“Lizzie “ was born on the 17th June 1882 in Horsham. She went to live in Hamilton with her parents but returned to Horsham with her sister Emma and they lived with their grandmother Ann Ellen Agnew in John Street.

Both girls worked in the Railway Refreshment rooms, a licensed restaurant catering for all train travellers and the town. This refreshment room was only closed in 1980.

Emma married Joe Smale, a railway worker.

Lizzie married Arthur John Thomas Matthews in 1905. Their lifetime together has been chronicled in Arthur’s history.

Lizzie was a short, skinny woman with very thin hair. She may have had reddish and curly hair when young. She liked to gamble and listen to the races; on Sunday afternoons she played threepenny poker with her daughters and sons-in-law.

She was kind hearted and would give you anything if she had it (trouble was she never had much). She rolled her own cigarettes and was a bender drinker. This drinking didn’t affect her grandchildren, they still thought the world of her.

Moira can still remember going to Grannies one lunchtime and finding her drunk. Moira quickly tried to finish washing the floor before her son Donny came home. He came home, looked at his mother lying on the bed and went through all the cupboards until he found the bottle. Moira could still see Donny standing there pouring the drink down the gutter with tears streaming down his face. Donny must have been 18 or 19 at the time. This was the first time it occurred to Moira that Grannies drinking was a problem to her family.

Perhaps she drank because of her hard life- there was never any money and she wasn’t a good manager. Even so, when her grandchildren went over there the first thing she asked was “do you want a piece” ( a piece being a piece of bread and jam- she made her own bread and jam). She also had 9 children, helped out with numerous grandchildren, and did her washing in the open in a copper and tubs under the willow tree.

She didn’t have any water inside; after she had a stroke Donny and Arthur put a sink and water onto the kitchen and troughs over the gutter so she wouldn’t have to carry water for the washing-she thought she was made!

Granny always wore a black felt hat and an apron. She had a cold bath every day of her life. After her stroke-the left side of her body was affected. She sat and rubbed her left hand constantly; eventually gaining full use of it though she retained a slight limp.

Her cat Wotan (called after a horse that won the Melbourne Cup) shared a mutual hatred with Donny and Arthur. She kept her bedroom window open to allow Wotan free passage- Donny used to kick it out every time it walked in the door.

Her wealthy sister Nell Patterson used to come and take her to Hamilton where they would take Ansett’s plane to the races in Melbourne.

Granny was always a favourite with her grandchildren- Arthur and Julie living with her for a time. She went into hospital in 1949- while in hospital suffered another stroke and died within 24 hours. She was 67 years old.