The life of Wilfred Matthew Shea : the history of his pioneer ancestors and extended family / Helen Shea ; edited by Christopher Shea

This is the history of Wilfred Matthew Shea, an Australian born, Queensland man, his family and antecedents. The history traces his life from his birth in Roma in 1906; his youth spent in this country town; his life in young adulthood following his relocation to south-east Queensland with his siblings and aunts, Ada and Mary Jane, Molly, in the late 1920s; his life in the 1930s Depression with his wife Pearl and two older children; his six years of army service in World War Two in the AIF, both as a Rat of Tobruk in the Middle East followed by his advancement in rank and opportunity which resulted from his appointment to Australian Health Units for the remainder of the war. Wilfred Matthew Shea's life with his wife Pearl and four children post World War Two is examined, both in Mackay and Caboolture where he lived and worked for three and a half decades until the end of his life. This is the history also of his parents Mathew Murray Shea and Caroline Timms in Roma, his Shea and Timms great-grandparents as well as the extended families both in Roma and south-west Queensland. The history of the Crouch family is included because Wilfred Matthew Shea was raised by his step-aunt, Ada Crouch. Through the family history, it emerges that Wilfred Matthew Shea's antecedents in Australia were part of the 19th Century pioneering population in south-west Queensland, both on the Shea and Timms side of his geneology. His antecedents were pioneers in the Warrego and Maranoa Districts of the Colony then State of Queensland. His great-grandparents, Eli Shea and Florence Noland/Shea/ Crouch were also part of the first wave of pastoral workers in the Darling River District of New South Wales. Their epic journey with their children, to Queensland in the 1870s has to be considered as a pioneering feat. This history also traces the English and Irish origins of Wilfred Matthew Shea's great-grandparents with suggestions for their emigration to the Australian Colonies in mid- 19th Century.