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Johann Carl Rindfleisch, born Stettin c.1829. He
was supposedly a sailor and
jumped ship in southern Australia.
He married an Englishwoman, Sophia Rolfe, in Victoria in 1862. This was Sophia's
3rd marriage and she already had 8 children. I assume Carl could speak English!
He searched for gold in Victoria, but finding none, he moved his family (he had
3 children now) to New South Wales. They settled in Gulgong, which is another
gold mining town and he became a farmer. They had 7 children together, making 15
altogether.
His descendents still live on, scattered around NSW. There are still Rindfleish
descendents living in and near Gulgong. Carl's great-grandson is the Mayor of a
small village near Gulgong today - Bruce Rindfleish. A lot of Germans settled in
Australia in the 19th century. Carl's daughter, Sarah Ann Augusta Rindfleish,
married Edward Simon Diehm - the Diehm's were from Dertingen, Wertheim, Germany.
They must have found it so difficult coming to Australia. Not only did they have
to leave their own country, they had to say goodbye to family and friends.
Australia was very primitive in those days. Their trek from Victoria to Gulgong
would have taken many days. Imagine 10 children and several adults, in an old
cart, travelling through the Australian bush. They saw many wild and unusual
animals and birds, Aboriginals, bushrangers and
many different sounds. The Kookaburra (bird) of southern NSW has a strange loud
laugh.
NSW is a lot hotter than Victoria and the Rindfleish family would not have been
accustomed to the heat, especially the ladies in their long gowns, petticoats,
bloomers and stockings. Gulgong was a make-shift gold mining settlement where
everyone first lived in bark huts or tents. It would have been a melting pot of
nationalities all searching for that big gold nugget
and drowning their disappointments in one of the 67 pubs that abounded in
Gulgong in the 1870's.
Carl (or Charles as he was known in Australia) died in 1879 travelling to
Sydney for medical help. He had liver disease.
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