Up, up and away

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (2020)

Week 16 | Air

John and Margaret McKinlay with their four
Frederick, Helena, Jeanette and Stewart

The theme for this week is air.  Amy[1] always encourages creative interpretation of the weekly themes and in her email this week observed “most of us don't have pilots in our family tree”.  I have two pilots (plus another ancestor who had a non-flying role in the RAAF) so plenty of air-y ancestors. However, the stories of these three men are a little sombre and the current times call for something lighter (slight pun) so I’m going to share this flighty memory from my great-great-grand aunt Helena ‘Lena’ Wix (nee McKinlay).

Lena was born in 1883, the third of four children of John and Margaret (nee Stewart) McKinlay.  She spent much of her childhood in the seaside town of Emu Park (on the Keppel Coast, Queensland, Australia).  In 1965, Lena documented some of her memories, including this description of the time her brother made a kite.

“Another incident that happened was when my brother made a huge kite of calico. We had run out of string and it was quite high in the sky. He asked me to hold it while he ran home for more twine. But soon after he left a breeze sprang up and started the kite to go higher and further along the hill. I hung on and it lifted my feet three or four feet off the ground and down again. I began to scream. My brother came running and calling “don’t let go”.  He then made it fast and it stayed up in the air for several weeks and the folk would watch it each day. But the wind dropped and it fell over amongst the trees near Mt. Gillfillan.”

Lena doesn’t name which brother, but it was most likely her older brother, Fred McKinlay (my gr-gr-grandfather) who was four years her senior.  I’m sure many children have wished the kite they were flying would lift them off the ground, but judging by Lena’s experience, perhaps this is a case of being careful what you wish for.  Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly how old they were at the time and Lena doesn’t describe what kind of kite it was or just how big it was and there are no photos in our family collections.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words – in this case we there are 130 words that create a lovely picture in my mind of these ancestral siblings playing together on the hill above Emu Park beach, enjoying happy (and airy) childhood pursuits.

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[1] Amy Johnson Crow, the instigator of this challenge