OUR historians will be interested to note that locally penned book, “The Bombala Stevensons”, is being considered for re-print.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The book was first printed in 2006, and the original 100 copies were quickly snapped up by family, leaving very few for the general public simply keen on local history.
With recent interest having been shown in the book, the author - or rather compiler as she prefers to be known - is now planning the reprint and inviting people to express their interest.
The lady in question is Bombala’s Margaret Summerill, who put “The Bombala Stevensons” book together following a family reunion in 2002 where Mary Dallimore first suggested the idea.
Through four dedicated years of research, including sorting through countless snippets of oral history and other contributions, and with the support of Betty Raffaele among others, the book emerged in 2006.
It is an astonishingly detailed 268 pages of family history, rich with photos and documents illustrating the life and times of the Stevenson descendents.
As the blurb of the book explains, Robert Stevenson was one of Bombala’s early pioneers.
“He arrived in Australia on the 31st July, 1854, coming from Fenwick, Ayr, Scotland. He came to the district in 1860, married in 1862 and began taking up land through the Conditional Purchase Scheme in 1866 and they reared six of their ten children,” the blurb reads.
“An interest in family history and a belief that family history should be recorded for the future generations before it is all lost, has led to the Stevenson families of Bombala being recorded, if only in part, by two cousins.
“In the beginning this book was just to be an oral history as told by their descendants of their memories of Robert, his wife Mary Ann and their children, as told to Margaret Summerill.
“Margaret volunteered to put these memories together for the benefit for the future generations and with the support of her cousin, Betty Raffaele they have achieved far more than ever imagined.”
If you are interested in acquiring a copy of “The Bombala Stevensons”, please contact Margaret on 6458 3612 or via post at 55 Alma Street, Bombala, 2632, prior to July 15, 2015.
