My Grandfathers grandmothers side Hannah Gribble was my 2 x great grandmother. Her parents were immigrants William and Mary Gribble from Cornwall who were married in 1864 in Tuckingmill Cornwall and soon immigrated to Victoria between the birth of their third child Richard in 1869 and the birth of Hannah in Timor Victoria in 1871. Mary and William went on to have 5 more children here in Australia.
Hannah was 19 years old when she married Charles Bernhardt Hahnel in December 1890. Charles was also a new immigrant to Australia who had only been in Australia from his native Germany ( known as Prussia back then.) for four years. Charles worked on the mines in Timor looking for Gold before the family decided they may have better luck in the gold rushes of Western Australia's Coolgardie. By the time they arrived in Coolgardie, Hannah and Charles had already had 7 children, the first born being my great grandmother Lily. Lily was one of 9 children born spanning 22 years.
Hannah and Charles lived and worked in and around Kalgoorlie for the remainder of their lives. There was a newspaper article about Hannah going missing on a mining settlement at Marvel Lock in 1928 at age 57. The article states " There was a mild sensation near Marvel Loch on Monday. For a few hours the wife of one of the settlers, known as the " dusted" miners; was missing, and a search party was organised. Mr C. B. Hahnel and his son left the camp before sunrise to continue .chopping down, about 30' chains away and as usual Mrs. Hahnel, having cooked breakfast later, left camp with it and the food for the mid-day meal. Noon came, and there being no sign of his wife, the settler, after finding the camp empty, sought assistance at Marvel Loch to search the bush. A telephone message to Sergeant Healy, at the Southern Cross Police Station, resulted in the dispatch of p.c. Payne and a tracker. When Leggett's truck with the search party reached the settler's camp, Mrs. - Hahnel was found there, after having been bushed for* several hours, it Appeared that she had tried to take a " short cut " in the first place The incident shows that the authorities are watchful for the welfare of the miner-settlers.
Hannah had lost her first born child in 1932, my great grandmother Lily. She was 41 years old. A short two years later, Hannah had also lost her husband Charles who died at the government hospital in Kalgoorlie in 1935. Hannah lived to 93 years of age when she died in Perth, Western Australia in 1965.