THE MIGRANTS
BACKHAUS FAMILY IN LEINA GERMANY
Our Great-Grandmother, Louise Susanna Barbara Backhaus was born in Leina, a small town near Gotha. Her father was Johann Andreas Backhaus. Johann married Martha Maria (nee Göring) in Leina on 12 September 1830. 10 children were born in this marriage, but only 7 lived past infancy.
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Martha’s death is not recorded in Leina’s parish records. However, on 25 January 1853, Johann married Johanne Friedericke Henriette Weidner (age presumed to be late 20’s). He was 46 years old. There were 8 children in the second marriage. The whole family moved from Leina to Goldbach in 1869.
The family must have moved back to Leina as the parents’ deaths are recorded there. Johann died on 2 December 1876 at the age of 70. Johanne died on 6 February 1879 in an accident. ‘She was fetching sand from a sandpit when collapsing earth fell on her. She was taken home lifeless.’ Johanne’s youngest child was 9 years old when she died and Louise (see pictures below) was 20. As the oldest girl at home Louise was probably responsible for her younger siblings when her mother died.
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LOUISE SUSANNA BARBARA BACKHAUS (our Granny)
1884 (26) 1889 (31) 1916 (58) 1920 (62) 1920 (62) 1926 (68) 1938 (80)
Louise - the 3rd of 8 children - was born on May 16th 1858 to Johanne and Johann Backhaus. Records show that for many years Johann was a community shepherd, and when older, a geese herder. Louise worked in a slaughterhouse; her brother, Adolph, was a tanner.
According to family oral history the Backhaus family was very poor. Frieda Wyatt said, ‘The kids thought it was Christmas when notables threw them money as they passed by on the way to the Forest' (likely Thuringian Forest, just south of Leina).
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In 1883, at the age of 25, Louise married August Schilling, a carpenter. The following year they made the decision to migrate to Australia after Louise saw a newspaper advertisements for immigrants written by her uncle.
Times were hard. Migration to a colony provided an opportunity to improve their daily lives. In the coming years 5 members of the family of Johann and Johanne Backhaus would emigrate to Australia, starting in 1884.
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Below is a picture of Louise and August with their son Max, born in Rockhampton on 28 July 1884 just 3 days after they disembarked from their ship ROMA on the Plymouth to Cooktown voyage. Their early history on arrival in Australia is a fascinating account of pioneering life in the colony.
1884 Calliope
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August and Louise Schilling's destination in Australia was August’s Uncle, John Andrew Schilling, who lived on a selection near Calliope in central Queensland.
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Calliope is a small town some 20km SSW of Gladstone. Prior to the settlement of Europeans, the area around Calliope was occupied by the Gureng Gureng people. In 1853 Port Curtis, now known as Gladstone, was surveyed. In 1854 Governor Charles Augustus Fitzroy sailed the HMS Calliope up the river and named the river after the vessel. It was around this time that settlers moved into the area.
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The Calliope gold field was discovered about 1856, by Mrs. Brennan, the wife of a shepherd working for Jim Bell, of Stowe. She found a nugget weighing 3oz on Sheep Station Hill, above the flat, since named after her, Brennan’s Flat. The field was gazetted in 1863. By 1864 there were 400 miners, four stores and three hotels in the settlement.
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