In my previous Somerton Man post, I wondered aloud who the Mission to Seamen committee member was. Having raked through Trove, I suspect I may have an answer: I think it was Mrs John Morison, the Adelaide Mission to Seamen’s indefatigable hospital visitor.
Here’s the article I found (Adelaide Mail, 10th July 1954) :
Mrs. Morison has visited hundreds of sick seamen since then [1946] — men from England, India, Germany, Malaya, and many other countries. Some did not live to see their own countries again, but in their last days were attended by the Mission.
I suspect that she was the same Mrs John Morison who was honorary secretary of the Cheer-Up Society, and am sure she was the wife of Mr John Morison of North Terrace, Adelaide: their daughter Miss Mary Morison was an air hostess.
Here’s a picture from the 26th June 1948 edition of the Adelaide Mail, showing Mrs J. Morison bringing a birthday cake to (young, tanned, blue-eyed) Irish seaman Thomas Duffy, cheered on by daughter Mary (centre, back):-
Oh, and I’m pretty sure that Mrs John Morison’s actual first name was Evelyn, and that she was the daughter of Jim and Minnie Brimble, of 57 Gurrs Road, Beulah Park.
As for Mary Morison: she sunbathed at Henley Beach in 1948, trained as a TAA air hostess, got engaged to North Adelaide league footballer Ian McKay in 1949, which was also when they were married (story here), with a daughter following on 14 June 1951 called Heather (though not the famous squash player), but she still helped with the canteen at a Mission for Seamen fundraiser (in a “flat blue suit and tile red beret”) in 1952, though that’s where the print trail seems to end. A life in Trove!
Right now, that’s the extent of my knowledge of Mrs Morison: but if the Somerton Man was a foreign merchant seaman in the Royal Adelaide Hospital during 1948, the chances that he came into contact with the Mission to Seamen’s Mrs John Morison were surely very close to 100%.
I’ll post more as I find it…
Good work Nick. Good information, now if only we can get you to apply yourself to the activities of the Communist Party Australia in South Australia during the post war years including 1948, what a trove you would find. The membership list is quite impressive I understand. 🙂 Serious good work though.
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