7.Robert Corvan Brown

Above: The four Brown brothers- left to right Bob, Jack, Ned and Les (and an unknown shadow of someone taking the photo!)


Robert Corvan Brown was born in Yarrawonga, Victoria, on August 4, 1919, at Yarrawonga. He was the seventh child born to Jack Brown and 34 year old Charlotte Willett. His unusual middle name, ‘Corvan’, came from the maiden name of his paternal grandmother- Jack Brown’s mother was a tiny English woman named Rosa Constance Corvan.
Known as ‘Bob’, he was raised and educated in Yarrawonga, and worked for most of his adult life as a sleeper cutter with two of his brothers, Jack and Ned, in East Gippsland.
In 1938,at the age of 19, Bob married Barbara Mann, and the couple lived at Nowa Nowa, living in a dirt-floored shanty on the banks of the Little Boggy Creek.
My mother loved her ‘Aunty Barb’, and always spoke of her with great affection.
She kept in contact with her even after Barb and Bob separated and later divorced.
Bob was shockingly burnt in an accident whilst sleeper cutting at Nowa Nowa. He walked past an open fire with a chainsaw that was leaking petrol. The petrol ignited and the chainsaw exploded, igniting Bob’s clothing in the process. Despite suffering the most horrific burns, Bob managed to walk out of the forest where he had been working alone and drove an old Anglier car to a local pub for help, staggering into the bar wearing only his blackened boots and hat.
Bob was kept in the intensive care unit at Bairnesdale Hospital for a long period,
and for the rest of his life he carried dreadful scars on his back and neck.
Bob and Barb Brown did not have any children, and after they separated Bob became a bit of a nomad, moving around and pitching a tent in places as varying as the banks of the Murray River near Yarrawonga, and the back yard of the Oakley home in Yarrawonga (the latter being dubbed the “Stagger Inn”) After his wife Belle died, Bob’s brother Ned also would join him in his tent settlements. I remember as a child visiting them in a fabulous set up on the banks of the Murray downstream from Mulwala- they were master bushmen, and their tents were very large and extremely comfortable.
Bob Brown raised a family with his new partner, Doreen Bryan from Mulwala, and they had four children, one son and three daughters.
1) Maxwell Brown: married Vicki Sheridan. Two daughters, Cheree and Jodi-
Lee.
2) Raelene Brown: married Neil Davis. Lives with her family in Yarrawonga.
3) Terri Brown:
4) Deborah Brown:

Amongst other things, Bob Brown worked as a carpenter whilst living at Mulwala.
He died at Beechworth and was buried at Yarrawonga.
My father reported that Bob was a champion cyclist as a young man. He raced at the Essendon Board Track in Melbourne, and apparently defeated legendary Billy
Guyatt on occasion.