§2. Bonnie Voysey

My mother was a pretty, blond, well-framed woman with a strong face, shrewd, intelligent, and a tough disposition. 

She was born 13th July, 1920, when King George V was British monarch. In that year the Australian Country Party formed, Germany’s Nazi Party was founded, Spanish Flu ended, Joan of Arc canonized, Insulin isolated, and Qantas established. The roaring twenties and the Jazz Age were under way. The steam age was passing into planes, cars, telephones, and radio. These and, most importantly, a free democratic society, were to be her birthright.

Bonnie Patricia was the daughter of artist and signwriter Stanley Foran (born 1891) and wife, Winifred Smith (1902), who married at the Salvation Army’s People’s Palace in Pitt Street, Sydney, on 31st of December, 1918. The couple’s first two children were still-born. A year later Bonnie arrived, followed by brother Phillip Darcy Foran in 1922.

Stanley Foran was an energetic and enterprising man who flourished in his trade, investing the proceeds in real estate and shares. He owned properties in Martin Place near Wynyard Station, a house in Eastwood, and one at Katoomba. After studying at the Julian Ashton School of Art, he painted advertisements at country hotels, but his life eventually fell to signwriting. It was probably Foran’s influence that resulted in his daughter’s husband Gilbert Voysey’s eventual livelihood of signwriting and painting contractor. 

I’ve no biographical data for Stan Foran. His birth certificate states John Street, Granville as the birthplace, though it is likely that he spent early life at Ebenezer near Sydney.

News item from December 1904: “Stan Foran at Ebenezer Public School. A silver medal, first prize in Angus and Robertson's yearly drawing competitions, was won by Master Stanley Foran.”

Stan’s parents were Phillip Joseph Foran, a bootmaker, and Helen Elizabeth Anderson Kerr, known to my mother as Granny Foran, at whose Ebenezer home Bonnie Foran is pictured with her at left. 

Winifred Smith’s early life has a touch of mystery about it and a similar lack of detail.

“Mum was known to everyone as Bonnie. She was the first child born to Winifred Veronica Smith, (about whom there are no traceable records) and Stanley Grace Searle Foran” ~ Jan Voysey.

“Winifred Veronica Smith is believed to have been born on 16 September 1902 in Western NSW. (Although she may have been born in 1900 at Glebe)… Winifred Veronica Stepto (nee Smith, possibly Woods, formerly Foran)…” ~ David Foran. 

My review of Winifred’s sparse records raises interesting questions. Why, if born in western NSW, is birthplace Glebe given for the first marriage? If she was born in 1902, why is age 18 on the first marriage certificate in 1918? Why did she state her maiden name for the second marriage certificate? How can it be that her second marriage occurred several years before the dated divorce of her first? These tantalizing questions will probably never be answered, unless a more energetic clan historian can let us know via site’s comments further below.

 Establishing the history of a person relies upon hearsay, memories, and the uncertainty that records might (often do) pertain to another of the same name. But whatever these suggest of Winifred, I knew her as a kind grandmother for thirty years, mellowed by age. Though I suspect she was also a tough and wilful woman who pursued her goals by any means.

Like her mother’s, the early life of Bonnie Voysey is a puzzle too far. 

Bonnie’s childhood has no clear timeline of events. As for documents, I have only her birth and death certificates and a work reference letter from middle age. 

Fortunately, the childhood that preceded her parents stormy separation was recorded in photographs, in which she always appears dressed most fashionably. They tell that Bonnie was well cared for and lived in a prosperous household. Greater detail about her early life, therefore, must be deduced from the actions of those close.

On 12th March, 1929, Stanley and Winifred were granted divorce by the NSW Supreme Court. This concluded quite a bit of public drama. The story goes that Winifred - we can only imagine why and how - became “infatuated with her dance instructor, one Albert Ernest Stepto” and apparently went effectively missing from the marriage. A court notice in the Sydney Morning Herald on 8th August 1928 had earlier told the world: “Stanley Searle Grace Foran petitioned for a decree for restitution of conjugal rights to be directed to Winifred Veronica Foran… according to the rites of the Salvation Army. The respondent did not appear.”

This highlights the curious but undocumented fact that sometime in 1926 Winifred might have married Mr Stepto. In the absence of a marriage certificate, the only evidence for this is a family notice in the Nepean Times on 8th April, 1948, that Mr and Mrs A. E.  Stepto celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary. I did the subtraction and it’s 1926 or thereabouts. (Perhaps a properly-informed Stepto descendant could leave a clarifying note in the comments section?)

The family tree in my possession (alas, a computer file) politely says they were married in 1930, with no other details. That might have been taken from David Foran’s biographical outline of Winifred, which implies that David saw documentation, because Balmain South is specified. And yet in a subsequent sentence “1930” is contradicted by the birth date of the Stepto couple’s first child, Desiree:

Winifred’s second marriage was to Albert Emest Stepto in 1930 and registered at Balmain South. Interesting to note that she registered the marriage under her maiden name of Smith. Albert and Winifred had 2 children. Winsome Desiree was born on 11th August 1928, and Albert born in March 1941.  

David was, of course, only stating facts at hand, unless the documentation was either misread or erroneous. By digging around this I am not trying to cast doubt on the legitimacy of any children born of these people, only genuinely and singularly curious about the character of my grandparents. In all ages children are born out of wedlock and our family tree all the way back carries its ripe fruit on every branch.  

It’s impossible to know what the young Foran children thought was going on. But if by late 1928 Stan had petitioned for “restitution of conjugal rites” and Winifred, the respondent, did not appear in court, it’s fair to assume she was already elsewhere. Wherever she was, the penny surely dropped for Bonnie and Phillip when: 

“…one day she and Phil came home from school and her mother was gone and they were locked out of home. She didn’t say what happened to them at that time, or maybe she said it took some time to locate their father who was working away in the country. She said her mother had ‘run away’ with her dancing teacher, Albert Ernest Stepto.” ~ Jan Voysey.

At this point Bon and Phil’s ostensibly happy childhoods end, and their lives become rather unsettled affairs. And tracking their whereabouts based on a few scraps of information draws a crazy zig-zag around the region that is hard to reconcile with even its possibility. 

Pictured ~ my favourite photo of Bonnie and Phillip, ages 10 and 7. The Buick is mud-covered, as a working car is. Their house was at Eastwood in 1930. This family was doing very well thank you. 

Bonnie lived with her mother Winifred after the divorce, along with brother Phil, with father Stanley committed to work that involved long trips away. 

A Bonnie quote from daughter Jan informs us that “Mum had known dad (William Charles Gilbert Voysey) from school at Eastwood, and also Bert’s (Stepto) family lived opposite where dad grew up, at 6 Hughes Rd, Eastwood.” 

Did she stay at the Eastwood home with her mother and Bert? Or did she meet Dad at Eastwood school when she lived in the Foran household at Eastwood? Or both? These are significant pieces in the puzzle of how Bonnie Foran and Gilbert Voysey ever met, and when. 

The next move was to Springwood, where the Steptos became entrenched citizens running a plant nursery, where they remained till war began. They then moved to Richmond while Bert was in the army and returned to Springwood in 1946. 

During Mum’s primary school years she apparently lived with her mother and Bert Stepto while they ran a plant nursery in Springwood, NSW Blue Mountains.  They also moved many times and Mum said often she would be sent off to enrol herself and Phil at the local school, and Phil would simply play truant. Aunty Des confirmed that they must have attended approximately 15 primary schools. ~ Jan Voysey.

 A string of newspaper advertisements appeared in the mid 1930s for the Springwood (plant) Nursery, proprietor A. E. Stepto, and if Bonnie was at Springwood Primary school, they must have acquired the business around 1930. It was was sold to Ogdens in 1936, and probably then that the Steptos moved to Burns Road. Newspaper reports confirm that Bert was an active member of the community, serving in the fire brigade, office holder at Springwood Progress Association, and often commenting on civic affairs, according to the Nepean Times. Win and Bert were undoubtedly large fish in a small pond. I would dearly like to know how the wife of an industrious Sydney businessman and her dance instructor ended up running a plant nursery fifty miles up the road from that city, and effortlessly filled the role of local prominent citizens.  

But wait, there’s more. “Norman Lindsay was nearby and my grandmother used to go to his parties, which were considered to be uproarious by the locals.” ~ Jan.  My firming impression of a gregarious “roaring twenties” Winifred tells me this would be entirely in character. 

Bonnie Foran’s schooling has a few twists that are hard to resolve. A notice in the Nepean Times (26th December, 1931) announced “High School Entrance -  Results of Examination - Tenable at Penrith Intermediate High School … Springwood Public School … Bonnie Foran.” 

So the high school days have me wondering: Did she attend Penrith Intermediate High School, St. Gabriel’s Church of England school, or both? 

As this 1931 school photograph (at right) shows, Bonnie was smartly attired in a school uniform. On back of the print is written “Bonnie Foran, St Gabriel’s Church of England School, Waverley 1931. S. Foran Malabar.” The photograph’s condition gives the distinct impression of a fond possession, folded to keep in a wallet, with a mark on the hat repaired in ink. I think my mother cherished this memento of the time she felt most proud. Furthermore, a badge from the uniform survives, to denote the anchoring importance of that school when family life was in such disarray. 

St Gabriel’s catered for both day students and boarders. It’s quite a distance from Malabar and, with Stan on the road, Bonnie might have lived on campus. Stan would surely have wanted the very best for her. Otherwise she could have attended a closer school. 

Perhaps her final year at high school was spent back in the west. A Nepean Times article in 1933 referenced a cooking examination at Penrith Intermediate High School, in which a Bonnie Foran gained a “B.” But I can assure you, she was quite a good cook, if rather conventional.

This brings us to Bonnie’s adulthood. She and Gilbert Voysey apparently stayed in touch and resumed company when Bonnie left school. We will assume she spent the years 1931, 32, and 33 schooling, and upon leaving sought work, finding it in Sydney proper, her natural environment.

“Mum said she had 2 jobs when she left school – one as a trainee florist and shop assistant at the city’s prestige department store, Mark Foys, the other as Nanny to a Wilson, a wealthy Sydney family." ~ Jan Voysey. 

A wealthy family indeed. The residential address she gave on the marriage certificate was 24 Olola Street, Vaucluse. This led me to discover, from that tenuous clue of the family name, that it was the home of S. H. Wilson, assistant general manager of Frank Packer’s Consolidated Press. And confirms, at long last, exactly who she ‘nannied’ for.

When I merge Bonnie Foran’s affluent childhood, parenting by a self-made Springwood “society couple," schooling at a prestige Waverley college, and a stark lesson in etiquette and social class as nanny at a prominent Sydney household, the burning desire for respectability that drove her throughout life becomes clear.  

I wonder, too, if the attraction of this hard-nosed young woman to a socially naïve future husband, Gilbert Voysey, lay in apprehending a façade of luxury in which he was raised - the beautifully furnished home of those two most-proper, ladylike, and fashionably-dressed Zucker aunts at Araluen, 6 Hughes Road, Eastwood.