Susan Elizabeth Keen (nee Perry)

(By Frank William Veness, grandson)

Susan Elizabeth Perry
Susan Elizabeth Perry was born 29 October 1850 in Raymond Terrace, New South Wales, the 2nd child of George Perry and Frances Brooks.

She married William Henry Keen in Sydney on 20 August 1870. They had 11 children, of whom Lilian Alice was my mother.

I remember her as a small lady who suffered a lot with bronchitis.

My brother Ken and I used to visit her, and sometimes she would get us to do up her boots which had hooks and required the laces to be threaded around them.

Other times she would get us to climb upon the fernery and get the Doves eggs out of the nests. She did not like to hear them cooing, which seemed to irritate her. She would give us a penny (1c) for doing these small tasks.

On other visits she would give us a piece of bread with a spoonful of jam in the middle, and tell us to eat around until we came to the jam . . . we thought this was just great. (This gives some idea of how different things are between then and today; how little everyone had, and the pleasure derived from small things.)

I remember once when one of her sons, Oliver, took her rooster from the pen and entered it in a cockfight. Anyway, the poor thing was killed, so Oliver brought it home and hanged its head between the palings on the fence. When Grandma saw it, she said, "Oh, the poor thing must have been trying to fly over the fence and was caught." So Oliver escaped punishment for what he had done.

Grandma died when I was about 8 years old.

Susan Elizabeth Perry died 11 May 1924 at Croydon, Sydney, New South Wales, and was buried at Rookwood Cemetery.


Above and Left: Susan Elizabeth Keen


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