3. Lillian May Brown.

Above: My Aunty Lil in the background, her partner Bill Eccles, and daughter Beryl O'Brien. Photo taken at the wedding of Lil's niece, Helen Oakley, at Yarrawonga in 1970.

Lillian May Brown was born on November 30, 1909, at Yarrawonga, Victoria,the third child and first daughter born to 36 year old John Brown and 24 year old Charlotte Willett.
Known as ‘Lil’, she received her education at Yarrawonga Primary School and remained in Yarrawonga for most of her adult life. For many years Lil worked as a cook at the Royal Mail Hotel in Belmore Street, Yarrawonga. In 1927, aged only 17, she married 24 year old Victor James Giovanni.
Victor was the Australia-born son of Italian immigrant Ciss (or Cici) Giovanni and his wife Elizabeth Cross. Ciss and Elizabeth were married in Crookwell in 1901. Their daughter Lila was born in Crookwell in 1901, James Victor in Wyalong in 1903 and John E in Temora in 1905. The NSW birth index online records cease in 1906, so further issue is unknown at this point. Ciss’s naturalisation paper’s, however, state that he was the father of three boys and two girls.
James Giovanni was 24 years old when he married Lillian May Brown in the Sacred Heart Catholic Church at Yarrawonga on August 1, 1927. His occupation and that of his father was given as ‘labourer’. James’ usual and present residence was Yarrawonga, as was Lil’s.
Because Lil was only 17, her father’s permission had to be given for the marriage to take place. He would have readily given this, because Lil was already pregnant with her first child.
Father Meyer married the young couple, and witnesses to the marriage were Lila Kernaghan and John George Brown (the latter presumably being Lil’s father and not her eldest brother who went by the same name). Investigation has shown that Lila Kernaghan was Lil’s sister-in-law. Lila Agnes Mary Giovanni married John Kernaghan in 1920, and had with him a family of five sons and two daughters (and yes....this John Kernaghan IS a member of the famous Kernaghan Country music family tree- he was the first cousin of Lee Kernaghan’s grandfather, George Patrick Lawrence Kernaghan, with George’s father being the brother of John’s father).
Both Lil’s husband and father-in-law anglicised their names. The surname they chose was ‘Burke’, with Ciss becoming ‘John Burke’ and his son Victor James Burke (but known around the town of Yarrawonga as ‘Bung Burke’).
“Bung’ worked at the local slaughter yards, Hicks’ Abattoirs, which was located at the River Bends downstream from Yarrawonga, and he and Lil had three children together during their marriage- Jack (John Edward), who died in infancy; Kevin and Beryl.
Lil and her husband separated, and Lil lived for many years with local man Bill Eccles in a defacto relationship. His full name was William John Eccles, and he was the son of James Eccles and Frances Jones. I spent many happy hours as a child with Aunty Lil, and it was a huge treat to be taken to her house for a visit with my mother and grandmother. She was a wonderful lady, quite little in stature like her mother Charlotte, with a ready laugh.
Baby John Edward Burke was born in 1928 at Yarrawonga. He died the following year,
aged only one. His cause of death was “pertussis” (whooping cough); gastroenteritis 3 weeks,convulsions & exhaustion 24 hours”, and he was buried in the Catholic section of the Yarrawonga Cemetery on February 17, 1929.It is interesting to note that the family name here was spelt ‘Bourke’, even by Victor James Bourke the father who signed the death certificate as informant, yet in most other occasions was spelt ‘Burke’.
Lil’s son Kevin married Dawn Moore of Tungamah, and the couple had two children,
Dianne and Gary. Kevin was a butcher at Yarrawonga and later Wagga.
Lil’s daughter, Beryl Burke, married Kevin O’Brien. They lived in Yarrawonga for many years and raised a family of two sons and three daughters- Martin, Megan, Tracey, Adam and Justine. The O’Brien family moved to Perth in the late 1970s, and Lil went with them. Her partner Bill Eccles had died in Yarrawonga in 1972, aged 62, and her ex-husband Victor James Burke died in Yarrawonga in 1978.