Elsie May ‘May’ Cadden

1904–1993

The youngest of the seven, who with her upholsterer husband moved in with her widowed father, kept open house for her sister home from Johannesburg, and made the long voyage to South Africa herself.

Born: 2 June 1904 · Victoria Park, Western Australia
Died: 14 November 1993 · Victoria
Married: Herrick Meatchem (m. Perth, 1927)
Lived: 89 years

Elsie May Cadden — May to everyone — was born at Victoria Park on 2 June 1904, the last of the seven, when her mother was about forty.¹ In September 1927 she was one of the two witnesses at her sister Chrissie’s wedding, signing ‘E. M. Cadden’; a few weeks or months later she married Herrick Meatchem at Perth.²

Herrick had been born in 1903 at Kamballie, a small gold-mining townsite on the Eastern Goldfields near Kalgoorlie, the son of Louis J. Meatchem and Lily — Lilian — Woolcook. He was an upholsterer, as May’s grandfather William Thomas Cadden had been, and followed the trade all his working life.³ Their son, Ronald Ian, was born about 1930–31, and a daughter, Judith Ann, some years later.⁴⁵

King George Street, 1936 – 1953

Looking after her father

When Annie Cadden died in June 1936, the youngest daughter and her husband moved in with the widower. The 1937 roll finds Elsie May and Herrick Meatchem, upholsterer, at 29 King George Street, John Mitchell Cadden’s own house — which may be why his plan, reported that October, to go out to South Africa and live with Pearl came to nothing.⁶ By 1943 they had a home of their own a few doors along, at No. 55, which Herrick owned.⁷

It was May who kept open house when Pearl came home from Johannesburg in May 1947 with her daughter Mary, ‘so the household is the scene of a general reunion’, as the paper put it.⁸

The Dominion Monarch, 1953 – c. 1955

To South Africa and back

The visits ran both ways. In December 1953 May’s son Ronald Ian, a twenty-two-year-old salesman still living at No. 55, came home from Cape Town on the Shaw Savill liner Dominion Monarch; a later voyage of the same ship, probably in 1955, brought Herrick, May and their daughter Judith Ann, a typiste, home from Cape Town too — surely after staying with Pearl at Burra-Burra.⁵

Typed passenger list of M.V. Dominion Monarch, voyage 48 outwards, listing passengers embarked at Cape Town for Fremantle, including Mr Herrick Meatchem, upholsterer, Mrs Elsie May Meatchem, housewife, and Miss Judith Ann Meatchem, typiste, of 55 King George Street, Victoria Park. — Home from Cape Town: Herrick, Elsie May and Judith Ann Meatchem on the Dominion Monarch, voyage 48 (c. 1955).

Shelley & Springvale, 1970s – 1993

Last years

In retirement they left Victoria Park, after more than forty years, for 241a Riverton Drive, Shelley, on the Canning River. Herrick died at Fremantle on 8 December 1975, aged seventy-two, and is buried at Karrakatta; May stayed on alone at Shelley.⁹¹⁰ Ronald, meanwhile, had moved to Melbourne, to Brighton, a few streets from his aunt Edna — and May spent her own last years in Victoria. She died on 14 November 1993, aged eighty-nine, and was buried at Springvale, near Edna and George James.¹⁹ Ronald came back to Western Australia, and died in 2018.⁴

The Record

Sources & References

1
Birth and death

WA BDM birth index, reg. 4970/1904: Elsie May Cadden, born Victoria Park, father John Mitchell Cadden, mother Annie Pearce. Springvale Botanical Cemetery, Victoria: Elsie May Meatchem, born 2 June 1904, died 14 November 1993.
2
Marriage, 1927

WA BDM marriage index, reg. 1191/1927, Perth: Elsie M. Cadden; Herrick Meatchem. She signed as ‘E. M. Cadden’, witness, at her sister Christina’s wedding on 17 September 1927, so the marriage was later that year.
3
Herrick Meatchem

WA BDM birth index, reg. 1245/1903: Herrick Meatchem, born Kamballie, father Louis Meatchem, mother Lily Woolcook. Occupation upholsterer on the rolls of 1937 and 1943 and the passenger list of c. 1955.
4
Ronald Ian Meatchem

Family records: Ronald (1930–2018). Karrakatta: Ronald Ian Meatchem, born 1931, died 1 December 2018. Victorian roll, Brighton Beach (undated): Meatchem, Ronald Ian, 4a Kinane St, Brighton. (A Ronald Meatchem who married at Perth in 1934, reg. 33, is a different man.)
5
The Dominion Monarch

Outward passenger lists, Dominion Monarch: voyage 43, 10 December 1953, Cape Town to Fremantle — Meatchem, Mr Ronald Ian, salesman, 55 King George Street, Victoria Park; voyage 48 (undated, c. 1955), Cape Town to Fremantle — Meatchem, Mr Herrick, upholsterer; Mrs Elsie May, housewife; Miss Judith Ann, typiste; 55 King George Street, Victoria Park.
6
Victoria Park roll, 1937

Commonwealth roll, Division of Fremantle, Subdivision of Victoria Park, 1937, p. 84: Meatchem, Elsie May, 29 King George street, home duties; Meatchem, Herrick, 29 King George street, upholsterer.
7
55 King George Street

Commonwealth roll, Victoria Park, 1943, p. 89: Meatchem, Elsie May, and Herrick (upholsterer), 55 King George street. City of Perth rate book, Victoria Park Ward, c. 1942–43, assessment 1576: occupier and owner Meatchem, Herrick; house, 55 King George Street, lot 567.
8
Pearl’s visit, 1947

‘These People’ by Rosa Lynd, Perth press, May 1947: Mrs Bert Oates ‘is staying with her sister, Mrs. H. Meatchem, in Victoria Park, so the household is the scene of a general reunion’.
9
Shelley

WA rolls, Subdivision of Riverton: Meatchem, Elsie May, and Herrick, 241a Riverton Dr, Shelley (c. 1970–75); later Meatchem, Elsie May, 241a Riverton Dr N, Shelley.
10
Herrick’s death

WA BDM death index, reg. 2/76, Fremantle: Herrick Meatchem, 72, father Louis J., mother Lilian. Karrakatta Cemetery and Crematorium: died 8 December 1975.