Somerset PAINs to Australian PAYNEs

Name	Phyllis May Turner, (female)
Birth Details	Date & Place	10 February 1913, Kirribilli, Sydney, New South Wales
	Baptism	Unknown
	Father	Harold Turner, Melbourne, Australia
	Mother	Violet Clara Clarissa Sadlier, Sydney, Australia
Death Details	Date & Place	29 November 1978, Lidcombe, Sydney, Australia
	Burial	Cremated, Rookwood Crematorium, Sydney
	Cause of Death	Pancreatic carcinoma (Cancer) with metastic spread. A very painful death but mercifully short only 2 months
	Age at Death	65 years
Marriage Details	Date & Place	19 September 1942, Manly, Sydney, New South Wales
Marriage Details	Spouse	Alexandra John Keith Payne, aka John or Keith, 1907, Alexandra, Victoria from whom she separated in about 1948.
Children	Bruce Wardel, 1928, Drummoyne, Sydney (ex-nuptual child who was unknown to Phyllis's siblings, son John and husband John. Contact was made between John Spencer and Bruce in about 2001 ... what a wonderful surprise for us) John Spencer, 1944, Ashfield, Sydney, New South Wales
Occupation	Before her marriage and after John left her, Phyllis worked at whatever jobs she could get, including in a shoe factory in Balgowlah, Sydney. Life was hard for an older single woman (she was 31 when she married) and a divorcee in the 1950s.
Residence	Phyllis spent all her life in Sydney. She was born at 66 Carrabella Street, Kirribilli which gives us our 3 "small world" incident. My great-grandparents lived at 67 Carrabella Street at the same time that Phyllis was living there. After leaving Kirribilli Phyllis moved around the North Eastern suburbs of Sydney including Manly, Balmoral, Balgowlah back to Kirribilli and then to Lidcombe in the latter years of her life when she needed housing support from the Government.
Religion	Church of England
Notes	Phyllis was 15 when she gave birth to her first son, Bruce Wardel. Her family sent her to an unwed mother's home in Drummoyne, Sydney to await the birth. They obviously considered this a shameful event. Luckily times have changed. Phyllis gave the child up for adoption immediately and, as far as we know, did not mention him within her family from that day on. Even on her death-bed when she was calling for her 2nd son John "Spence" she did not mention Bruce. One has to wonder how a 14 year old became pregnant and why she choose the names Bruce Wardel. Phyllis's sister, Sybil, says that she believes a Mr. Wardel lived next door to them in Carrabella Street. Perhaps Phyllis was abused by this man at this point we simply cannot know. When Phyllis finally did marry, the marriage did not last more than 6 years. She then tried valiantly to bring up her 2nd son "Spence", as John was called, alone. This was very hard, as she received little or no financial assistance from her ex-husband and there weren't any pensions in those days. So eventually "Spence" and Phyllis moved in with her parents in Kirribilli overlooking the Big Dipper in Luna Park. Unfortunately, "Spence" had difficulty changing schools when they moved to Kirribilli and was missing his adored father very much (he having moved to Canberra at the time). So Phyllis lost her 2nd son when he went to his father. "Spence" had great difficulty dealing with his mother's negative remarks about his father who was wise enough not to say anything negative about Phyllis, and stopped writing to her. From that point there was no communication between mother and son. At least that is what the son thought. We now know that Phyllis and her family continued to communciate sending cards and presents at appropriate times. These were never returned but "Spence" did not receive them. We can only speculate. Several times during the separation of Phyllis and Spence, Spence's father was see and spoken to. He was asked to have Spence contact his mother and/or aunt. Spence did not receive these messages. During her last illness and in her pain, Phyllis cried out for her 2nd son. Sybil, her sister made strong efforts to find him without success. Little did she know that he was living less than 10 kilometres away from her -- she was in Dee Why and he was in Balgowlah. Phyllis was thus deprived of seeing her son married, enjoying her grandsons and being comforted by them during her last months.
Sources	All of the information on this page is garnered from discussions with John, his son John and his sister-in-law Sybil Turner McCredie. We have copies of Bruce's birth certificate and many other family papers.