THIS week we again delve into Reverend William Higlett’s photo album held by the State Library of Queensland.
The photograph featured on this page was taken by Rev Higlett and added the description: ‘Mrs Schumann’s house Marburg, where I stayed in April 1905’.
Was he an invited guest or did Mrs Wilhelmine Schumann and her husband, Matthias, take in boarders after their seven children grew up and left home?
It is not a question that can be answered by reading through the newspapers of the time so it will have to remain unanswered.
What we do know is that the Schumanns were considered pioneers of the district when they arrived to take up a selection. They moved at a time when the district was known as the Rosewood Scrub – tough country as it had to be cleared of dense scrub before they could begin farming.
The Schumanns arrived as a married couple with two sons and two daughters – Johannes (John), Bertha, Elvina and Hermann. Within eight years, they became the parents of four more sons – Rudolf, Paul, Mathias and August, who was named after Wilhemine’s brother, August Krause.
Unfortunately, Hermann died in 1889, when he was 14. He had ridden out from the farm one morning to fetch a horse and was found a couple of hours later lying beside his injured horse. It was believed that the horse stumbled and fell in an accident that left Hermann with a fractured skull.
While the history of Matthias Schumann’s life before he met his future wife is not known, there is quite some detail available about Wilhelmine Fredericke Krause through her obituary, her brother August’s obituary and other stories which appeared in local newspapers.
Wilhelmine was brought to Queensland from Germany by her parents in 1863. She was 13-years-old.
She met and married Matthias Schumann six years later and the couple lived in Beenleigh until moving to what would become known as Marburg, in 1879.
By September 1891, Matthias and his elder sons had long cleared the scrub and were cultivating many acres. And they were among the produce exhibitors in the ‘fifth annual exhibition (show) of the Marburg, Kirchheim, Glamorgan Vale and Back Plains Agricultural and Industrial Association’, which was held in Marburg.
The Minister for Mines and the Member for Rosewood, Jean Isambert, arrived in Walloon by special train from Brisbane to attend the Show. Their trip by cart from Walloon to Marburg took them past homesteads and cultivation where settlers were growing lucerne, sugar cane, rye and wheat.
In a report by a city journalist who had also alighted from the train at Walloon to make the trip by cart to Marburg, he noted that “dark belts of scrub divide many of the farms, and these with the purple clad hills in the distance helped make the scene one of captivating rural beauty.
“In Marburg it was at once apparent that the residents were ‘making holiday’.
“The School of Arts had been set apart as the exhibition hall and the approach to the grounds was gay with flags and greenery.”
Giving little comment about the exhibits, the journalist turned his attention elsewhere … “the best exhibits were the people and they were well worthy of admiration.
“Crowds of buxom girls were to be met in every corner of the grounds, farmers daughters whose bright appearance spoke volumes for the healthiness of the district; scores of stalwart young men accompanied them; young men sturdy of limb and with immense possibilities of work in them.”
He was able to move past his appreciation of the young people to describe some of the exhibits – heaping praise on the display of cut flowers, lingering on the “lovely pansies and sweet smelling roses” to the “superb display of maize” to the “potatoes, both English and sweet which were of an average quality” to the good showing of cotton, sugar cane and on to the “good samples of butter, well cured flitches of bacon and a few exhibits of jam, honey and wine”.
The showing of animals didn’t cause him to linger long other than to remark on their quality (good) and their number (large).
The Schumann’s undoubtedly continued to support their local show and remained on their farm until it was purchased by their eldest son, Johannes around the time of the photograph taken by Rev Higlett.
The Reverend was a Baptist minister at the time of his stay with the Schumanns and it is known he was in the district in his role as the Home Missionary Committee Secretary and had been “delivering his lantern lecture among the German Baptist church congregations at Lowood, Minden, Marburg, Tenthill and Blenheim”.
Soon after the photograph of their home was taken, the Schumanns moved to Mortimer Street in Ipswich. Matthias passed away in 1916 and Wilhelmine in 1929.
