Tasmania 1854
Tasmania 1854Catherine’s hand shook as she put her mark on the permission paper for Susanna’s marriage to Edward Lovell Dwyer. The child was fourteen and he, still a convict, was thirty. Catherined’s remonstrations would not sway the girl. Susanna said his age didn’t matter and the fact he was still a convict, didn’t matter. She reminded Catherine that her first husband, James Tedder, was also a convict when she married him.
The child had always been wild and headstrong, and if her mother’s permission was not granted, she would live in the stable with Edward at his assigned labour.
Catherine and her friend John Cawley were the only witnesses to the wedding. Neither Edward nor Susanna had a circle of friends. Sadie, Catherine’s second daughter, refused to attend. She told h
