to sit in his rocking-chair on the wide back verandah.

There was also an adopted child, Marlin Pettle, an orphan. The story goes that Walter had been using his reaping machine on a farm at Echunga. The little orphan girl wanted to go home with him. She packed her clothes and got into the box of the reaping machine, refusing to get out. Her guardians allowed her to go to live with the Patersons for a short while but she stayed and grew up with them.

She was housekeeper for Mr Gerhardt & also cared for her aunt, Elizabeth Winspear, at Langhorne Creek, S.A.

She later lived with her brother Alf at Mill St, Mt Barker, S.A. next door to Lil & Sylv Kelly.

I remember she baked absolutely delicious chocolate queen cakes. She kept fowls in a large run at the top of the block. She lived with her brother, Alf. He liked to sit on the wide back verandah on his rocking-chair.

My mother used to cook Aunt Polly's evening meals for her for a while when she had a heart problem & she would come to the paling fence & collect it.

Once a year she would have a few friends to visit for the day from Adelaide to play crib. Mrs Saunders, Miss Staude, Mrs Green, Mrs Edwards were their names. There may have been one other lady.